Download PDF | O City Of Byzantium Annals Of Niketas Choniates, de Nicetas Choniates (Author), Niketas Choniates (Author), Harry J. Magoulias (Translator), Wayne State University Press, 1984.
478 Pages
Introduction
ie history written by Niketas Choniatés has been called a monumentum aere perennius.’ Some twenty years ago, when I was still a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Professor Glanville Downey suggested that I undertake the translation of Niketas’s important history. It was only five years ago, however, that I made the rash decision to take on this labor of Herakles. My delay was fortunate for two reasons: in 1975 Professor Jan-Louis van Dieten published a monumental and definitive edition of Niketas’s history, and in 1976 Professor Charles Brand published his translation of Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos.
A translator who spends five years of his life in a symbiotic relationship with his subject enjoys the remarkable experience of living two lives. He is called upon to partake in a new creation; he must breathe life into the dead and resurrect long forgotten generations of men and women, to paraphrase Niketas himself. I became one with the historian, and, in this instance, familiarity bred deep admiration and compassion. His is not a story with a happy ending, and his own end, together with that of the empire, was fraught with tragic suffering.
I believe that the reader will also come to admire Niketas Choniatés and will happily sit at his feet to learn of, and from, mankind’s past, in company with yesterday’s heroes and villains. We can move in safety among them, and that is the difference between the student of history and the protagonists of earthshaking events. But we must never become desensitized to the cutting edge of the ever-present danger, the threat to life and civilization which was the existential reality of our ancestors, if history is to be more than a story.
Niketas Choniatés chronicles that period of Byzantine history that begins with the death of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos on 15-16 August 1118 and ends with the events of autumn 1207.”
Besides Niketas’s own works,’ the major sources on the historian’s life are the writings of his famous brother Michael Choniatés, archbishop of Athens (1182-1204), which include letters and a Monodia written on the occasion of Niketas’s death.* Of Niketas’s parents, we know next to nothing. He speaks of the “beloved piety” which has descended to him from his forebears as an “undiminished paternal legacy.”° In the Monodia, his brother Michael speaks of their father’s tender love and affection, and of his fondness for learning and literature, which would explain why he sent his two sons to Constantinople to further their education and make their place in the world.® Niketas’s parents do not appear to have belonged to the aristocracy and highborn nobility with important contacts in the capital. Michael comments that for some time the two brothers had no friends or acquaintances.
The subsequent fame of the two Choniatés brothers was due to their special talents and not to their parents’ connections. But, as a member of the lesser nobility, their father must have had a standing of some importance in the provincial town of Chonai, for he had the means, the breeding, and the ambition to send his sons to Constantinople. Moreover, Niketas, the bishop of Chonai, a eunuch who had the gift of prophecy, was the historian’s godfather.’ It is possible that the bishop interceded with the learned Eustathios, later archbishop of Thessaloniki, to tutor Michael when he arrived in the queen of cities.
In twelfth-century Byzantium there was real social mobility. Men of modest origins reached high positions in the state. It is noteworthy that Niketas speaks with a certain disdain of such persons in his history; he is particularly contemptuous of the masses. His special concern with noble birth and the whole Byzantine scale of offices betrays a man who can claim nobility but, because he does not belong to the great families himself, is sparing in mentioning the fact. It is a telling commentary that the nephews of Michael and Niketas must leave their homes in Chonai to make careers for themselves in Michael’s circle in Athens. Niketas’s star may have been rising at the court, but it was not yet so dominant that he could undertake the responsibility of providing for his nephews.
Members of the family lived in Asia Minor and, eventually, in Greece. Michael comments in his Monodia that “those in Asia who were his friends and kinsmen disseminated the news of the tragedy to those in Hellas.”* He bemoans the fact that the members of the family cannot assemble around Niketas’s grave to grieve and mourn as one, as they are all scattered.”
Niketas’s parents had many children, although we do not know the names of any except Michael and Niketas. Michael was the firstborn; between him and Niketas were several other siblings, as we read in the Monodia: “We were both born of the same paternal seed and maternal blood, I, being the eldest and the first to pass through the gate of birth and he came after other siblings far down the line.”"” The exact number of siblings is unknown to us, but Niketas could not have been the youngest, for Michael would surely have mentioned that fact.
Niketas was born around 1155, some sixteen or seventeen years after Michael’s birth c. 1138. When the time came for Niketas to marry at the age of thirty or thirty-one, Michael says with some exaggeration that more marriage brokers assembled around his brother than suitors around Penelope, vying to marry off daughters and sisters competing for this “highly prized” and “much-loved” bachelor. Various bait was offered: family fame, splendid beauty, and rich dowries. Niketas turned to his wise brother for guidance in his predicament. Michael emphasizes at this point that Niketas considered nothing superior to virtue—neither wealth, nor beauty, nor family, nor glory. The crucial factor in making the decision was the goodness and nobleness (kalokagathia) of the Belissariotés brothers, schoolmates of Michael and Niketas and their closest friends. Niketas, therefore, married their sister “raised by a virtuous mother and kept at home.” But, alas, neither Michael nor the husband has set down her name to be remembered. The historian speaks of his mother-in-law as being a second mother to him in the pattern of St. John the Evangelist and the mother of Christ.'' It is Niketas’s relationship to Michael and John Belissariotés that takes precedence. They were brothers in soul and body, daily table companions, with the same likes and dislikes, going off together to the courts, to the churches, to festivals, to the palace, and returning as one.” In his history, Niketas describes the ideal marriage, which may be a tribute to his own wife. The oneness of man and wife should, he writes, “remain unsullied until their last breath, which prudent couples deem to be the fullness of human happiness.””
Michael Choniatés preserves the names of four nephews: George, Michael, Niketas, and Theophylaktos."* Besides these there were probably at least two other nephews whose names are not known to us.'° Niketas mentions another relative, a deacon in Chonai, who was present on the campaign of Andronikos Angelos against the Turks at Charax following the disaster of Myriokephalon in 1176, and who was applauded for fearlessly carrying off booty from the Turkish tents."°
Niketas was born in the provincial town of Chonai, present-day Khonas, near ancient Collosae in Phrygia Pacatiana. Chonai was renowned for its Church of the Archangel Michael and for the miracle attached to it. The pagans, intent on destroying this beacon of Christianity, diverted the river in order to flood the building. The Archangel Michael, however, saved his church by striking with his staff the rock on which it had been erected, and miraculously a funnel or tunnel was bored through which the river’s waters flowed safely; from the Greek word for funnel, choné, the town took its new name.”
Although Chonai was the seat of an archbishopric in the ninth century, it began to decline during the Seljuk occupation which followed the debacle of Manzikert in 1071; the Seljuks were evicted only in 1090. In the twelfth century, Chonai was a frontier town through which Byzantine armies On campaign frequently passed. The many insurrections which wracked Anatolia under the Angelos emperors did not leave Chonai untouched. In 1189 the city was overrun by the rebel Theodore Mangaphas, and the Church of the Archangel was put to the torch."* In 1191-92 the first false-Alexios allowed the altar, pulpit, and mosaic icons to be profaned and destroyed by his Turkish troops.'? It must have been with some bitterness that Niketas beheld Emperor Theodore I Laskaris ceding Chonai at the beginning of 1206 to Manuel Mavrozomés, the father-inlaw of the sultan of Ikonion.”’ The Byzantines regained Chonai in 1258 during the reign of Theodore II, but shortly thereafter it fell to Turkish rule once again and degenerated into an insignificant village. Until 1924 the inhabitants were Greeks who spoke only Turkish.”
Michael Choniatés was about twenty years old when he arrived in Constantinople to pursue his studies. His father handed him over to teachers who undertook his basic education and taught him the epic cycle.” He was fortunate to study with Eustathios, who influenced the literary style of both Michael and Niketas.
Niketas was but nine years old when his father sent him along to his older brother, c. 1164, to assume the responsibility for his education and future career, a practice not unknown among modern Greeks. Michael
was father, nurturer, pedagogue, and teacher to the young boy. Their relationship was mutually rewarding.” Of this formative period in the life of Niketas, Michael writes:
I am now able to reflect on what an addition of love we derived thence, residing far from homeland and parents, not yet having made friends or even acquaintances or finding any pleasant fellowship whatsoever, bearing alone with one another the sufferings of living far from home yet extremely content with sojourning abroad, far from our native land, because of the education which we received in exchange for much sweat and by practicing the rules and art of rhetoric by which we were trained. I devoted myself to advanced studies under the direction of teachers, while he, reared by me like a nestling, made progress according to the measure of his age, ever growing towards the more perfect, until soaring by way of general studies and rhetoric, he reached the more heavenly and divine sciences.”
Grammar, rhetoric, poetry, mathematics, astronomy, law, and politics constituted the curriculum of the day. The study of Holy Scriptures was equally as important, thanks to the influence of his brother Michael; Niketas quotes as freely and with as much facility from the Bible as he does from classical texts.
Whereas Michael had been set apart by his parents to serve the church as the first fruit of their childbearing,” Niketas was free to embark upon a political career. His first position in the civil bureaucracy appears to have been that of a subordinate revenue officer in the service of Constantine Pegonités,*° a tax official in the province of Pontos sometime before 1182, when Niketas was about twenty-seven years old. He may also have served in this capacity in Paphlagonia.”’ Michael takes credit for first introducing his promising brother to men wise and knowledgeable in political matters. Afterwards, he concedes, chance played its part.” On his return to the capital, Niketas was enrolled as imperial under secretary, most probably in the reign of Alexios II (1180-83). At about the same time, Michael was elevated to archbishop of Athens (1182), and the two brothers may never have seen each other again.
With the accession of Andronikos I Komnenos (1183-85), Niketas withdrew from the imperial palace in protest against the usurper. Being a “tyrant-hater” and a “despiser of evil,” writes Michael of his brother in the Monodia, Niketas thought it impious to side with the “man-eating tyrant” and condone his “murderous” acts; he chose instead to stand far from Zeus and his thunderbolt.*” Withdrawing from the palace as a den of tyranny, he gave himself to the study of law, delving into the “archives of Themis.” The law was so deeply engraved upon his heart that he became “a living tablet of the law code.””
Following the tragic end of Andronikos I in 1185 and the accession of Isaakios IT Angelos to the throne, Niketas returned to the palace to serve the new emperor as imperial secretary, a position filled by young men of modest condition and without official function in the beginning, but which was the springboard for a career in government. Niketas’s rhetori- cal abilities were soon recognized, and he was given the honor of deliver- ing the oration on the occasion of Isaakios II’s marriage to MargaretMaria, the daughter of King Béla III of Hungary, sometime at the end of 1185 or the beginning of 1186.” At this time Niketas married the sister of the Belissariotés brothers, “a woman given by God as a helpmate to be joined to him through childbearing and the inseparable oneness of the flesh.”?? At the end of September or the beginning of October 1187, Niketas, in the capacity of under secretary, accompanied Emperor Isaakios II on his campaign against the Vlacho-Bulgarian rebels and their allies, the Cumans, in the region of Beroé. Near Lardea, the Byzantine army barely escaped a disastrous defeat, commemorated by Niketas as a victory in a communiqué to the patriarch and the Holy Synod.*
By 1188-89 Niketas had been promoted to the office of grand chamberlain of the public fisc (proestos tou epi ton koinon chrematon koitonos), as is borne out by the title of his funeral oration on the death of his friend and onetime schoolmate Theodore Trochos.* This office was much diminished in importance by this time and was traditionally, but not necessarily, reserved for eunuchs.”°
In his Monodia, Michael cites his brother’s promotion shortly after his marriage to the post of Harmostés, or governor, of the cities of Thrace and paymaster of the troops stationed there.*’ It must have been later, however, in 1189, that Niketas was appointed to this important office. On 22 November 1189 he accompanied the protostrator Manuel Kamytzés on his campaign to harass Barbarossa’s troops in the vicinity of Philippopolis, whence he fled to the outskirts of Ochrid, concerned, he writes, “only with saving ourselves.”*8
The historian was personally involved in the events relating to Frederick Barbarossa’s passage through Thrace during the Third Crusade in 1189, at which time Niketas was ordered to demolish the walls of Philippopolis, which he had just rebuilt.” Philippopolis was subsequently occupied by Barbarossa on 25-26 August 1189. Niketas braved the emperor’s wrath when he implied that his alliance with Saladin was a betrayal of his sworn oath to the crusaders. He attempted, moreover, to move the emperor from his obstinate and misguided resistance to the Third Crusade, and he succeded in persuading Isaakios JI to release Barbarossa’s envoys, whom he had taken into custody.” It is likely that Niketas never returned to his governorship once his province had been taken over by the Germans.
On 6 January 1190 Niketas delivered an oration on the Feast of the Epiphany before Empercr Isaakios JI, acting as fogothetikos grammatikos in the absence of an official rhetor. It was at this time that Barbarossa departed for Palestine, as stated in the title of the oration.“’ In the same year, or in 1191 at the latest, Niketas was appointed judge of the velum.” When Alexios, the bastard son of Emperor Manuel I and Theodora Komnené, was taken into custody at Drama on suspicion of conspiring against Isaakios II, Niketas was assigned the unhappy task of supervising his tonsure in one of the monasteries on Mount Papykios.”
Together with the office of judge of the velum, Niketas was also appointed ephoros, and although we are not certain as to the responsibilities of this office, he may have been in charge of the land registers or perhaps of the imperial domains or household.“ In a letter dated 1194-95, Michael addresses his brother with the title epi ton kriseon.* This may have been a special function of his office as judge of the velum, in which he presided over a tribunal dealing in civil law suits. Niketas was promoted to two other posts, but we are unable to establish the time. His title as genikos may refer either to the office of logothete of the genikon, i.e., the chief financial official in charge of the public treasury, or /ogistés ton foron, i.e., imperial commissioner and inspector of taxes.“° The high point of the historian’s career was reached when, in 1195, Niketas was appointed logothete of the sekrefa or grand logothete, probably synonymous titles. In a letter to Theodore Kastamonités, Michael refers to his brother as “the most-grand logothete who governs all things.”
When Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos came to the throne two and a half months before the fall of Constantinople, he replaced Niketas as logothete of the sekrefa with his own father-in-law, Philokalés.** Niketas complains that the emperor dismissed him without giving any reason. This official was entrusted with the control of the whole civil service,” and Niketas informs us that he stood at the head of the senate, surpassing all other functionaries. It is doubtful, however, whether he exercised any significant influence on the administration of the government, since real power lay with the emperor’s minions, independent of the office held. The role of imperial officials was generally to carry out the emperor’s instructions, although Niketas mentions some noteworthy exceptions. The usurpation then of Alexios V Doukas dealt the final blow to Niketas’s political fortunes in Constantinople, but the impending fall would have had the same results. During those last painful months, he continued to serve as a member of the senate.
Niketas was present when, on 25 January 1204, the people, the senate, the bishops, and the clergy assembled in Hagia Sophia to deliberate on a successor to the hated Angelos emperors, Isaakios II and his son Alexios IV They begged Niketas to name a candidate, but he remained silent because he feared for the life of the successor and realized that the Latins would never allow Alexios IV to be removed.” He probably followed the deliberations to find a successor to Alexios V Doukas after his flight.”!
Niketas lost much more than his high office during those dark days. The second conflagration ignited by the crusaders destroyed the historian’s magnificent palatial home in Sphorakion, a three-storied building embellished with gold mosaics. After the fall (13-15 April 1204), Niketas sought refuge in the second of his homes, located near Hagia Sophia. From here he was taken into the home of a Venetian wine merchant, one Dominicus, whom Niketas had befriended in better days and who now repaid his benefactor by coming to his and his family’s rescue. Unable to remain hidden for long, the historian decided to flee the capital, but not before his own domestics had deserted him.*’ On a stormy and wintry Saturday, 17 April 1204, five days after the fall, Niketas and his family wended their way through the gutted streets of Constantinople into voluntary exile. Children who could not yet walk were carried on the shoulders of the adults; Niketas held his infant son in his arms, while his pregnant wife was fast approaching full term. Friends and relatives escorted the desperate refugees on their way.”
As Niketas’s party approached the Church of St. Mokios, one of the crusaders snatched the fair-haired daughter of a certain judge. Stumbling into a mudhole in his despair, the venerable judge pleaded with Niketas to save his daughter. To Niketas’s credit, in the face of great personal danger he pursued the abductor and forced him to release the girl by appealing to his fellow crusaders.”
The refugees made their way to Selymbria, where they remained until Easter 1206. It was probably in Selymbria that Niketas’s wife was delivered of her child. Following the fail of Philippopolis to Ioannitsa in June 1205°° and the devastation of the lands around Selymbria, Niketas witnessed “the butchers making their way into Selymbria with swords drawn, and stripping us of our bundles and rags.”°’ For these reasons Niketas decided to return to Constantinople, where he remained another six months researching the events which had transpired.” At the same time, he was an eyewitness to the wanton destruction of the ancient masterpieces, the bronze statuary which was melted down to make copper coins. He was also able to observe the Latin patriarch of Constantinople, Thomas Morosini, whom he describes so graphically.” The part of his history titled “The Events Which Befell the Romans Following the Fall of Constantinople” was completed at this time.”
“To avoid looking upon the Latins and their driveling,” Niketas sailed to the East, arriving in Nicaea at the end of 1206 or the beginning of 1207. If he had hoped to find relief from his wanderings and sufferings, he was to be disappointed. He complains that he and his companions, among whom were his brothers-in-law, John and Michael Belissariotés, were looked upon as aliens as they huddled about the churches; the little bread and wine given the refugees was bestowed grudgingly.”
Niketas is further embittered by the fact that his own countrymen ascribed the fall of Constantinople to the senate of which he was a member. There were many who did not want the restoration of the capital because they had enriched themselves by acquiring properties. Instead of commiserating with the likes of Niketas who had been deprived of both great wealth and high political office, they ridiculed them.”
However, the historian’s material condition may have improved several months after his arrival. He was given the honor of delivering two orations before Emperor Theodore I Laskaris: Oration 14 is a panegyric on the emperor’s feats of war, and Oration 17 is a sermon on the beginning of the Lenten period.” Both were written before the death of Boniface of Montferrat on 4 September 1207. Oration 13, dealing with the fall of Constantinople,” was composed to be read from the throne by Theodore I Laskaris. Finally, Oration 16 was delivered by Niketas on the occasion of the emperor’s return from his victory over the sultan of Ikonion, Kaykhusraw, whom he slew in single combat in the battle of Antioch on the Maeander in 1210 or 1211.
Niketas must have been deeply disappointed that he was not appointed to high office in the new government, which must have been his hope When he migrated to Nicaea. He was evidently let down by such influential and powerful friends as Basil Kamateros and Constantine Mesopotamités,°’ who overlooked his needs, and his fortunes turned for the worse. Niketas exacted revenge by means of his unflattering depictions of both Kamateros and Mesopotamités in his history. He also omitted two sentences in praise of Theodore I Laskaris and his martial abilities which he had included in the first revision of his work.®
It was in Nicaea that Niketas completed his theological treatise, the Dogmatiké Panoplia. The value of this work lies in the last five books, which deal with the theological controversies of his time, in some of which he himself had been involved.” In a cover letter of a revision of Book 17 dealing with the heresy of the Armenians and intended for Basil Kamateros, the emperor’s uncle, Niketas states that he is unable to accompany Kamateros on his journey to escort the emperor’s intended bride, the daughter of Levon of Cilician Armenia, to Nicaea.”
The end of Niketas’s life is shrouded in darkness. The final draft of his history was left undone, and its abrupt ending may have been due to his approaching death, which also may explain his haste to complete it. The letters written to Michael by Niketas and mentioned by the archbishop have not survived.” Of Michael’s letters to Niketas, only one has been preserved. In this letter Michael responds to Niketas’s request that Michael send him all his written works in one volume.” From Michael’s Monodia, written when the archbishop was about seventy-seven years old, we learn that Niketas died some thirty years or so after Michael had arrived in Athens in the year 1182. The historian must have died, therefore, between 1215 and 1216 at the age of sixty or sixty-one.”
Niketas’s view of history and the sources from which he compiled his account bear examination. For Niketas, history is “the book of the living”; the written word is a clarion trumpet “raising up those long dead.”” The actions of the virtuous as well as of the shameless should not be lost to posterity. “Let no one be so mad as to believe that there is anything more pleasurable than history.”” Yet, at the conclusion of his history, he confesses, “O wretched author that I am, to be the keeper of such evils, and now to grace with the written word the misfortunes of my family and countrymen.””
It is the historian’s duty to “eschew that which is made obscure and distorted by discordant and prolix circumlocutions” as well as “an affected, recondite, and vulgar vocabulary.””’ Niketas cherishes clarity and assures us that he prefers the phrase “unadorned, natural, and absolutely unambiguous.” Truth is the objective of his history, and so he shuns “rhetorical artifice and poetic storytelling.” History, moreover, “rejoices at the most elegant of phrases and prefers to adorn herself with the cloth of plain and simple words.”
But the reader will find that Niketas is anything but simple, and his rhetorical ‘training brilliantly shines through the fabric of his history. In translating his monumental work, one must laboriously mine his words and phrases to expose the literary gems. For example, not satisfied with the simple statement that King Géza of Hungary died, he writes instead, “the taut strings of his mortal frame were slackened by nature, dissolving into those elements of which it was composed.”” In the matter of harangues, it is now well understood that these are commonplace literary conventions fabricated by the historian.”
As for his sources, the historian contends, first of all, that he is traversing “a desolate and untrodden road”®! and makes no mention of his contemporary John Kinnamos, who had written a history covering the reign of John II Komnenos and Manuel I Komnenos down to the year 1176. The reason he ignores Kinnamos may be that, although he was familiar with Kinnamos’s work, it was an unpublished manuscript known only to the imperial secretaries.”
Since Niketas was not an eyewitness to the events of the reign of John II Komnenos, he has recorded what he heard “from those contemporaries who personally knew the emperor and who escorted him on his campaigns against the enemy and accompanied him to battle.”® The detailed knowledge that Niketas shows of the intrigues at court probably means that he was furnished with such information by officials in the entourage of the imperial family. Such information is particularly precious, since it is missing in Kinnamos’s history. Niketas also made use of popular accounts, such as those concerning the women on the Second Crusade, as well as the story bruited about that Manuel himself gave the orders to mix lime with the barley groats sold to the crusaders. Niketas evidently had access to the archives of Hagia Sophia, as he has detailed information relating to the minutes of certain synods convoked to deal with theological issues. Moreover, Niketas used a written source describing the campaign against the Turks which ended in the disaster of Myriokephalon.™ For the sack of Thessaloniki by the Normans of Sicily in 1185, Niketas used the account set down by Eustathios, archbishop of Thessaloniki.® The information on the events which took place in Thrace was probably collected when Niketas was governor of Philippopolis.™
It does not appear that Niketas had at his disposal documents from the imperial archives, as evidenced by his ignorance of certain diplomatic negotiations and by his ambiguity when speaking of the emperors’ novels or new laws. Niketas’s information is often incomplete. He makes no mention of John II’s rupture with the Republic of Venice, nor of the war that followed, nor of the emperor’s relations with the papacy and the German Holy Roman Empire.” In discussing the events of Manuel’s reign, he completely ignores the negotiations between Conrad and Manuel. Beginning with the Second Crusade, the narrative becomes more detailed. Still, Niketas confuses the Germans with the French when relating the events of the crusaders’ victory along the Maeander in 1148 against the Turks.* Niketas is ignorant of the Byzantine embassy dispatched to the crusaders and of the rapprochement between Manuel and Conrad, as, welk as uninformed about the two sojourns of Conrad in Constantinople and the treaty drawn up as a consequence. Niketas also errs in the dates of the Italian war, about which he is insufficiently informed. In discussing Manuel’s plans to invade Italy, he places the envoy Michael Palaiologos in Italy in the spring of 1150, an error of five years. Palaiologos’s campaigns are poorly understood. Niketas has wrongly dated the naval battle of 1154 and places it after the battle of Brindisi; he dates the Norman fleet’s appearance before the walls of Constantinople to sometime after the peace of 1158 when it logically belongs to the naval campaign which preceded the peace.” Niketas is equally ignorant of the diplomatic negotiations between Manuel and Frederick Barbarossa.”
To understand Niketas’s personality better, we must delve into his intellectual world. First of all, Niketas was a deeply believing Christian. A highly moral man himself, he deplored the sexual promiscuity of the emperors. Manuel I’s mistress was Theodora, his brother’s daughter, while Andronikos bedded Evdokia, his cousin’s child. Niketas complains that these “brazen incestuous relations” were conducted openly in defiance of public sensibilities. Engaging in playful repartee with Manuel, Andronikos quipped “that he felt that the subject should emulate his ruler and that he, Andronikos, came out of the same mold as Manuel.””!
Andronikos took time out from making his escape from prison to have sexual intercourse with his wife.” An irresistible charmer, he became the lover of Philippa, the sister of Manuel’s wife and daughter of Raymond of Poitiers, the count of Antioch.” In Jersualem, he had a passionate affair with Theodora, Manuel’s niece and widow of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem; the widowed queen accompanied her lover on his wanderings and bore him children. As emperor, Andronikos would make frequent excursions into the pleasant countryside with a troupe of courtesans and concubines “followed by his ladyloves like a cock by barnyard hens.” He frequently indulged in intercourse with the flute girls and courtesans whom he introduced into the palace. To revitalize his genitals, he resorted to ointments and extravagant preparations; he ate of a Nilotic animal related to the crocodile as an effective aphrodisiac.’ When attepting to make his escape at the end of his reign, he took with him both his child bride Anna and his favorite mistress Maraptiké.”
Andronikos’s successor, Isaakios II Angelos, delighted in ribaldries and was captivated by lewd songs. His court was characterized by drunken revels and sexual wantonness at the same time that he kept company with monks.” In contrast, Niketas praises Baldwin of Flanders, the first Latin emperor of Constantinople, for never glancing at another woman during the period in which he was separated from his wife. Twice a week he had a herald proclaim throughout the palace that no one was to have sexual intercourse with any woman except his legal wife.*’ Niketas also applauds the rich and eminent nobleman who thrust his sword into his shapely wife’s entrails rather than have her violated by a Roman soldier.”
Niketas repeatedly expresses special admiration for physical perfection, beauty, and descent from an eminent and noble family. Of Andronikos I he writes that “he excelled most men in bodily strength, and his physique was worthy of empire.”” Emperors themselves “can neither sleep nor rest should there exist someone endowed with the beauty of a statue and the lyrical eloquence of a nightingale in song, gifted, moreover, with a ready wit.”’” The Latins, however, he called the “haters of the beautiful.”'®’ When describing the enemy, Niketas emphasizes their physical imperfections. Kilij Arslan was maimed and illproportioned and was called Koutz-Arslan or “Halt-Arslan.”' Enrico Dandolo, the doge of Venice, is described as a “man maimed in sight and along in years”’? and as “that most ancient and pernicious evil and chief of the horrors that befell the Romans.”
Niketas decries old age. He describes Andronikos I’s accession to the throne in his later years, telling that during the procession following the long exhausting coronation rites, “the old man defecated in his breeches.”’® On this emperor’s marriage to the eleven-year-old Anna, Niketas reviles him as one “who stank of the dark ages ._ the shriveled and languid old man”; elsewhere he calls him a “rotten old man more aged than Tithonos and Kronos.”
On the other hand, the historian despises the dandies at court who “sported beautiful hair styles” and wore “collars of gold and translucent necklaces of sparkling gems and precious pearls.”'”’ The suitors of Manuel I’s widow, Maria-Xené, “arranged their hair in charming curls rubbed themselves with sweet oils and effeminately wore necklaces set with precious gems.”' Isaakios II “never wore the same garment twice” and made his appearance perfumed, and with curled hair.'”
A civil servant himself, Niketas gives an excellent picture as to how he viewed Byzantine officialdom. Gregory Kamateros, who advanced from under secretary to logothete of the sekreta, a position held by Niketas himself, amassed huge wealth by assessing taxes.''” John of Poutzé, the procurator of the public taxes and imperial commissioner and inspector of accounts, “was invested with so much power and authority from the emperor that he rejected and tore up whatever imperial edicts were not to his liking, while including others in the public registers.”''' Elsewhere Niketas writes, “his power was absolute; he could do whatever he wished without question.”'’* Theodores Styppeiotés became such a decisive influence on the emperor that “all Styppeiotés had to do to accomplish anything was merely to wish it,” and he could “move all things by merely pointing his finger and nodding.”!”
Theodore Kastamonités, the maternal uncle of Emperor Isaakios II, promoted to logothete of the sekreta, “conducted the affairs of the state as though he were emperor so that all ministers carried out his every order almost without question.” All officials had to “stand in his presence in a servile attitude.” The emperor allowed him to wear the imperial trappings, the purple military cloak, and to sign public decrees and rescripts in royal purple ink. He was skillful in collecting taxes and eloquent of speech, the necessary attribute of the worthy official, according to Niketas.''* The youth Constantine Mesopotamités, who succeeded Theodore Kastamonités, also led the emperor about “in the manner of a leader whale.”!°
Niketas paints the unedifying picture of imperial officials destroying their rivals at court through the use of slander, lies, and inuendoes. The logothete of the dromos, John Kamateros, destroyed Theodore Styppeiotés by forging a letter in his name implicating him falsely in a conspiracy, and as a result the innocent man was blinded.'’° The same John Kamateros was a man of prodigious appetites and talents. He was the greatest epicure and tippler of his day. He could drink foreign envoys under the table and on one occasion drank a gallon and a half of wine, coming up for air but once, to win a wager with Emperor Manuel I. He also sang to the lyre and kicked up his heels in licentious dances. He was, moreover, a gifted extemporaneous speaker.'””
The historian was incensed when emperors “hawked the public offices as venders peddle their fruit.”''® Alexios HII Angelos ignored the graduated scale of offices so that “many equated promotion with demotion,” and “the highest honor became dishonorable and the love of honor a thankless pursuit.” The unworthy, consequently, reached the highest, most dignified, position.''? The emperor sold the dignity of sebastos to the baseborn and vulgar, the moneychangers and linen merchants, the Cumans and Syrians.'”” Niketas scores Emperor Manuel I for appointing rapacious tax collectors and farming out the taxes, and he greatly resents the fact that “money-loving barbarians” were charged with collecting the taxes and sealing the moneybags.'”! He is critical of Manuel for initiating the oppressive tax measures needed to defray the huge expenditures of his foreign policy, but then he contradicts himself by justifying Manuel’s policies aimed at preventing the Latins from flooding the empire, a reflection he may have made after 1204.'” Niketas is objective enough to praise the tyrant Andronikos I for eliminating the avaricious exactor, the extortioner, and the despoiler. Voluntary gifts which could only corrupt the recipient were returned, and to avoid the temptation of extortion, he paid his officials large salaries. The happy result was that cities and towns were revived and prospered.”
Probably revealing his own resentment as a state official, Niketas criticizes Manuel for treating his ministers “not as free men but as allotted slaves.”'* He registers the same complaint against the emperors in general.!*
It is a commonplace that the pious are not necessarily free of superstition. The holy icon enabled the Byzantines to cross over the space-time barrier of this world and to communicate directly and immediately with the saints of heaven. Niketas depicts John II Komnenos looking upon an icon of the Mother of God and shedding tears, with wailing and pitiful gestures.’ For the emperor’s triumph in 1133, framed images of Christ and the saints lined the streets, and the emperor mounted an icon of the Mother of God on his chariot while he himself led the way on foot holding a cross in his hand.'’’ There is no more dramatic picture of how different the world of the Christian Roman empire was from that of the pagan Roman empire. Manuel I did the same in 1168, but he followed on horseback the chariot holding the icon.’ Isaakios II Angelos “had such faith in the Mother of God that he poured out his soul to her icon.”!” Made aware of his brother’s coup, Isaakios took his pectoral icon of the Mother of God and “embraced it many times, all the while confessing his sins and promising to make amends.”'””
Omens and portents predict future events, and Niketas is meticulous in citing such phenomena. When Manuel I invited Kilij Arslan, the sultan of Ikonion, to attend a triumph in 1162 and an earthquake erupted, the clergy contended that God was angry and would not tolerate an infidel attending a triumph adorned with icons of Christ and his saints. While Manuel lay on his deathbed, a male infant was born with a tiny deformed body attached to a huge head; thts was interpreted to be the sign of Polyarchy, the mother of Anarchy."
A comet which appeared in 1182 foretold the tragic end of Andronikos I.’ At this time, a hawk with white plumage and feet shackled with thongs was observed swooping down from the east upon Hagia Sophia. Thrice it flew from the Thomaités building to the Great Palace. The more clever and discerning, says Niketas, interpreted this to augur that at the end of his reign, the white-haired Andronikos would once again be subjected to imprisonment and the stocks.'” Andronikos embellished with gold an ancient icon of St. Paul, and when his downfall was imminent, teardrops were seen to flow down from the saint’s eyes, a portent of the emperor’s impending doom.”
The appointment of the blinded Alexios Komnenos to a command was considered inauspicious.’” In 1187 the sky was filled with omens: stars shone in the daytime, the air was turbulent, and the sun cast a pale light because of the phenomenon of halos.!”°
The antics of horses were also portents of the future. As Manuel attempted to enter the palace grounds, his Arabian stallion neighed loudly, struck the pavement repeatedly with its hooves, whirled around several times, and then crossed the threshold. This was interpreted by the adept in such matters to be propitious, foretelling a long life for the emperor.'*”’ Following his coronation, Alexios III was thrown from his Arabian mount and his crown was shattered; when he was seen afterwards parading with a shattered crown, the populace deemed this to to be a portent of his future fall from the throne.'? When a certain Hungarian, riding his horse at full speed, fell on his face with his mount, Manuel I foresaw in this happenstance “the happy conclusion to the war.” One of the imperial horses which was being transported across the straits to Diplokionion broke loose from the groom; it was captured as it ran through the streets and taken to Isaakios to ride, a portent of his mounting the throne.”
Dreams were also believed to reveal impending catastrophes. Before the disaster of Myriokephalon, Manuel I dreamed that he had boarded a flagship and was sailing in the Sea of Marmara when “suddenly the mountains of Europe and Asia appeared to collapse.” The vessel was shattered, and Manuel was barely able to swim ashore.'*' An interpreter by the name of Mavropoulos dreamed that he entered the church of St. Cyrus and the Mother of God spoke to him from her icon, saying, “The
emperor is now in the utmost danger,” and then inquired, “Who will go?
forth in my name to assist him?” But neither St. George nor St. Theodore were available, and so there was no one to forestall the impending | evil.'* The patriarch Dositheos, who was deposed in 1189, secured con-— trol over Emperor Isaakios II by predicting future events on the basis of the books of Solomon and by “certain interpretations of dreams sent by demons.”!?
Magic and demonic powers are forces with which one must reckon. Niketas relates that Michael Sikidités, while in a bathhouse, had an altercation with his fellow bathers. To punish them, he conjured up “certain men, blacker than pitch” who chased the bathers outside, kicking them on the buttocks.’ Sikidités, moreover, hypnotized his audiences “by resorting to unmentionable magic spells” “tricking them into believing that what they saw was real.” Again, Niketas admits, “he conjured up ranks of demons to attack those he wished to terrify.” To entertain the court, he caused the boatman of a fishing boat carrying bowls and dishes to smash his entire cargo by conjuring up a vision of a blood red serpent stretched out over the wares.!”
The interpreter Aaron Isaakios made a replica of a tortoise, inside of which he concealed “a human figure whose feet were bound and chest pierced through with a nail.” By unrolling his book of Solomon, he could conjure up legions of demons who did his bidding. He advised Andron-ikos that “he could slit the enemy’s throat with his tongue as though it were a sharp knife.”!
Skleros Seth succeeded in deflowering a young virgin by sending her a charmed peach which, when concealed in her bosom, drove her mad with lust.'*” The unfortunate, squint-eyed wretch, who was caught roaming around Andronikos’s pavilion, was accused of practising sorcery and burned at the stake without a trial.'”
Andronikos I favored divination by hydromancy or lekanoskopy, that is, by interpreting the “signs of the unknown in the waters” held by tubs or basins in which images of the future are reflected. Seth had performed these rituals from childhood, and when the questions were posed as to who should succeed Andronikos as emperor and at what time, the earthloving spirit fell into the water with a splash and indicated the first two letters of the name Isaakios, revealing that the emperor would lose his throne sometime within the days of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which falls on 14 September. The irony was that the very measure taken to prevent the prohecy’s fulfillment was the cause of its realization.”
The protostrator Alexios Axuch was accused of being such an able sorcerer that he could fly in the air and make himself invisible so as to swoop down and strike his enemies with his sword. It is to Niketas’s credit that he calls such claims “buffooneries and vulgarities.”’”°
Peter and Asan, to win support for their war against the Byzantines, built a church dedicated to St. Demetrios, and bringing there Bulgar and Vlach demoniacs “with crossed and bloodshot eyes,” they instructed them to cry out that God had willed their freedom and that St. Demetrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki, would abandon his cult center and come to help them in their struggle; in their ravings, the demoniacs instructed the Vlacho-Bulgars to kill every captive taken.’”
Astrology was the obsession of many emperors, but again Niketas ridicules its absurd claims which so often proved to be false. He mocks the astrologers as “those who gaze at the sky while barely seeing what is at their feet.” Manuel I compelled Constantine Angelos to turn back after setting out at the head of a naval force sailing for Sicily because the tables of the astronomical sphere had been misread. Niketas pokes fun at the efficacy of the horoscope that was cast a second time. “So advantageous was the determination of the exact moment to the success of Roman affairs that forthwith Constantine Angelos was delivered into the hands of the enemy!”’* When Andronikos Kontostephanos had deployed his troops against the Hungarians, Manuel I commanded him to postpone the engagement until another, more auspicious, day. Kontostephanos, however, had the good sense to ignore the order, and Niketas once again disparages the claims of astrology, writing, “but since the successful completion or failure of great and mighty deeds depends on the goodwill of God, I do not know how it was that Manuel could put his trust in the conjunctions and positions and movements of the stars, and obey the prattle of astrologers as though they were equal to judgments coming from God’s throne.”!
Astrologers, whom Niketas calls “baneful charlatans,” urged the ailing Manuel to indulge in sexual pleasures. They also predicted a natural catastrophe of such proportions, designating the exact day, that the emperor, his kinsman, and attendants sought out caves, dug trenches, and set up sturdy tents for their protection; even the glass was removed from the imperial buildings.'®
Niketas observes that Constantine Stethatos was unable to save himself and Alexios Branas, who rebelled in 1187 from the sword even though he was the most celebrated astrologer of his time. He predicted that Branas would enter Constantinople and celebrate a triumph. A fellow astrologer, however, claimed that Stethatos had not erred in his prediction since Branas’s head and one foot were paraded through the agora transfixed on pikes.'”°
Alexios Kontostephanos, who was proclaimed emperor in the agora, is called a “stargazer.”'*’ Alexios III was prevented from moving from the Great Palace to the palace at Blachernai for six days because the time was deemed inauspicious, “for the emperors up to our times,” adds Niketas, “scrutinize the position of the stars before they take a single step.”’* “A gaper at heavenly signs” was present at the birth of Alexios II in the Purple Bedchamber. Manuel, casting frequent glances at the astrologer, received the prediction that his son would be blessed as “a child of destiny.”’°
Prophecy, which spanned the two worlds of religion and demonic divination, is very much a part of Niketas’s cultural milieu. When John II Komnenos needed to justify his choice of his youngest son as his successor, he referred to the predictions and prophecies of “men beloved of God” that God had destined Manuel to become emperor.'” The historian’s godfather and namesake, Niketas, the bishop of Chonai, prophesied that Manuel I’s older brother, Isaakios, would submit to him as emperor, and that Manuel would outlive his grandfather Alexios I, but that at the end of his life he would go mad."" Patriarch Dositheos predicted that Isaakios II would ascend the throne.'” Andronikos’s partisans believed the prophecy that he would become emperor.'® The deluded Isaakios II believed the predictions that he would unite in his person both East and West, that his eyesight would be restored and his gout cured by miracle, and that he would be transformed into a godlike man.'™ Patriarch Dositheos prophesied that all kingdoms should submit to him.'®
Even emperors indulged in prophecy-making. During the games at the Hippodrome, Andronikos, pointing to certain columns, predicted to Manuel I that some day an emperor—meaning Manuel—would be suspended between them. The emperor to hang from them, however, was not Manuel but Andronikos himself.'* It was believed that Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer had prophesied the Vlach rebellion.'” Isaakios II wrote to Frederick Barbarossa predicting that the German monarch would be dead before Easter; Niketas protests that this is “an activity not befitting an emperor.”!®
Andronikos I changed his appointed successor from his son-in-law Alex10s to his son John because God had revealed that the rule would pass not from alpha (Andronikos) to alpha (Alexios) but to iota, that is, loannés, or John.'” Manuel I named his son Alexios, not in honor of his grandfather, as was the custom, but because of the oracular utterance aima, designating the first initials of the Komnenian rulers, to wit, Alexios, Ioannés, Manuel, and now Alexios.'” Andronikos suspected that someone whose name began with an iota would bring an end to his rule." Niketas seems to give credence to the belief that the last syllable of Manuel’s name foretold the number of years he would reign, thirty-eight.”
Niketas cites a certain Basilakios who mutilated the eyes of the painting of Emperor Isaakios II on the wall of his private chapel and knocked off the emperor’s cap, thereby foretelling his blinding and deposition from the throne.'” Patriarch Dositheos falsely prophesied that Frederick Barbarossa would enter Constantinople by way of the Xylokerkos postern, thereby convincing Emperor Isaakios If to block up the postern with lime and baked bricks.'*” When the maligned Patriarch Kosmas Attikos cursed the womb of Empress Bertha-Irene to the effect that she should bear no male offspring, Stephanos Kontostephanos nearly struck him. The patriarch prophesied a “stony fate” for him, and Kontostephanos was subsequently struck in the loin by a stone missile and killed.'” Niketas is uncertain as to whether he should attribute the fact that the empress had only daughters to the patriarch’s curse.'” A certain priest, taken captive by Asan, was condemned to die despite his pleas for mercy; he correctly predicted that the merciless Asan would be cut down by the sword.'””
Empress Euphrosyné, says Niketas, was adept at prognosticating the future.'” To vitiate impending misfortunes, the empress cut off the snout of the bronze Calydonian boar standing in the Hippodrome, lacerated the back of the bronze Herakles with repeated floggings, and hammered off the limbs and heads of other statues.'” When the statue of the Roman Woman, the pendant of the statue of the Hungarian Woman standing on the arch on the west side of the Forum of Constantine, was overthrown, Manuel proceeded to stand it upright and overturned instead the statue of the Hungarian Woman, thereby raising up the fortunes of the Romans while casting down those of the Hungarians.’ Isaakios II moved the Kalydonian boar from the Hippodrome to the Great Palace in the belief that he could thus forestall the onrush of the swinish populace.'®’ The statue of Athena Promachos, which stood some thirty feet high, was smashed by the rabble because it appeared that she was beckoning to the Western armies.”
What were the deep-rooted causes of the fall of the Byzantine empire to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 as viewed by Niketas? A major cause of the empire’s destruction, according to the historian, was the Komnenos family, who rebelled time and again in order to place themselves at the head of the empire. Taking refuge with Byzantium’s enemies, “they were the utter ruin of their country.” When they did succeed in taking power “they were the most inept, unfit, and stupid of men.”'® Emperor John II’s brother, the sebastokrator Isaakios, defected for a time to the Turks with his son John.'®* Later, in defiance of his uncle the emperor, John converted to Islam and married the sultan of Ikonion’s daughter.’ When “the brainless and pernicious” Alexios Komnenos, Manuel I’s nephew and cupbearer, was banished by the tyrant Andronikos I, he defected to William of Sicily and incited the Normans to attack Greece; he personally led the enemy on their devastating campaign through Greece to Thessaloniki.'® Finally, it was the young Alexios, Isaakios II’s son, who led the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople. The islets of Lake Pousgousé in Anatolia were inhabited by Christians who regarded the Byzantines as their enemies and thus refused to submit to John II; their trade relations with the Turks of Ikonion were evidently stronger than the ties of race and religion.” As a result of inquity in the Hellenic cities, writes Niketas, many preferred to settle among the barbarians and gladly quit their homeland.”
One of the chief causes of the fall of the empire was the deterioration of the Byzantine navy. The Byzantines lost control of the seas to the Italians, especially the Venetians, and thus they were no longer in command of their own destiny. Niketas singles out John of Poutzé as being responsible for this lamentable turn of events. He purposely diverted in the treasury the contributions collected by naval expeditions which were destined to support the fleet and largely eliminated the triremes needed to defend the empire, since the enemy comes by sea as well as by land, arguing that such ships were not always needed and that expenditures made on their behalf were too heavy an annual burden. The result of this ill-advised policy, notes Niketas, was that pirates ruled the seas and harassed the Roman maritime provinces.”
Cowardice and disloyalty were also crucial factors in Byzantium’s inability to defend itself. Niketas Yevels a terrible indictment at key Byzantine fortresses and cities which surrendered to the Latins without any show of resistance. Because of their hatred for the tax collector Gymnos, the inhabitants of Kerkyra on Corfu willingly admitted a Sicilian garrison of one thousand knights in armor.’
The impregnable fortress of Acrocorinth surrendered without a fight to the Normans of Sicily. The Byzantine commander Nikephoros Chalouphés was ridiculed by the Sicilian captain of the fleet “‘as being ignoble in warfare” and “more effeminate than a woman.”'”' Thessaloniki fell to William of Sicily in 1185 because the governor, David Komnenos, was a traitor “more cowardly than a deer.”!°*
The huge revenues secured by oppressive tax measures were not used to rebuild and restore the Byzantine fleets or to strengthen the armies but were wasted by being poured into Sicily and Calabria by Manuel I without serving any useful purpose or bringing any lasting benefits to succeeding emperors.'” To impress and overwhelm the sultan Kilij Arslan with the inexhaustible wealth of the empire, Manuel lavished gold and coins, luxurious raiment, silver beakers, golden vessels, and linens of the finest weave upon him. The sultan gladly received these gifts and then proceeded to disregard the promises he had made." The sultan sarcastically remarked to his intimates “that the more injuries he inflicted on the Romans, the more treasures he received from the emperor.”!* The emperor, unfortunately, pursued a policy of ostentatious munificence.!”
Failure to find a modus vivendi with the emerging Western nations was to lead to catastrophe for Byzantine society. The alienation between Latin and Greek cultures was a major factor in the fall of 1204. Niketas describes the Latins as “boastful, undaunted in spirit, lacking all humility, and trained to be ever bloodthirsty” and as those who “nurtured an unsleeping hostility against the Romans, a perpetual raving hatred.”!””’ Emperor John II “had no faith in the driveling of the Latins and in their arrogance.
The historian calls the Normans of Sicily, who sacked Thessaloniki in 1185, ‘““Roman-haters”; they despised the Byzantines as their bitterest enemies. “Between us and them,” writes Niketas, “the greatest gulf of disagreement has been fixed, and we are separated in purpose and diametrically opposed, even though we are closely associated and frequently share the same dwelling.”’” Elsewhere he writes of the Westerners, “Their inordinate hatred for us and our excessive disagreement with them allowed for no humane feeling between us.”””° The overweening, pretentious, supercilious, boastful, and pompous Normans could not understand and appreciate the gentleness and humility of Byzantine demeanor.™ In ridicule, the Normans pulled the shaggy beards and hair of the Thessalonians with both hands and insisted that they clip their hair round about in the Latin style.” The Normans bared their posteriors and broke wind in the faces of the Greeks and urinated in their faces and food.”
Frederick Barbarossa and the Westerners in general could not appreciate the refined etiquette of Byzantine court ceremonial, and when the German monarch learned that his envoys were required to stand before the Byzantine emperor, he mocked the Byzantine envoys by compelling them to sit together with their attendants and menials.°~ When Alexios III greeted the envoys of Henry VI on Christmas Day 1196 dressed in his imperial robe adorned with precious gems, and his ministers made their appearance in garments of broad purple stripes interwoven with gold, the Germans were astonished by the splendid attire and “longed the sooner to conquer the Greeks as being cowardly in warfare and devoted to servile luxuries.”
The historian resents the fact that foreigners, who spoke broken Greek and driveled in their speech, had been entrusted by Manuel with the highest offices, and were even appointed judges.” By appointing barbarians to collect the taxes, Manuel alienated the native Byzantines, who were honest by nature and training, even though the emperor accused them of being embezzlers.*”
The mass arrests of Venetians and the confiscation of their property and wealth in 1171 by Manuel I,” coupled with the Latin Massacre of 1182 mounted by the Byzantine mobs on the Latin quarter of the capital, left a legacy of revenge.” The Angelos brothers, Isaakios II and Alexios III, incensed the Venetians by disregarding the treaties made with them; “they mulcted them of monies, levied taxes on their ships, and raised the Pisans against them.” Alexios III refused to hand over the two hundred pounds of gold still owed the Venetians from the overall debt of fifteen hundred pounds of gold which Manuel I had agreed to pay in compensation for the monies and properties he had confiscated in 1171.7”
Niketas could not forgive the Latins for their wanton acts of sacrilege. The “forerunners of the Antichrist” dashed the holy icons to the earth and desecrated them by sitting on them and using them for footstools; they flung the relics of the saints into defiled places and poured out the body and blood of Christ, the Holy Eucharist, onto the ground. They used the holy chalices and patens as wine goblets and bread dishes at their table. They smashed the magnificent holy altar of Hagia Sophia with its ciborium, the silver railing of the bema, the pulpit, and the gates.”
The Constantinopolitans, moreover, were shocked by the “licentious and wanton behavior” of the Westerners. The crusaders ridiculed Byzantine customs. They dressed in the broad-bordered robes of the populace to mock them; they covered the heads of their horses with veils; others poked fun at the bureaucracy by holding reed pens and inkwells and pretending to be writing in books.”” Niketas deprecatingly remarks, “Not one of the Graces or Muses was ever entertained as a guest by these barbarians; I believe, moreover, that they were savage by nature.” Niketas cannot tolerate the native food of the “beef-eating Latins.”?”
Niketas took his revenge on the Latins for their peculiar dress and manners when he described the new Latin patriarch of Constantinople, Thomas Morosini. The latter’s native Venetian dress “was embroidered and woven so as to fit tightly about the body but slack at the chest and wrists; his beard was shaved smoother than if removed by a depilatory.”?"* Morosini’s chest, moreover, was “plucked smoother than pitch-plaster.” He also wore a ring and gloves, and he was “fatter than a hog raised in a
it.77)
One of the historian’s most telling criticisms is that the Muslims treated the conquered Latins in Jerusalem in 1187 with magnanimity, while the Christians of the West behaved shamelessly toward their fellow Christians in the East. “They were exposed as frauds,” concludes Niketas.?"°
In assessing Niketas’s personality, one might begin by quoting Professor Anthony Cutler’s acute observation, “Compared to other Byzantine historians Choniatés seems a model of enlightenment.”*!” Niketas’s deep appreciation of his Greek and Roman heritage, as well as of antique statuary, and his rejection of astrology and other forms of medieval superstitions as “buffooneries and vulgarities,” show him to be a transitional figure between medieval and Renaissance man. He was representative of the Byzantine polymath immersed in classical Greek learning, as well as Christian and Byzantine literature, philosophy, and theology. Not only is he master of his classical linguistic medium but he easily associates the events of his own times with the Homeric tradition and deftly weaves classical and Christian skeins into a wondrous fabric. “It was a battle out of Homer,” he writes on one occasion.”!* Homer and the Psalter were his dual sources of inspiration. He is, nonetheless, weighed down by his cultural tradition, and Byzantium and everything Byzantine are the ultimate standard by which all else must be measured. In the greater family of nations the Byzantine state retains its political and cultural predominance despite the failures of incompetent emperors and high officials.
It is to Niketas’s credit that although the literary genre of the oration is characterized by excessive flattery, he remains true to his own high standards. He was principled enough to withdraw from public life under the usurper Andronikos | Komnenos, he courageously opposed Emperor Isaakios II in his shortsighted opposition to the Third Crusade. His many promotions at court, even while one administration succeeded another, were due to his ability and integrity, and not to his rhetorical talents.?!° He seems have enjoyed the general esteem of the court, and his profound erudition must have made him a welcome guest in the cultivated circles of Constantinople.”
In his writings, Niketas appears to be a man of compassion and deep faith: he celebrated feast days in the privacy of his chapel at home;””' he was a model husband who saw the fulfillment of human happiness in the unsullied relationship of man and wife; he was a loving father, as we can see from the Monodia he composed on the death of his infant son. His son, he writes, brought him joy but briefly and sorrow unending.”
In delineating his character, his brother Michael provides additional information on the episode of the judge’s daughter who was abducted by a crusader and saved by Niketas’s intervention. Niketas, says Michael, cried out that the abducted maiden was his wife.”” He saved her from the hands of the “enemy drunk with passion and raging with anger” and returned the virgin unravished to her father.*** Michael calls Niketas her “champion, her savior, her rescuer and protector of her virginity and guardian of her incorruption.”** Michael goes on to justify Niketas’s telling a falsehood in this instance in order to save the girl, despite the fact that his brother was “a truthful man of God.””°® Abraham, says the archbishop, fearing for his life, lied to Pharaoh and afterwards to Abimelech, king of Gerara, saying that his wife Sarah was his sister, a lie repeated by his son Isaac concerning his wife Rebecca.” Niketas, on the other hand, by claiming to be the maiden’s husband, more wisely and more manfully repulsed the would-be adulterer than did the patriarchs of the Old Testament, including David, since the latter was actually guilty of sin.”* For a stranger, Niketas endangered his very life. Although he pretended to be the young girl’s husband, he proved to be a more affectionate parent than her real father, since it was he who acted to rescue her. Niketas, in fact, imitated Christ, who took upon himself the sin and the curse of the world for our salvation.”
Michael is certain that Niketas is on the heavenly side of the gulf that separates the just from the damned in Hades. There he now adorns with his life those who serve as archetypal patterns, just as when he lived on earth he thirsted to be with the saints and to rejoice with them, collecting the remains of their holy bodies and their icons and residing in the same dwelling with them.”*°
It is fitting that the last word on Niketas Choniatés should be given by his brother Michael. “Thus, he became all things to all men; the protector of the unprotected, as guardian he was a husband to widows, a father to orphans, a brother to strangers; he was the most faithful of friends; the most caring of kinsmen, the most excellent of loving brothers.
Note on Translation
M, translation is based on both Immanuel Bekker’s edition of Niketas Choniatés’ Historia, published in the Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae (Bonn, 1835), and on the 1975 emerided edition of Jan-Louis van Dieten (Berlin, 1975). Since the latter is now the definitive edition, the bracketed pagination in the margins of the translated text coincides with van Dieten’s edition.
Niketas is no different from other Byzantine historians among whom anachronisms are commonplace. The Turks are called Persians, the Hungarians Paiones, the Serbs Triballoi and Dalmatians, the Germans Alamani, and the Vlachs Mysians. Niketas’s history is replete with stock phrases from Homer, many of which again are anachronistic, such as naming the knights “lords of chariots.” Where such anachronisms are found I have substituted the modern equivalent for the benefit of the reader who otherwise might find the ancient terminology confusing. Sometimes, to convey the style and medieval feeling of the text, I have retained such quaint phrases. I have transliterated Greek names for the most part, and for other foreign names I have used the spelling of their respective languages.
Biblical quotations from the Old Testament are taken from The Septuagint Version of the Greek Old Testament and Apocrypha, translated by Launcelot Lee Brenton (London, 1794), and for the New Testament I have kept to the King James version. Italicized words are those interpolated into the biblical texts by Niketas when he adapts the verses to suit the occasion.
Preface
HA ibsroricat narratives, indeed, have been invented for the common benefit of mankind, since those who will are able to gather from many of these the most advantageous insights. In recording ancient events and customs, the narratives elucidate human nature and expose men of noble sentiments, those who nourish a natural love for the good, to varied experiences. In abasing evil and exalting the noble deed, they introduce us, for the most part, to the temperate and the intemperate who incline to one or the other of these two scales. Men who value the attribute of virtue and eschew shameless conduct and corrupt habitude, although born mortal and subject to death, are immortalized and brought back to life by the writing of history. The same is true for those who, on the contrary, have led depraved lives. It is most fitting that the actions of the virtuous and the shameless be known to posterity. The soul moves on to Hades while the body returns to those elements from which it was constituted. '
Whether the actions of a man during his lifetime were holy and righteous or lawless and contemptible, and whether he lived a happy life or gave up the ghost in evildoing, are proclaimed loudly by history. Wherefore, history can be called the book of the living’ and the written word a clarion trumpet, like a signal from heaven, raising up those long dead* and setting them before the eyes of those who desire to see them.
Since such is the value of history, if I may say so in passing, is it not just as pleasing to posterity? Let no one be so mad as to believe that there is anything more pleasurable than history. Decrepit old men, more ancient than Tithonos* and thrice a crow’s age,’ familiar with the record of the past, related these things to willing audiences, kindling the fires of their memories and ploughing the furrows of the past. He who loves learning, even though he be but an adolescent, proposes to do the same thing.
For these reasons, therefore, the events which occurred in my times and shortly before, deserving of narration and remembrance, and being of such a multitude and magnitude, I could not allow to pass in silence.° It is, then, by way of this history that I make these events known to future generations.
Since others are of the opinion—and I wholly agree—that in the narration of history they should eschew that which is obscure and distorted by discordant and prolix circumlocutions, and should cherish clarity as not only being in accord with the words of the sage’ but also as being appropriate to them, one shall not find that the events recorded herein fall short of that ideal. Nor have I in any way embraced an affected, recon-dite, and vulgar vocabulary, even though many are gaping in eager expectation for this; or perhaps it would be more truthful to say that they pass over ancient and contemporary events and bedeck lavishly whatever business suits their interests best. For the most part, however, when it is a matter of setting down in writing those things that are fitting, they choose not to overstep or overleap history’s proper limits.
Above all else, as I have said, the phrase which is not straightforward and easy to comprehend has been rejected, and that which is unadorned, natural, and absolutely unambiguous has been preferred and embraced. This history, having truth as its sole objective, shuns rhetorical artifice and poetic storytelling as being diametrically opposed and disavows, moreover, their characteristics. Furthermore, even when History is composed with solemnity and reverence, she passionately desires to be the reward of diggers and of smiths covered with soot; she is also familiar with the armed company of Ares and is not captious with women who cultivate her; she rejoices at the most elegant of phrases and prefers to adorn herself, not with the pretentious and ostentatious, but with the cloth of plain and simple words.
This history, as far as is possible, will be treated with clarity and succinctness. If it lacks distinction and grace, I humbly request the forebearance of those into whose hands it may fall. Since this is the first time I have undertaken such an endeavor, it is like attempting to traverse a desolate and untrodden road, a much more difficult task than following the footsteps of others who have gone before or than holding to the straight and smooth royal highway without straying.
My history begins with those events which immediately followed the reign and death of Emperor Alexios, the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, since those historians who directly preceded us concluded with his reign.® My work, then, is a continuation of their written record and is interwoven to resemble a channel whose waters flow from a single source or connecting links which are added to a chain that reaches into infinity. This history will touch briefly upon the reign of John, who succeeded Alexios to the throne, but will not long dwell thereon as it will on succeeding events.” Since I was not an eyewitness of that which I have recorded, I could not describe these events extensively but have set down what I heard from those contemporaries who personally knew the emperor and who escorted him on his campaigns against the enemy and accompanied him into battle. It is best that I begin here.
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