The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (19 page)

For a short time all was well. Zoe soon found herself pregnant, and the Emperor eagerly awaited the son that the astrologers had promised him. Alas, the child proved to be another girl, who was given the name of Anna; but this was only the first - and least - of the misfortunes that he was called upon to suffer as the century drew to its close. The second was the death, in the spring of
899,
of Stylian Zautses. As Leo's chief minister he had served the Emperor faithfully - if not always selflessly -for thirteen years, and being also his father-in-law had been granted the unprecedented title of
basileopator.
Leo had given him his total trust, and implicitly relied on his judgement and experience; his loss came as a bitter blow. But worse yet was in store: at the end of that same year Zoe herself succumbed to some mysterious disease. Their long-awaited idyll had lasted just two years.

Leo's grief was, there is every reason to believe, deep and genuine; but there was no doubt in his mind that he must take a third wife. He had never been strong, and his health was causing him increasing concern; meanwhile his brother Alexander, with whom he theoretically shared the throne, was rapidly destroying himself with drink and debauchery and showed every sign of predeceasing him. In such an event, and in the absence of any son to succeed, the Empire would once again be imperilled, the prize of any adventurer who might attempt to seize it. And there was another consideration too: that only if an ordered and regular succession were guaranteed could there be any hope of a consistent long-term policy. The century that was just closing had proved both these points beyond any reasonable doubt: again and again the throne had been acquired by guile, or violence, or both. On the iconoclast question alone, the pendulum had swung so wildly to and fro that the majority of the Emperor's subjects could have been forgiven for feeling heartily sick of the whole business. What was required was a single, numerous, imperial family: a family whose members would all share similar opinions on the major issues of the day and in which the diadem would pass smoothly, ineluctably, from father to son or uncle to nephew, each pursuing the policies of his predecessor and giving the

Empire the consistency and continuity that it had so notably lacked in the recent past. But such a desirable a state of affairs could never be achieved in the absence of a generally accepted heir. Inevitably, this led to a disputed succession, which was in turn the fundamental evil from which all the others sprang: the plots and intrigues, the palace revolutions and the
coups d'etat,
the poindess and bewildering changes of policy. The conclusion was obvious: the Emperor must marry a third time, and have a son.

But was such a thing permitted? The early Fathers of the Church -including SS. Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine - had adopted a fairly lenient view. Premature deaths from disease or childbirth were frequent in those days, and for a man to take a second wife after the loss of his first, or even a third after that of his second, seemed to them pardonable enough — particularly since it was, in the majority of cases, bound to happen anyway. In the East, on the other hand, the accepted code of conduct was more stringent. St Basil — always the most authoritative voice - had reluctantly permitted second marriages, so long as those concerned did suitable penance; third marriages, however, he firmly disallowed. They were at best what he called 'moderated fornication', and carried the penalty for both parties of four years' denial of the Sacrament. As for anyone ill-advised enough to attempt matrimony for the fourth time, they were guilty of something far worse than fornication, moderated or not. Their crime was polygamy, 'a practice bestial and wholly alien to humankind', for which a canonical penalty of no less than eight years was enjoined.

But Emperors were not necessarily bound by the same laws as their subjects, least of all when state interests were involved. Leo's brother, the Patriarch Stephen, had unfortunately died in
893;
but his successor, the moderate and easy-going Antony Cauleas, was quite ready to grant the necessary dispensation and during the summer of
900,
in the last of those curious beauty competitions or 'bride shows' ever held at the court of Constantinople, Leo selected a ravishing girl from Phrygia named Eudocia Baiana as his new consort. She tried hard, and on Easter Sunday,
12
April
901
presented her husband with a son. Alas, she died while doing so, and the baby prince survived her by only a few days.
1

Leo, however, refused to give up. He was still only thirty-five, and

1 An indication of the disapproval felt by many of the more strait-laced clerics of Constantinople was afforded by the abbot of the monastery of St Lazarus, who refused point-blank to allow her to be buried within the monastic precincts.

his determination to propagate his dynasty was as firm as ever. A fourth marriage, on the other hand, would be a good deal harder to arrange than the third had been, and even if he succeeded would unquestionably be his last chance. Before embarking on it, he had to be sure of his ground. His first step was, therefore, to take as his mistress the strikingly beautiful niece of the admiral Himerius, Zoe Carbonopsina - 'with eyes as black as coal'. (One feels throughout this story that however pressing may have been the reasons of state that impelled Leo to continue on his quest for a son, the process was not altogether uncongenial to him.) Illicit as it was, he made no secret of this union, which the Church — while not in any way condoning it - infinitely preferred to the idea of yet another marriage; nor was there any great wave of indignation or censure when, a year or two later, Zoe gave birth to a girl. Finally, however, in September
905,
she produced a son. Small and sickly though he was, the Emperor's immediate ambition was achieved. The Patriarch, on the other hand, found himself in a quandary. He could not contemplate the possibility of the Emperor's marrying again; neither, however, could there be any question of Leo and his mistress living indefinitely in open sin. Finally agreement was reached: the Emperor would remove Zoe from the Palace, after which the Patriarch would consent to baptize his son in St Sophia. And so it came about: on the Epiphany following,
6
January
906,
the baptism took place, the baby prince being given the name of Constantine.

That hurdle having been successfully crossed, however, Leo had no intention of maintaining a celibate life. Only three days later he brought Zoe back to the Palace, where he was already contemplating his next step. His son had been received into the Church, but he was still a bastard and, as such, debarred from the throne. Somehow he must be legitimized, and that could be achieved in one way only - by presenting the Patriarch with a
fait accompli.
And so Leo did the only sensible thing. He asked no permissions, gave no warnings. Quietly, almost secretly, in the private chapel of the Palace and before a simple parish priest, he and Zoe went through a form of marriage. Only when the ceremony was over did he make public what he had done and proclaim his new wife Empress.

For eight years the storm had been gathering; now it broke. The Church exploded in fury. St Basil was quoted
ad nauseam;
the Patriarch publicly reminded the Emperor that he had consented to perform the baptism of his son only on the understanding that his unseemly liaison was to be broken off forthwith. There could be no question of the fourth marriage being recognized: Leo himself had been joint signatory, with his father and his brother Constantine, of the article in the civil code which read:

Let it now be absolutely clear to all, that if any shall dare to proceed to a fourth marriage, which is no marriage, not merely shall such a pretended marriage be of no validity and the offspring of it be illegitimate, but it shall be subject to the punishment prescribed for those who are soiled with the filth of fornication, it being understood that the persons who have indulged in it shall be separated from each other.

In fact, where the civil code was concerned, Leo could have claimed immunity. He could even have issued a new decree annulling the former one and declaring fourth marriages lawful. Against canon law, on the other hand, he was powerless. Somehow, therefore, he must obtain a special dispensation; but how was this to be done? Had his brother still been alive and in occupation of the patriarchal chair, things might have been arranged without too much difficulty - though Stephen might have had a hard time carrying his colleagues with him. But he and his successor Antony Cauleas were both dead, the latter having been succeeded in
901
by a certain Nicholas, a nephew of Photius who had formerly served as the Emperor's private secretary. Left to himself, Nicholas too would probably have agreed to the dispensation; it was his misfortune to find himself confronted with Arethas, Bishop of Caesarea, the foremost scholar of the day and now to prove his most implacable enemy.

Although Leo liked to congratulate himself that he had brought peace to the Church through the Synod of
899,
and although the two protagonists of the recent schism had long been in their graves, the Photian and Ignatian factions were still very much alive and continuing to threaten the unity of Orthodoxy. Both by training and inclination, Arethas had been for the first half-century of his life a dedicated Photian. Intellectually he was probably the only man in the Empire who could hold a candle to his master; he had published scholarly editions of several classical writers and was himself the author of one of the earliest Greek commentaries on the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, however, his writings had given mortal offence to the Ignatians, who at Easter
900
had had him arraigned on a charge of atheism. The proceedings had in fact ended in his acquittal, but he was a bitter and vindictive man who never forgot an injury; and when Nicholas, his friend and fellow-Photian, had been appointed Patriarch in the following year the bishop had pressed him to take immediate action against those who had done him wrong. Nicholas however had refused, pointing out that he had promised the Emperor as a condition of his appointment that he would do everything in his power to heal the breach between the two sides; the incident was closed, and to resurrect it would serve only to stir up the old animosities again to no purpose. Arethas, furious, had sworn revenge.

The issue of the Emperor's fourth marriage gave him just the opportunity he wanted. Inevitably, it had developed on factional lines, with the intellectual, worldly-wise Photians inclined to allow Leo his dispensation for the greater good of the State while the Ignatians, bigoted and doctrinaire to the last, ranged themselves inflexibly against it. Everything that Arethas stood for should have placed him squarely in the Photian camp; his vindictiveness alone drove him to adopt the line taken by the Ignatians, who welcomed him with open arms. Ill-educated as they were, they could never have hoped to hold their own in argument with the sophisticated followers of Photius. Now, suddenly, they had found a voice: a man of deep theological erudition, thoroughly trained in the arts of disputation and dialectic,
1
more than a match for any of his former friends who might champion the Emperor's cause.

All through the year the debate continued, while the Ignatians -thanks entirely to Arethas — steadily gained ground and the position of Patriarch Nicholas grew ever more impossible. The Emperor, meanwhile, was losing patience; and some time during the autumn a new and daring idea seems to have formulated itself in his mind. The Photians alone, obviously, would never be strong enough to gain him his dispensation. Very well, he would seek it from the Ignatians. True, they had set their faces firmly against it; but what might they not do in return for the Patriarchate? Discreet inquiries were made - not of Arethas, who had spoken out too strongly against the fourth marriage for any compact to be possible, but of Euthymius, abbot of the monastery of Psamathia, the leader and most widely respected member of the Ignatian party before the Archbishop's adherence.

Euthymius occupies a somewhat questionable place in the history of

i Less so, however, in those of diplomacy - or he would hardly have written in a letter to the Emperor, 'Why can you not now dismiss with thanks the woman who has given you the child you desired, as we dismiss a ship when her cargo is discharged or throw away the husk which has brought the fruit to maturity?'
the Orthodox Church. Whether or not he deserved the canonization that he later received, he was certainly a profoundly religious man and a genuine ascetic. Early in his youth Leo had chosen him as his spiritual father and had built and endowed Psamathia specifically for him; but Euthymius had made no secret of his disapproval of the Emperor's treatment of Theophano or of his two subsequent marriages, and -though Leo had never lost his respect for his former mentor — relations between the two had understandably cooled. In view of both his record and his reputation — he was well known for his strict interpretations of canon law and all Church observances - one would have expected so stern a moralist to reject out of hand the proposal that was now made to him; but Leo clearly knew his man. After a decent moment of hesitation Euthymius accepted the offer of the Patriarchate and pronounced himself ready to issue the required dispensation, provided only that some respectable pretext could be found.