The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (15 page)

Basil himself forbore to reply. Instead, he referred the question to the theoretically neutral representatives of the other three Patriarchates: Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Neither he nor anyone else present had any doubt as to what the answer would be. The papal legates, in a minority of two, protested as forcibly as they could; but nobody took much notice. In the highest possible dudgeon they took ship for Rome; and their tempers could hardly have been improved when, as their vessel entered the Adriatic, they were seized by Dalmatian pirates who stripped them of all that they possessed and held them for nine months before allowing them to continue on their journey.

And so Bulgaria returned to the Orthodox fold, in which it has remained to the present day; and with Photius out of the way Boris had no difficulty in finally getting what he wanted. In St Sophia on
4
March, Ignatius consecrated a Bulgarian archbishop and several bishops. Technically they were to remain under the authority of Constantinople, but in the day-to-day running of their affairs they were to be autonomous. Basil had given his full approval; he was fully conscious, however, of the price he had had to pay - his recent
rapprochement
with Rome, for which Photius had been sacrificed in vain.

The second embassy to arrive on the Bosphorus that February carried a letter from Lewis II. Its tone was distinctly unpleasant. The Emperor of the West considered that he had been insulted, and was writing to express his indignation. Two years before, while he had been unsuccessfully laying siege to Muslim-held Bari, Basil had offered him the services of the Byzantine navy, proposing at the same time a marriage between his eldest son Constantine and Lewis's daughter Hermingarde. Lewis had sent a favourable reply, and in
869
the fleet had set sail for Bari. It had arrived, however, only after the Franks had gone into their winter quarters, and the Byzantine admiral Nicetas had been horrified to find his new allies not only far fewer in number than he had been led to expect but roaring drunk into the bargain. He had immediately sought out the Emperor and, scarcely bothering to conceal his contempt, had addressed him as
King
of the Franks. Lewis had protested and a furious argument had ensued, in consequence of which Nicetas and most of the fleet had returned at once to Constantinople, the Frankish envoys following shortly afterwards. Admitted to Basil's presence, they left him in no doubt of their master's wrath - simultaneously emphasizing his claim, not just to the title of Emperor of the Franks but to another, more resonant still, which the Byzantines had withheld even from Charlemagne:
I
mperator Romanorum,
Emperor of the Romans.
1

Thus, within a matter of weeks, Basil had antagonized both his prospective allies. Where the Pope was concerned, the recovery of Bulgaria had been a worthwhile
quid pro quo;
but the quarrel with Lewis brought no compensating advantage — only an acrimonious correspondence over his claim, in the course of which both parties became more and more deeply entrenched in the positions that they already held. Since both were also rivals for the possession of south Italy, their relations might easily have deteriorated still further, to the point of open war; fortunately, however; the Emperor fell foul of Adelchis, the Lombard Duke of Benevento, by whom in
871
he and his wife were both taken prisoner; they were given their freedom only after Lewis had sworn on the Gospels that he would never again enter the territory of the Duchy under arms. He soon obtained papal dispensation from his enforced oath and in
872
actually managed to drive the Saracens
from Capua; but thereafter his strength began to fail and he retired to the north, where three years later he died near Brescia, leaving no male heir.

While the Byzantine fleet was occupied - or, more accurately, unoccupied - in the Adriatic, the bulk of the army was engaged in the East. Here the Empire had not one enemy but two: the Saracens and the Paulicians, whose numbers were once again on the increase and who were now spreading westward across Asia Minor. In two whirlwind campaigns Basil and his brother-in-law Christopher drove deep into their heartland, and in 872 destroyed the fortified city of Tephrike, the principal base for their raiding operations, killing their leader Chrysocheirus. Then, having effectively eliminated the Paulician threat in the region, they turned their attention to the Saracens, for the next ten years keeping up a continual pressure which won them Zapetra and Samosata, together with several other strongholds in the Euphrates Valley. Admittedly there were failures too: Melitene, always a trouble spot, stubbornly resisted all attempts to take it by storm, and in 883 the imperial forces suffered a serious setback near Tarsus which briefly robbed them of their momentum. But not for long: those first victories by Bardas and Petronas almost thirty years before could now be seen for what they were: not just a few neglible flashes in the pan, but the beginning of a sustained and spectacular advance which would reach its climax only with the campaigns of the Emperors Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces, a hundred years into the future.

In Western Europe, Byzantine successes were on much the same scale. True, Basil failed in his attempts to recover Crete and Sicily — whose last major stronghold, Syracuse, was to fall in 878; but he was able to expel the Saracens from the entire Dalmatian coast (which became an imperial Theme) and in 873 established his suzerainty over Adelchis of Benevento. The same year saw the recovery of Otranto, and three years later Bari too recognized him as its overlord. With this vital bridgehead under his control he was able to launch a major offensive in the following decade as a result of which, thanks to the brilliant general Nicephorus Phocas,
2
virtually the whole of south Italy was restored to Byzantine authority before the end of the century. To the Papacy and the Western Empire alike, there could be no clearer indication that Byzantium had surrendered

1
The modern Divrigi - where, three and a half centuries later, the Seljuk Turks were to build one of the most remarkable mosques in all Anatolia.

2
Not, of course, to be confused with his grandson the Emperor.

none of its claims to Italian dominion. Nor were these victories confined to operations on land. The imperial navy, after a long period of neglect, had been taken in hand by Theoctistus and Bardas, who had made it once again a force to be reckoned with; Basil now energetically continued the work that they had begun, and it was thanks above all to him - and to his son and grandson after him - that it was to become the envy of all their rivals, the most efficient and highly trained that the world had ever seen, patrolling the coasts, policing the high seas and attacking the Saracen raiding parties whenever and wherever they might be found.

Missionary work too went on apace. One by one the Slav tribes of the Balkans embraced the Christian faith; and although Roman influence was to prevail in Croatia and the northern part of the Dalmatian coast -and also in Moravia, where Cyril and Methodius had had to admit defeat - in Serbia, Macedonia and Greece the Orthodox rule and the supremacy of Constantinople were alike enthusiastically adopted.

Much of this success can be dated to the second Patriarchate of Ignatius. Paradoxically, however, it was precisely these ecclesiastical triumphs which led to the return of Photius from exile. His recall is unlikely to have caused him much surprise. He knew that his followers were just as numerous as those of his rival, and a good deal more intelligent; and during his seven-year banishment it became patently obvious that the sudden and dramatic expansion of the Orthodox faith was creating huge problems, both theological and administrative, with which the ill-educated old Patriarch was totally unfitted to deal. Ignatius had watched, helpless but perhaps secretly relieved, as more and more self-confessed Photians were promoted to key positions in the hierarchy; he seems to have raised no objection when, in
874
or
875,
their leader himself was recalled to the capital, given charge of the University of The Magnaura and, in a surely conclusive demonstration of confidence, entrusted with the education of the Emperor's sons; and when, on
23
October
877,
he finally expired at the age of eighty, it was Photius who for the second time assumed the patriarchal throne
1
and who three

1 The Continuator tells an extraordinary story of how Photius engineered his own recall by fabricating a document that purported to trace Basil's descent from the Parthians of ancient Persia. This he arranged to be placed in the imperial library and produced, as if by chance, during a visit by the Emperor - who, when he sought an interpretation, was to be told that only Photius was sufficiently learned to provide one. This story could just possibly be true: Basil was for ever trying to glorify his ancestry, and Photius was certainly more than capable of such a deception.

years later received — not that he particularly wanted it - official recognition from Pope John VIII.

During this Indian summer of his extraordinary career, Photius composed what must be considered a form of testament, setting out for posterity his view of the office of Patriarch and its relationship with the imperial throne. To place this in its proper context, however, we must look for a moment at another of Basil's achievements, and a particularly remarkable one for the illiterate 'Macedonian' that he was: his revision of Roman law. Such a revision, on such a scale, had not been attempted since the days of Justinian, over three centuries before; and although Leo III had produced a short work known as the
Ecl
oga,
designed as a practical companion for working judges, this itself was now inadequate and obsolete. Basil's intention was to produce a mighty compendium which he described as an
anacath
arsis
- or purification — of the old laws, which would once again be collected, collated and where necessary reconciled; but it was never completed in his lifetime, nor ever as originally conceived. What did appear was a shorter work known as the
Procheiron,
or Handbook, which contained a resume of the most important and regularly applicable legislation, grouped for convenience under forty principal headings. This was followed, towards the end of Basil's reign - indeed it bears the names of his sons Leo and Alexander as well as his own - by the
Epanagoge,
or Summary. Much of this second work is little more than a rearrangement of the first, but it is supplemented by a body of new material dealing with the rights and responsibilities of the Emperor, the Patriarch and various other high dignitaries of Church and State; and in it the hand of Photius is unmistakable. According to the theory there propounded, the Byzantine Empire is a single polity headed joindy by Emperor and Patriarch, working together in parallel for the material and spiritual well-being of their subjects. Such, it is true, had by no means been the pattern during most of the past century; but though the hypothesis might represent an ideal dispensation rather than the real one it was no less valid on that account. The pity was that it was not to enjoy universal endorsement - as the Patriarch was soon to discover to his cost.

There seems little doubt that — at least during the final decade of his reign - Basil began to see himself as another Justinian and to act accordingly. He was reconquering Italy; he was collecting and revising the laws; and he had also embarked on a vast building programme, with all the enthusiasm of his illustrious exemplar and on a similarly ambitious scale. There had been few new constructions under the ninth-century iconoclasts until the days of Theophilus, who had deliberately restricted his own programme to domestic architecture. Not only had no new churches been built; many of the older ones had been culpably neglected and were now in urgent need of repair — including St Sophia itself, where the great western arch had been damaged in the severe earthquake of
9
January
869
and was now in imminent danger of collapse. Basil saved it in the nick of time, and adorned it with a mosaic of the Virgin and Child, flanked by SS. Peter and Paul.' The old Church of the Holy Apostles was in a still sorrier state. Originally founded by Constantine, it had been completely rebuilt by Justinian; but the foundations had always been inadequate and it was now crumbling again. Basil repaired it from top to bottom, revetting the lower walls with slabs of polychrome marble and covering the upper parts with mosaics depicting the entire life of Christ from the Annunciation to the Passion. Many other, humbler shrines were similarly restored and in several cases re-roofed, the old wooden roofs - always a dangerous fire risk - being replaced by new ones of stone, frequently domed.

But the Emperor's greatest architectural triumph was his new church which - although formally dedicated to St Michael, the Prophet Elijah,
2
the Mother of God and St Nicholas - was always called just that: the Nea. It stood within the precincts of the Great Palace, immediately to the east of the Emperor's private apartments, and no expense was spared on either its construction or its decoration. If Basil was the Justinian of his day, this was his St Sophia. Its cluster of gilded domes could be seen from all over the city and from far out at sea; within the central rotunda was a dazzling mosaic of Christ Pantocrator - the Ruler of All - while the others carried representations of angels and archangels, martyrs and apostles, patriarchs and prophets. Most sumptuous of all - according to Photius, who has left us a detailed description of the whole church - was the iconostasis, which was of gold and silver, studded with precious stones. Behind it, the high altar was 'of a material more precious than gold' - presumably it too was set with jewels and enamels - and surmounted by a ciborium on columns of silver-gilt. Of the three apses

1 This was to be destroyed, aias, in the even greater earthquake of 26 October 989. See C. Mango,
The
Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul,
pp. 76-80.

2
Who was said to have appeared to Basil's mother in a dream, encouraging her to allow her son to travel to Constantinople, where a glorious future awaited him.