Decline & Fall - Byzantium 03 (3 page)

The Caesar was now living in r
etirement on his estate at Moro
boundos, some miles away. He was taking his afternoon siesta when the messenger arrived, but was roused by his little grandson with the news of the revolt. At first he refused to believe it and boxed the boy's ears; then the message was handed to him. According to Anna Comnena, it contained the thinly veiled invitation quoted at the head of this chapter; and that, for John Ducas, was enough. He called for his horse and set off at once for Tsouroulos. Before long he met an imperial tax collector, on his way back to Constantinople with a considerable quantity of gold for the Treasury, whom he somehow persuaded to accompany him. Later he encountered a group of Turks; they too agreed, in return for the promise of large rewards, to join the rebellion. Not surprisingly, the full party received a jubilant welcome when it reached the waiting army.

After two or three more days - during which several other important adherents rallied to the cause - Alexius and Isaac gave the order to march. Up to this moment, surprisingly enough, there seems to have been no suggestion of acclaiming a new Emperor; only when they

1 Chalandon
(Essai sur
le reigne d’Alexis 1er Comnene
)
refuses to accept that this meeting was an accident. If so, he argues, why - as Anna Comnena specifically reports
(The Alexiad,
Book II) - did George Palacologus, by his own admission, have all his movable wealth with him? Is it not more likely that the whole thing had been carefully planned in advance, and that George was in fact an accomplice from the beginning? What Anna actually reports, however, is that this wealth had been deposited with the monastery. She docs not seem to see anything surprising in this and nor, I think, should we. She adds that Palaeologus was at first most reluctant to give the Comneni his support, and that he finally did so only at the insistence of his mother-in-law. Why, at such a moment, should he have feigned opposition if it were not genuine?

stopped for the night at the little village of Schiza was the question put to the army, and even then in the form of a choice: whom would they prefer as
basileus,
Alexius or Isaac? It was not altogether the foregone conclusion that might have been imagined: Isaac - who was after all the elder, and whose military successes in the East had already earned him the Dukedom of Antioch - had plenty of champions among the soldiers. But he himself seemed happy to defer to his brother, and the influence of the Ducas family finally carried the day. Alexius was enthusiastically acclaimed with the imperial titles and, there and then, formally shod with the purple buskins, embroidered in gold with the double-headed eagles of Byzantium, which were reserved for the Emperor - and which, we can only assume, he had prudently abstracted from the palace before leaving.

The new claimant and his brother were not the only members of their family in revolt against Botaneiates. On the very day of the ceremony at Schiza, their brother-in-law Nicephorus Melissenus — husband of their sister Eudocia - had drawn up his own rebel army at Chrysopolis,
1
immediately opposite Constantinople on the Asiatic shore of the Bospho-rus. Having just arrived from distant Anatolia, Nicephorus had till then heard nothing of their activities; when he did, he at once sent a letter to Alexius suggesting that they should divide the Empire between them, one taking the East, the other the West. Alexius had no intention of sharing his Empire with anyone; fearing, however, that a categorical refusal might induce his brother-in-law to make common cause with Botaneiates against him, he deliberately prevaricated with a noncommittal reply. Meanwhile he pressed on with all speed to the capital.

He was still uncertain of his next step. There could obviously be no question of a siege: having himself defended Constantinople against the forces of Bryennius three and a half years before, he knew that those great triple ramparts could withstand forces far greater than any that he might fling against them. A day or two's careful reconnaissance with the Caesar, however, suggested to him that although certain of the regiments defending the various sections of the walls (the Varangian Guard, for example, or the so-called 'Immortals') could be trusted to fight to the death for the reigning Emperor, others might prove susceptible to blandishments of one kind or another - most notably the regiment made

1 The modern U
skudar - the Turkish form of the Greek Scutari, to which the city's name was changed in the twelfth century after the construction of the imperial palace of Scutarion.

up of Germanic tribesmen who guarded the Adrianople Gate. Somehow George Palaeologus managed to make contact with their leader, and the matter was soon settled. One evening, just as darkness had begun to fall, he and a few followers put ladders against one of the German-held towers and slipped over the bastion; then, under cover of night, Alexius concentrated his entire force at the foot of the tower. By daybreak all was ready. Palaeologus, standing high on the wall, gave the signal; his men opened the gates from within; and the rebel army poured into Constantinople.

It met w
ith little resistance. The citiz
ens had scant love or respect for their old Emperor. A good many of them must have known that he was bound to be deposed sooner or later, and were probably only too happy to see him replaced by an energetic and popular young general. What they did not expect was to be treated like a conquered enemy; but the barbarian element in Alexius's army was too strong, and quickly infected the rest. No sooner were the soldiers inside the walls than they scattered in all directions, looting, pillaging and raping; before long they were joined by the local riff-raff, and confusion quickly spread throughout the city, to the point where the success of the whole operation seemed in doubt and those who had remained loyal to the legitimate Emperor began to wonder whether the insurgents might not after all be defeated. One of these was Nicephorus, father of George Palaeologus, who had been horrified by his son's defection; another was Alexius's old enemy Borilus, who seems to have possessed some kind of military command and who now drew up the Varangian Guard, with such other units as could be implicitly relied on, in close order between the Forum of Constantine and the Milion.
1

Botaneiates himself, on the other hand, knew that he was beaten. An attempt to enlist the services of Melissenus and his men had been frustrated by the imperial fleet, which had been won over by George Palaeologus and now blocked the straits, and he no longer possessed the will to resist. The aged and much-respected Patriarch Cosmas was imploring him to abdicate in order to avoid the shedding of any more Christian blood; in fact, he needed little persuasion. His first offer, brought to the Comneni by Nicephorus Palaeologus, was that he should adopt Alexius as his son, make him his co-Emperor and surrender to

1
The 'First Milestone' - in fact a set of four triumphal arches forming a square - from which all the distances in the Empire were measured. It stood some hundred yards south-west of St Sophia. Sec
Byzantium: The Early Centuries,
p. 65.

him all effective authority, retaining only his imperial title and privileges; but when this was scornfully rejected by the Caesar John he did not argue. Covering his imperial robes in a loose cloak, he crossed the square to the church of St Sophia, where he declared his formal abdication. Later he was sent on to the monastery of the Peribleptos, the huge and hideous building on the Seventh Hill endowed by his distant predecessor Romanus Argyrus half a century before,
1
where he embraced — somewhat reluctantly, it must be said — the monastic life. Anna Comnena tells of how, some time afterwards, a friend came to visit him and asked how he was getting on. 'Abstinence from meat,' the old man answered, 'is the only thing that worries me; the other matters give me little concern.'
2

The young man who now found himself the seventy-sixth Emperor of Byzantium was short and stocky, with broad shoulders and a deep chest. His eyes, deep-set beneath arched, heavy eyebrows, were gentle but curiously penetrating. His beard was thick and full. Even his daughter Anna admits that when standing he did not strike people as particularly impressive; once seated on the throne, however, it was a different matter: 'he reminded one of a fiery whirlwind . . . radiating beauty and grace and dignity and an unapproachable majesty'.
3
Particularly when she writes of her father, Anna's testimony must obviously be treated with caution; at the same time there can have been little doubt among those with whom Alexius came in contact that he would prove the ablest ruler since Basil II and that, for the first time in over half a century, the Empire was again in strong and capable hands.

On his arrival at the Great Palace he went immediately to work. The overriding need was to reimpose discipline over his soldiers; not only because he would rightly be held responsible for their recent behaviour, but because if they were not properly controlled there was always the possibility that they might break out into open mutiny. The task was not easy, since by now they had permeated every district and thoroughfare in the capital; but after twenty-four hours they had been rounded up and confined to their barracks to cool off. Constantinople was again at peace. But Alexius was a Byzantine, and his conscience still troubled him. It

1
See
Byzantium: The Apogee,
pp. 274-5.

2
The Alexiad,
III, 1. All quotations from
The A
lexiad
are based on the translation by E. R. A. Sewter.

3Ibid., Ill, 3.

was he, after all, who had brought these barbarians into the city; was he not as guilty — perhaps guiltier - than they? On his mother's advice he confessed his anxieties to the Patriarch, who set up an ecclesiastical tribunal to settle the matter. There was, the tribunal concluded, evidence of guilt: the Emperor, his family and all who had participated in the
coup
- together with their wives - were sentenced to an appropriate period of fasting and to various other acts of penance. He himself, according to his daughter, went even further: for a further forty days and nights he wore a coat of sackcloth beneath the imperial purple, sleeping on the ground with only a stone for a pillow.

Meanwhile, however, there were serious affairs of state to be dealt with - and, in particular, the breach which was already appearing between his own followers and the family of Ducas. Its point of departure was the relationship between himself and the Empress Mary of Alania. As the wife of the deposed
basileus,
she might have been expected to leave the palace on his arrival; in fact she did nothing of the kind. True, she was also the new Emperor's adoptive mother; but even that did little to explain Alexius's decision to settle his fifteen-year-old wife Irene Ducas in another, smaller palace on lower ground, together with her mother, her sisters and her paternal grandfather the Caesar, while he himself remained with the fabulously beautiful Mary at the Boucoleon.
1
The reaction of the Ducas family to this arrangement can well be imagined; they had supported the Comneni not for any reasons of special affection, but simply because Alexius was married to one of their own clan. George Palaeologus — Irene's brother-in-law — had actually admitted as much when a party of Comnenus supporters had refused to couple her name with her husband's in their acclamations. 'It was not for your sakes,' he had told them, 'that I won so great a victory, but because of that Irene that you speak of; and after winning over the fleet he had insisted that all the sailors should cheer for both Irene and Alexius - in that order.

But the indignation was not confined to George and his family. Rumours spread quickly through the city. Some whispered that Alexius was planning to divorce his child wife to become the Empress's third husband; others, that the real force behind these sinister developments

1
The Great Palace of Constantinople was not a single building. Instead - not unlike the Palace of Topkapi, its Ottoman successor on the same site - it was a collection of small palaces and pavilions, occupying the entire hillside that slopes downward between St Sophia and the Sea of Marmara. The Boucoleon was one of the more important of these palaces, with its own small harbour below it.

was his mother, the formidable Anna Dalassena, who had always hated the Ducas and was determined - now that her son was safely on the throne — to remove the family once and for all from power and influence. The first of these rumours may well have been true; the second certainly was. A few days later on Easter Sunday, still more dangerously inflammable fuel was added to the flames when Alexius refused to allow his wife to share his coronation.

To the Ducas, and indeed to all respectable Byzantines, this was a gratuitous insult. By long tradition, an Empress was not simply an Emperor's wife; once crowned she was the holder of a recognized rank, which carried considerable power. She had a court of her own and enjoyed absolute control over her own immense revenues; and she played an indispensable part in many of the chief ceremonies of the Empire. There is evidence to suggest that Alexius himself was far from happy at excluding his wife from the coronation that they should have shared. He may have cherished no great love for the Ducas, but he unquestionably owed them an enormous debt; besides, was it really sensible to antagonize, almost before his reign had begun, the most powerful family of the entire Byzantine nobility? For the moment, he allowed his mother to persuade him; but it was not long before he realized that this time she - and consequently he - had seriously overstepped the mark.