The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (6 page)

On this account, the Church of God remained tranquil for a number of years, and the people enjoyed peace, until the government passed from men to a woman, and the
Church became the victim of fem
inine simplicity. This woman followed the counsel of ignorant bishops; she convoked an injudicious assembly; she laid down the doctrine of painting in a material medium the Son and Word of God, and of representing the Mother of God and the Saints by dead images; and she enacted that these representations should be adored, thus heedlessly defying the proper doctrine of the Church. In such a way did she sully our adoration which is due to God alone, declaring that what should be given only to Him should be offered to lifeless icons. Furthermore she foolishly maintained that they were full of divine grace, encouraging the lighting of candles and the burning of incense before them. Thus did she cause the simple to err.

We do therefore now forbid throughout the Orthodox Church the unauthorized manufacture of pseudonymous icons; we reject the adoration denned by Tarasius;
1
we annul the decrees of his synod, on the ground that they granted to images undue honour; and we condemn the lighting of candles and the offering of incense.

1
Patriarch at the time of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of
787.

Gladly recognizing, however, the Holy Synod which met at Blachernae in the temple of the unspotted Virgin in the reigns of Constantine and Leo as firmly based on the doctrine of the Fathers, we decree that the manufacture of icons -we abstain from calling them
idols,
for there are degrees of evil - is neither worshipful nor of service.

With iconoclasm once again introduced throughout the Empire, the dangers of civil disruption removed - at least for the immediate future -and continued peace established on all his frontiers, Leo V could congratulate himself on an excellent start to his reign. Lacking any deep religious convictions of his own, he took no stringent measures against the general run of icon-worshippers who refused to submit to the new edict. A few of its most vociferous opponents - those who continued publicly to demonstrate against it and openly to defy the ban on images - were punished for form's sake: Abbot Theodore, for example, now the acknowledged leader of the iconodule camp, was thrown into three different prisons. His biographer recalls with relish his repeated floggings and the hideous extremes of heat and cold - to say nothing of the enthusiastic visitations of rats, fleas and lice - that he was called upon to endure. But then, as the Emperor would have been quick to point out, Theodore had asked for it: he had never minced words during his imperial audiences, and on the Palm Sunday before the Synod he had staged a procession in which the monks of the Studium had flagrantly paraded round the monastery, carrying all their most precious icons shoulder-high before them. More serious still, in 817, he was found to be in regular correspondence with the newly elected Pope Paschal I, not only informing him of the plight of the Orthodox faithful but on one occasion actually proposing an appeal for help to the Western Emperor. Such a proposal was obviously treasonable, and in the circumstances it was hardly surprising that Leo should have taken firm action against him. Most of those churchmen who shared his opinions found, on the other hand, that provided they kept a suitably low profile they were permitted to carry on as they always had, without molestation or interference. Leo's primary interests were State security and public order. So far as he was concerned, the doctrinal considerations so dear to Theodore and his followers were at most of secondary importance.

Inevitably, however, the edict of 815 unleashed a new wave of wholesale destruction. Any holy image, we are told, could be smashed or desecrated by any person at any time, without fear of punishment. Any vestment or piece of embroidery bearing representations of Jesus
Christ, the Virgin or the Saints was liable to be torn to shreds and trampled underfoot; painted wooden panels were smeared with ordure, attacked with axes or burnt in the public squares. The extent of the artistic loss, then and over the next twenty-eight years, may not have been as great as that sustained in the sixty-one years of iconoclasm during the previous century: the time-span of this second period was less than half that of the first, and in any case Leo and his successors possessed little of the blazing conviction that had driven Leo III and Constantine Copronymus. The fact remains that that loss must have been by any standards immense; and when we consider the breathtaking quality and pathetically small quantity of Byzantine art that has survived from before the middle of the ninth century, it is a loss that we can still feel today.

From an early stage in his career - perhaps even before the two of them had been involved in the ill-fated
revolt of Bardanes Turcus in 801
-Leo had enjoyed the close friendship of a brother-officer named Michael, who came from the Phrygian city of Amorium.
1
The bond that existed between them is not immediately easy to understand — Michael was a bluff, unlettered provincial of humble origins with some sort of impediment in his speech
2
- but it was strong enough for Leo to have stood as godfather to his son, and there is evidence to suggest that Michael gave his friend invaluable support and encouragement at the time of the battle of Versinicia and the subsequent march on the capital. When Leo rode in triumph to the Imperial Palace, the Amorian had followed immediately behind; and although, when the two dismounted to enter the building, Michael had committed an unfortunate
faux pas
by treading on the Emperor's cloak and almost dragging it off, Leo nevertheless appointed him Commander of the Excubitors - one of the crack Palace regiments — and the incident was soon forgotten.

Some time in the summer or early autumn of the year 820, however, word came to the Emperor that Michael was speaking slanderously of him and spreading sedition. Unwilling to take precipitate action against his old friend, he first instructed another of his court officials, the

1 Once the capital of the province of Anatolia and an important bishopric, Amorium is now only a few sad-looking ruins near the village of Asarkdy, some thirty-five miles south-west of Sivrihisar.

2
Most modern historians speak of it as a lisp, but it is more likely to have been a stammer -hence his nickname
Psell
us,
'the Stammerer'. (He is not of course to be confused with the later chronicler.)

Logothete of the Drome John Hexabulios - the same who had been involved in the perfidious meeting with Krum seven years before - to have a private word with him, pointing out the imprudence of his behaviour and its potential consequences; but Michael took no notice
-
As time went on he continued to speak more and more openly against his sovereign until, on Christmas Eve, Hexabulios uncovered a conspiracy in which several high-ranking military officers were believed to be implicated, and of which Michael was unquestionably the ringleader. He informed Leo, who at once had the Amorian brought before him. Confronted by unassailable evidence, Michael had no choice but to confess his guilt; and the Emperor, beside himself with rage at the treachery of so trusted a friend and colleague, ordered him forthwith to be hurled into the huge furnace that heated the baths of the Palace.

Although night had long since fallen, this terrible sentence would have been immediately carried out had it not been for his wife, the Empress Theodosia. Hearing the news from one of her ladies, she jumped from her bed and rushed barefoot to her husband. It was now, she pleaded, only an hour or two before Christmas; how could he possibly accept the Sacrament on the day of Christ's Nativity with an act of such unspeakable cruelty on his conscience? Moved by her words -and also, perhaps, by her reminder that longer and more careful examination of Michael might yield further information about his fellow-conspirators - Leo agreed to defer the execution. He had the condemned man put in irons and locked in a small room in a distant corner of the Palace, where he was to be kept under constant guard. He himself took charge of the keys, both to the room and to the fetters. Then, deeply troubled in mind and spirit, he retired to bed.

But he could not sleep. Again and again, his thoughts returned to that day in 8
1
3 when Michael had trodden on his cloak and had come near to tearing the imperial insignia from his shoulders. Could the incident have been an omen? And what about the illuminated book of divination that he had recently been reading, in which he had found a representation of a lion, its throat transfixed by a sword, between the Greek letters
Chi
and
Pbi?
If
Chi
stood for Christmas and
P
h
i
for Epiphany was that not an unmistakable prediction of the death of Leo some time between those two feasts? How much better if he had refused to listen to his wife's entreaties and had had the sentence carried out there and then — and besides, was his prisoner really safe? On a sudden impulse he got up, seized a candle and set off down the
labyrinthine corridors of the Palace to the room in which Michael was confined, smashing down or bursting open - for despite his small stature he was a man of colossal physical strength - any door along his path which chanced to be locked. He then let himself silently into the cell - to find, to his fury, the gaoler sound asleep on the floor while the prison
er lay on a pallet bed, apparentl
y in the same state. Unable to believe that anyone in such a situation could slumber so soundly, he laid his hand on Michael's chest to satisfy himself by the beating of his heart that his sleep was indeed genuine. Finding that it was, he quietly withdrew, pausing only to shake his fist at the two unconscious men.

What the Emperor did not know was that there was a third person in the room, very much awake. Somehow Michael had contrived to bring with him one of his personal servants, a young eunuch who on hearing footsteps had hastily concealed himself under the bed. From this hiding-place he could not see the face of the intruder; but the purple boots, which only the
basi
le
us
could wear, were more than sufficient identification. The moment Leo had gone, he woke up his master and the gaoler and told them what he had seen; and the latter, realizing that his life too was now under threat, readily agreed to make common cause with his prisoner. On the pretext that Michael was anxious to confess his sins before sentence was carried out, he sent another of the Amorian's trusted servants into the city, ostensibly to find a priest but in fact to gather his fellow-conspirators for a last-minute rescue.

The servant moved fast, and the plan was soon made. It was the custom, on great feasts of the Church, for the choir of monks who sang the Matins in the Palace to assemble in the early hours by the Ivory Gate before making their way to the Chapel of St Stephen. And so, long before first light on that freezing Christmas morning, the conspirators shrouded themselves in monks' robes - the perfect concealment for the swords and poignards that they carried beneath them - and joined the choristers with whom, their faces hidden deep in their cowls, they proceeded into the Palace. Once inside the chapel, they lost themselves among the shadows and settled down to wait.

The beginning of the opening hymn was the accepted signal for the arrival of the Emperor, who took his seat as usual and at once joined in the anthem. There were varying opinions - of which his own was by far the most favourable — as to the quality of his voice, but all sources are agreed on its volume. The conspirators waited until the music reached a climax; then they struck. Strangely enough, both Leo and the officiating priest were wearing peaked fur caps to protect their heads from the bitter cold; and the first blows were directed against the priest, who managed only just in time to whip off his cap, revealing an egg-bald head and so convincing his assailants of their mistake. This momentary delay allowed the Emperor to seize from the altar a heavy cross with which to defend himself; but a moment later a tremendous sword stroke severed his right arm at the shoulder sending it, with the hand still clutching the cross, spinning across the floor. He fell to the ground, where another blow struck off his head. And so, soon after four o'clock in the morning of Christmas Day 820, the reign of the Emperor Leo V came to an end.

Once again, the murderers lost no time. Hurrying to the room in which Michael was still captive, they found to their dismay that they had no means of unlocking his fetters: the new Emperor of Byzantium was carried bodily to his throne and seated upon it with the heavy iron shackles still on his legs, while the hastily assembled officers of the imperial household prostrated themselves before him. Only around midday did a blacksmith arrive with a sledgehammer and chisel to set him free
1
- just in time for him to limp into St Sophia for his coronation by the Patriarch. The thoughts of Theodotus as he laid the crown on the usurper's shaggy head are not recorded; but he was an inveterate time-server and not the sort of man to raise objections.

Soon afterwards, what remained of Leo V was retrieved from the common privy into which it had been thrown and dragged naked to the Hippodrome, where it was exposed to the public gaze. Thence it was carried on muleback to the harbour where the Empress Theodosia and her four sons were waiting, and loaded with them on to the ship that was to take them to exile on the Princes' Islands in the Marmara. On their arrival, further grim news awaited them: to ensure that they should plan no retaliation, it was the wish of the new Emperor that the boys should all be immediately castrated.
2
Three of them survived the ordeal - one, Gregory, living on to become Archbishop of Syracuse in Sicily; the youngest, Theodosius, died under the knife and was buried with his father.