Download PDF | Edward Foord - The Byzantine empire, the rearguard of European civilization, London: Adam and Charles Black, 1911.
522 Pages
PREFACE
THIS volume is an attempt to supply the | need of a short popular history of the Later Roman Empire. There is at present, I believe, no book on the subject in the English language between Professor Oman’s sketch in the ‘Story of the Nations’ series and monumental works like those of Gibbon, Finlay, and Bury. The Early Middle Age of Europe has always had а fascination for me, and on the wonderful story of the ‘Byzantine’ Empire I have concentrated much attention. When, therefore, Mr. Gordon Home broached the idea of the present volume, I readily undertook the task, believing that a knowledge of what was required, combined with a real enthusiasm for my subject, might enable me to produce a book which would fill the gap.
For me this work is only a preface to a larger one, embodying the results of my own original research, which I hope in the future to produce. I had the advantage of reading Dr. Bussell's first volume on the Roman Empire before publication ; the second appeared when this book was nearing completion.
The orthography of the innumerable proper names has given a good deal of trouble, and I should not like to say that I have solved the problem. As regards chronology, I have generally followed Bury.
The Maps are all from the author's drawings. That of the Roman Empire in 395 is based upon the one in Kiepert's Atlas. The remaining five constitute, I believe, the first real attempt to illustrate the strange territorial fluctuations of the Empire on a rational principle. In every case the culmination of a particular epoch has been chosen. The Maps are supplemented by carefully compiled statistical tables, which may serve to give the reader a concrete idea of the extent of the domain of Imperial Rome. The Мар of the Hellenic Colonies was added at the suggestion of Mr. Gordon Home, and ] must thank him for much valuable assistance in the matter of the illustrations.
Little space has been wasted on ecclesiastical controversies, these being, in my opinion, entirely secondary to the Empire’s work as preserver of civilization and rearguard of Europe. I have not hesitated to express the opinion that Byzantine cruelty is largely a myth, and otherwise it may be found that my estimate of certain rulers differs from that which commonly prevails.
Four of the genealogical tables have been copied or adapted from those in Professor Bury's work; the fifth and sixth were compiled with the assistance of my friend Mr. R. M. Cuningham, a fellow-enthusiast in things Byzantine, whose painstaking kindness | cannot too warmly acknowledge. Nor must I forget to thank Miss Marguerite Cartal for aiding me in the compilation of what, I hope, is a satisfactory index.
I have elsewhere discussed and defended the use, for popular purposes at least, of the adjective ‘Byzantine,’ and до not need to do so here.
EDWARD FOORD. October, 1911.
BYZANTIUM AND CONSTANTINOPLE—THE PEERLESS CAPITAL
IN the eighth and seventh centuries before Christ the Eastern Mediterranean was bidding fair to become a veritable network of Greek city-states. Never were there such colonizers as these men who had come down from the north and settled on the ruins of the far-famed sea-kingdom of Minos, whose glory they were destined to rival and surpass. Perchance the renown of the Minoan Empire, of which they must have heard, spurred them to emulation ; perchance they were forced seaward, like other peoples before and since, by pressure from behind. Domestic political troubles undoubtedly played their part in the formation of many of the settlements which covered the shores of the Levant ; but when every circumstance is taken into full consideration, the feats of the men of Hellas were wonderful.
The wild outburst of colonizing energy which began in the ninth century continued for two centuries without a check, and did not slacken until there was scarce any section of Eastern Mediter- ranean coast-line, save that of Egypt and Syria, that was not studded with Greek towns. It was not by the great cities of the Golden Age that the work was done. The now-forgotten towns of Chalcis and Eretria were the pioneers in Europe. In the eighth and seventh centuries the lead was taken by famed Miletus, leader of Hellas in many things until her destruction by Persia in 494 b.c. ; but Miletus found a not unworthy rival in the European town of Dorian Megara, on the Saronic Gulf.
Megarean ships passed up the Hellespont, and established settlements on the Asiatic shore of the PrOpontis, steadily moving forward until, in 675, they founded Chalcedon (Kadikoi), at the entrance of the Thracian Bosphorus. How or why they overlooked the unrivalled site on the Thracian shore for the immeasurably inferior one of Chalcedon is truly difficult of comprehension ; perhaps their fear of the wild folk of the Thracian inland had something to do with it. At any rate, for sixteen years Chalcedon was the one Megarean station on the Bosphorus. During that period the peninsula on which Constantinople was in the far-off future to rise must have become more and more familiar to the men of Megara, and when, in the good old pious—and very sensible—Greek fashion, they made inquiries of the Delphic oracle concerning an eligible site for a new colony, the famous answer, ' Build ye opposite to the City of the Blind !' even if not prepared beforehand, cannot have been unexpected. So one fine day in 660 B.C. the Httle flotilla of swift black galleys put out of the port of Megara, steered between Salamis and ^gina, and, passing down the Saronic Gulf, rounded Sunium and stood away across the JEgean. Crossing it, perhaps by two or three stages, the ships left on their right the far- famed plain where Achaean and Phrygian had con- tended for ten long years—perhaps in very deed for a fair, frail woman, as wise old Homer sang, knowing in his wisdom that for woman men will ever fight hardest and longest—and, entering Hellespont, wound their way through it into the Propontis. They passed Proconnesus—perhaps their crews landed there ; and if so, they saw that in its marble cliffs lay the material for the future beauty of their projected city. The Marble Island was left behind, and the galleys headed out over the glittering expanse of open water, until before them they saw the narrow, cliff-enclosed opening of the Gate of the Euxine, with the town of their blind forerunners to its right, and on its left the low rolling triangular peninsula whereon the capital of the Roman Empire was one day to rise. The goal was reached ; but though they may have dreamed of great things, the men of Megara, ,as they raised their first rough fortifications and built the first rude huts and shrines, assuredly did not know that they were engraving on the tablets of history the first words of a story that was to be among the most illustrious of all time.
For several centuries after its foundation Byzantium had an eventful and, on the whole, a prosperous and honourable career. A glance at the map shows its splendid commercial position : it controlled the great trade route between the ^gean and the Euxine. Its vast importance as a frontier fortress between the Orient and the Occident showed itself in the great struggle between Greece and Persia it was more than once taken and retaken. With comparatively few and brief intervals, it maintained its independence until it fell, with its sisters in East and West, under the all-embracing sway of Rome, and for centuries thereafter it was one of the most important cities of the central regions of the Empire. But evil days began for the famous old city on the death of Commodus in 192, when it became the frontier outpost of Pescennius Niger, in his struggle with Septimius Severus. It was taken by Severus in 196, and the grim Emperor took his revenge for its two years' desperate resistance by massacring the garrison and magistrates, confiscating the property of the citizens, depriving the place of its privileges, and dismantling the walls. Rome owed somewhat to strong L. Septimius Severus, but to mercy and scruple he was a stranger, and probably Caracalla did not inherit all his evil qualities from his mother. Caracalla restored its privileges to the stricken city, but peace knew it not for many years. It was harassed by Gothic raids ; it was involved in civil wars. In 263 it was stormed and sacked by Gallienus. Yet its commercial importance was so great that it soon recovered itself, though we are told that scarce a single man of the old Megarean strain survived the slaughter of 196 and 263. Under the Illyrian Emperors it again enjoyed an interval of repose, and Diocletian's residence at Nicomedia must have greatly added to its prosperity. But on his abdication Byzantium again became a bone of contention between Licinius, Caesar of Illyricum, and Maximinus Daza of the East. The latter, in 314, treacherously seized it behind his colleague's back, only to lose it again in the same year, and to be finally overthrown by Licinius. Licinius, now master of the entire East, greatly strengthened his recovered possession, and made it the strongest fortress of his Empire. There now rernained, of the various competitors who had disputed the Empire after the abdication of Diocletian, two only—Licinius and Flavius Valerius Constantinus, Emperor of the West. Causes of rivalry and enmity were not lacking, and in 323 came to a head in open war. Licinius was defeated and slain, and Byzantium for the last time taken, this time by the man who was to make it famous for evermore, for in 328 Constantine finally decided to make i4 the capital of the Roman Empire. The reasons which led him to supersede the City of the Tiber need only be briefly mentioned. A short study of the map of the Mediterranean basin is sufficient to demonstrate them. Rome was a bad position from which to direct the defence of the Danubian frontier, the most vulnerable part of the Roman border. It had been a splendid startingpoint for the conquest of Italy, largely because it was the point of meeting of three nations, but as the capital of the Empire it was full of defects. It had no proper communication with the sea ; it was shut off from the main body of the State by the great barrier of the Alps. Finally, all through the third and fourth centuries the centre of political gravity was shifting steadily eastwards ; it is doubtful whether it had not begun to do so long before. Rome had already lost all but the superstitious reverence which was paid to it as the legendary Mistress of the World ; it seems to have had little or no commercial importance. It was only a vast assemblage of magnificent public buildings and streets, surrounded by walls that, for all the use they were, had better never Jiave been built, in- habited by a huge debased, pauperized population a mere source of endless trouble and expense. The merits of Byzantium were apparent to none more clearly than to Constantine, who had been encamped outside it for nearly a year, and had ample time to appreciate at their full value its many advantages. It lay on the border-line between East and West, and right on one of the most important of the great trade routes. Its military position was exceptionally fine. Not only was it tactically almost impregnable, if properly fortified and guarded, but it was a strategic centre of the first order, an unrivalled place of arms for war on land and sea. On the Asiatic side it was covered by the great wet ditch of the Bosphorus, impassable to any enemy not possessed of a navy. Even if Chalcedon and Chrysopolis were lost, the power which held Byzantium, so long as it maintained a naval force, was still unassailable. On the side of Europe, Haemus and Rhodope covered Thrace and Byzantium if the line of the Danube were forced ; and the city, at the end of its long dwindling peninsula, was the natural base for advance and goal of retreat, the true centre and rallying-point of the strength of the Empire. We need not deal with the supposed marvels that are said to have attended the second foundation of Byzantium. All through 328 and 329 the work went steadily on, and on May 11, 330, the city was solemnly dedicated and consecrated with Christian ceremonies, though Constantine was yet unbaptized. It was renamed 'New Rome' by imperial edict, but from the very first the name of its founder clung to it, and for sixteen centuries the world has stoutly refused to give the City of the Bosphorus any other title than that of Constantinople. The name of the first Christian Emperor of Rome has most rightly been ever associated with that of the city which he chose from among many as the capital of his Empire, while with the appellation of the State which centred in it is justly connected the name of the Megarean leader who colonized the unrivalled site which the blind men before him had neglected for Chalcedon. Constantinople as planned by Constantine did not cover the area over which it spread in afteryears. The length of its walls was barely eight miles, and the extent of ground enclosed only half of what it afterwards became. In 413 the great Prefect Anthemius began the construction of a new line of fortifications on the landward side, from threequarters of a mile to a mile in advance of the Constantinian Wall.
This was ruined by an earthquake in 447, at a moment of extreme peril, when the terrible Attila was but a few marches away ; but in sixty days the shattered barrier was defensible once more, and soldiers, citizens, and craftsmen, were labouring feverishly at the construction of a second wall in front of the first. In succeeding years the work was completed, and in the days when the warrior Marcianus and the saint Pulcheria again renewed the glory of the Empire the great capital stood forth in all its splendour and enduring strength. The length of its fortifications extended to about thirteen miles. From the Marble Tower on the Propontis to the Xylo Porta on the Golden Horn stretched for four miles a vast bulwark of defence. For the greater part of its length it was triple. First came a huge moat, 60 feet wide and at least 20 feet deep, with a low stone wall or breastwork along its inner edge. Behind the breastwork was —and is—an esplanade about 40 feet wide, over- looked by the Outer (really the Second) Wall, a structure from 25 to 30 feet high and 7 feet thick, strengthened by casemates on its inner side, with towers about 40 feet in height projecting at short intervals. The earth was banked up against its inner side, and levelled to form a second esplanade, averaging 60 feet in width, from the city side of which rose the Inner Wall, a huge barrier 45 feet from base to battlement, rising in places to 50 feet or more, with a solid thickness of about 1 5 feet, and with ninety-seven towers along its front, projecting about 30 feet into the peribolos, or esplanade, and rising to an average height of over 60 feet. This gigantic system of fortifications did not extend quite to the Golden Horn, but ended at the Xylokerkus Gate, a quarter of a mile short of it, whence a single wall extended like a bastion round the quarter of Blachernse. This single wall, however, extended and strengthened by several Emperors, was of great strength and solidity, and, though undefended by a ditch, appeared ^o strong to Mohammed II. in 1453 that he did not care to direct his attack against it. The entire shore-line along the Golden Horn and the Propontis was defended by walls, lower and weaker than the vast landward bulwarks, of course, but strengthened by some 300 towers, and, as events showed, strong enough for all purposes, except the unforeseen chance of a total lack of ships and trained defenders. The Imperial Palatial Enclosure lay at the eastern end of the city, along the Propontine shore. In a work of the small dimensions of the present one, space would be wasted in attempting any description. It was more of what in Russia is called a kreml than a palace, containing several imperial residences, and a number of churches, barracks, armouries, storehouses, and extensive gardens and playing-fields. Beneath its walls on the city side lay the two famous churches of The Divine Wisdom and of St. Irene, the Hippodrome, and the Palace of the Patriarch ; while before its main gate opened the ' Augustaeon,' or Imperial Square, from which the main thoroughfare of the city ran westward for more than a mile, traversing the Fora of Constantine and Theodosius, and presently dividing into two branches, one passing north-westward to the Gate of Adrianople, by the great church of The Holy Apostles, the mausoleum of the Emperors; one running parallel to the Propontine shore to the famous Golden Gate, beneath whose arches conquering Emperors entered in triumphal procession the city of their pride. The means do not exist of mapping or describing the city in the days of its greatest prosperity, which were probably in the tenth century ; but only a hundred years after its foundation it counted over 250 large public buildings and 4,400 private dwellings belonging to wealthy or distinguished citizens. A feature of the city was the gigantic reservoirs for the public watersupply. Valens constructed an aqueduct which was broken in the great siege of 626, and restored by Constantine VI. more than a century later. Churches were to be counted probably by the hundred rather than the score ; many yet survive, desecrated and defiled by the presence of the barbarians who are still encamped in the city of Constantine—among them the wondrous Sancta Sophia and St. Irene ; but the Church of the Holy Apostles was destroyed to make way for the mosque of the conqueror Mohammed II., as the imperial palaces and hundreds of other buildings of antiquarian and historical interest were swept away either by barbar- ous Europe or barbarous Asia in the ruin and desolation that supervened after the sack of 1204. The suburbs of the great capital were Galata across the Golden Horn, Chrysopolis and Chalcedon on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. The great port was, of course, the Golden Horn, but on the Propontine side there were four basins of larger or smaller size, one of which, however, belonged exclusively to the Imperial Palace.
It is impossible to estimate the population with any certainty. It is supposed at the present day to be about or over 1,000,000, but of course no reliance can be placed upon Turkish returns. The area of the Stambouline Peninsula is about 4,000 acres, according to the writer's very rough calculations, which at the rate—a high one as compared with that of London—of 100 inhabitants per acre would give a population of 400,000. Many writers estimate it at 1,000,000 or more, but I do not see that it can ever have greatly exceeded 500,000. It is true that the city parks and pleasure-gardens, then as now, were without the walls, but there were many large squares and unoccupied spaces within them. Possibly, allowing for the denser crowding which prevailed in antiquity, and the population of the Asiatic and European suburbs, there may have been at times as many as 700,000 inhabitants. Of the city's wealth there can be no doubt. For several centuries it was the commercial capital of Europe and of a considerable part of Asia, and for a great part of that period it had no foreign rival- Benjamin of Tudela thinks that in the twelfth century, when the Italian republics were already competing with it, its yearly contribution to the imperial revenue was 7,300,000 nomismata (over ;^4,ooo,ooo). Gibbon can hardly credit this ; from the standpoint of the eighteenth century he cannot be blamed for his incredulity. But it is quite probable. Constantinople was to the Empire what London is to Britain, only more so, for during a large part of its existence it had few foreign rivals, or none ; and there was no city in the Byzantine dominions to approach it, far less to equal it. It was the terminus of the chief routes of the Empire.
Itlay upon a main artery of medieval commerce, and the ruin in Western Europe drove trade and industry more and more to the East, thus adding to its already great commercial prosperity. It was the greatest fortress, the greatest naval station, the greatest arsenal, of the State ; its chief University, its religious centre, its seat of government, its commercial focus ; in short, as few cities have ever been or can be, the true natural centre of the Empire, its Queen of Cities, the heart and soul of its national existence—indeed a peerless capital.
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