The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (30 page)

respectively. The example of her own father-in-law was enough to illustrate the perils of a long minority, especially when there were ambitious generals in the offing; and while her predecessor Zoe had had only two of these to cope with, there were now three - the two brothers Phocas and John Tzimisces - all of whom would be sure to see the present situation as a possible path to the throne. To these potential contenders there could easily have been added a fourth, the
parakoimomenos
Joseph Bringas, but for the fact that as a eunuch he was disqualified for the supreme power; he too, however, was a compulsive intriguer, and though Theophano knew that he would never support the Phocas faction there was no telling what other candidates he had in mind.

Meanwhile she needed a protector, and a strong one. Secretly - for Bringas, had he known, would surely have prevented her - she sent an urgent appeal to Nicephorus Phocas in the East, begging him to return at once. When the messenger found him in his camp near Caesarea in Cappadocia, Nicephorus did not hesitate. Speed, he knew, was all-important: there was no time to gather together his troops, many of whom had already dispersed to their homes. Pausing only long enough to assemble all the most precious spoils from his Syrian campaigns, he set off with a small escort, and some time in early April entered the capital. By this time the Empress's summons was common knowledge. Bringas, furious, had protested violently and at a meeting of the Council of Regency had gone so far as to argue that the general had become a public danger who should be arrested immediately on his arrival. But he had found no support, and the crowds that had gathered in front of the Palace were loudly demanding that Nicephorus be given not only a hero's welcome but also that full-scale triumph of which he had been so unjustly deprived after the Cretan conquest.

And so the triumph was held: the most splendid, perhaps, since that of Heraclius over three centuries before, and given additional sanctity by the tattered tunic of John the Baptist, recently snatched from its longtime resting-place in Aleppo and now carried proudly before Nicephorus - 'the White Death of the Saracens' - as he rode through the streets to the Hippodrome. In the face of his immense popularity, Bringas was powerless; and the anger and resentment that he had long harboured against his old enemy were now joined by a third emotion: fear. The general was in daily consultation with the Empress; if he were now with her support to make a bid for the throne, what fate would be in store for
himself? Blinding? Banishment? Or both? Nicephorus, it was true, gave no outward sign of having any such ambition; on the contrary, he lost no opportunity of proclaiming his indifference to worldly pomp and power and his eagerness to retire as soon as possible to the monastery that his friend Athanasius was already building at his request on Mount Athos.
1
But Bringas was not deceived. Quietly and secretly he made his plans, and when all was in readiness summoned his enemy to the Palace.

Nicephorus too was on his guard. His spies had been busy. He had no delusions about what the
parakoimomenos
was planning, and he was determined to regain the initiative. Instead of obeying the summons he went straight to St Sophia, where he publicly accused Bringas of plotting to murder him and appealed for asylum. It was a brilliant ploy, and a successful one. An indignant crowd soon collected, calling angrily for punishment of any who dared lay a finger on its hero, and was soon joined by Patriarch Polyeuctus himself. Now the Patriarch was, as we have seen, a narrow-minded bigot who had blighted the last years of Constantine Porphyrogenitus; this austere and deeply devout general was on the other hand a man after his own heart, and he had no hesitation in lending his own voice to that of the crowd. Joseph Bringas was a powerful man, but the united stand of both Empress and Patriarch, with the people obviously behind them to a man, was too much for him: he could only watch, fuming, while the Senate confirmed Nicephorus in his command and undertook to make no major decisions of policy without his consent. The general in his turn thanked them for their confidence and trust and, as soon as the Easter celebrations were over, returned to rejoin his army in Anatolia.

But not, as everyone knew, for long. Those secret discussions with the Empress had ended in an agreement which was - in the short term at any rate - to prove highly advantageous to both parties. Nicephorus would protect the rights, and the persons, of the two child-Emperors; in return, he would himself be proclaimed Emperor and join them on the throne. He might talk as much as he liked of the preparations he was making for a coming campaign in Cilicia, but by now few people if any believed him. Bringas had been right: he was indeed preparing the army

1
On their return from the Cretan expedition, Nicephorus had entrusted his own share of the spoils to Athanasius for the building of this foundation, 'where you and I can be alone with our brothers and together taste the joys of the Eucharist'. Now known as the Grand Lavra, the monastery remains, the oldest and most venerable on the Holy Mountain, with its great bronze doors - the personal gift of the Emperor - still in place.

to march. The object of that march, h
owever, would be not Glicia but
Constantinople.

And so Bringas, by now desperate, played his last card. He sent letters to two of Nicephorus's senior commanders, Romanus Curcuas and John Tzimisces - respectively the son and great-nephew of the great John Curcuas who had won such splendid victories for Romanus Lecapenus -offering them the supreme commands of East and West respectively in return for the betrayal of their chief. How they were to do it was for them to decide: they might have him forcibly tonsured and immured in a monastery, or they could send him in chains to Constantinople. 'I depend on you,' he wrote to Tzimisces. 'First accept the command in Anatolia, then be patient a little and before long you will be
basileus
of the Romans.' Unfortunately his dependence was misplaced: Tzimisces went at once to Nicephorus, who was sleeping in his tent, woke him excitedly and showed him the letter. The general seemed momentarily stunned; one of our chroniclers, George Cedrenus, claims that it was only after his two commanders had threatened to kill him if he hesitated any longer that he was at last stirred into action. But this was probably little more than a token show of reluctance. At dawn on 3 July 963, before the entire army drawn up on a great plain just outside the walls of the Cappadocian Caesarea, Nicephorus Phocas was raised by his generals on a great shield in the ancient manner and proclaimed Emperor of the Romans. Then, after a short service of blessing in the cathedral, he set off for his capital.

In Constantinople, meanwhile, Joseph Bringas refused to admit defeat. He had summoned large numbers of European troops from Macedonia and elsewhere who traditionally mistrusted the Anatolians and on whose loyalty he believed he could rely; most of these he distributed not only along the land and sea walls but also at key points throughout the city, to deal with the first signs of popular uprising. The rest were dispatched to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, there to commandeer all the vessels they could find and sail them over to Europe. Thus it was that when Nicephorus Phocas and his army arrived at Chrysopolis (better known to us as Scutari) on 9 August they found themselves unable to cross the strait. The new Emperor did not however seem unduly disturbed; now that his friends and supporters in the city could see his watch-fires, he knew that some at least of them would succeed in joining him under cover of darkness. He installed himself comfortably in the
nearby imperial
summer Palace of Hieria and settl
ed down to wait. He was soon proved right in his expectations: one of the first to arrive was his own brother Leo, hero of the battle of the Kulindros Pass. But Leo brought disturbing news: their father, the old general Bardas Phocas - now well into his eighties - was being held by Bringas as a hostage. If Nicephorus were to advance any further, his chances of survival would be slim.

In fact, events were moving a good deal faster than Leo realized. Taking advantage of the growing confusion in the city, Bardas - quite
N
possibly with the connivance of his guards - managed to escape and himself sought asylum in St Sophia. Bringas, the moment he heard what had happened, sent a detachment of militia after him, with orders to drag him from his refuge. It was a fatal mistake. The day was
9
August, a Sunday, and the Great Church was thronged with people. Bardas was a popular figure, both as a distinguished veteran of the Saracen wars and as the father of Nicephorus; and the soldiers immediately found themselves surrounded by a hostile crowd, who snatched their prisoner from them and drove them forcibly out of the building before returning the old man to his place of sanctuary.

Whatever his other faults, Bringas was no coward. Seeing his men returning empty-handed and visibly shaken, he leaped on to his horse and rode straight to the Patriarchate, which adjoined St Sophia; then, when Polyeuctus refused to intervene, he himself passed through into the church, pushed his way through the jostling crowd, mounted the ambo and, silencing the priests with an imperious hand, personally addressed the congregation. But once again he misjudged the strength of his opposition. A few words of conciliation might yet have saved the day; instead he blustered, roundly berating those who defied his orders, threatening to cut off all the city's supplies of food and thus, if necessary, to starve them into submission. Then he strode out of the church, pausing only to order the bread-sellers who occupied a permanent pitch outside the west doors to close down their stalls immediately.

It was, of course, an empty threat; Bringas knew it, and so did his listeners. He returned to the Palace as angry as ever, conscious only of the fact that he, the imperial
parakoimomenos
and chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, had lost the first round and had been made to look a fool. But he was not yet beaten. He waited, fuming, until the crowd began to stream from St Sophia. It was noon; the service was over, and it was time for the midday meal. Sending for the two child-Emperors, he took them firmly by the hand and returned with them to the Great Church, by now almost deserted except for the old general, sitting quietly among the shadows of the sanctuary. Their subsequent conversation is unrecorded — though the presence of the two little boys suggests a possible threat that any further attempt at resistance would be paid for with their lives. All we know is that Bardas allowed himself to be led away.

For the third time the eunuch had underestimated the strength of popular feeling. When the hour of Vespers drew near and St Sophia began once again to fill with people, their first thought was for Bardas; and when they failed to find him their mood became uglier than ever, the force of their anger this time being principally directed against the Patriarch and clergy, who at best had failed to protect their fugitive and at worst had deliberately betrayed him. Polyeuctus, now seriously alarmed, hurried to the Palace, found Bardas sitting sadly in an anteroom, seized him by the arm and returned with him to the church, where his appearance produced an immediate hush; but when Bringas arrived a few minutes later with a platoon of Macedonians and made yet another attempt to lay hands upon him, the people decided that they had had enough. While some took charge of the bewildered old man, carried him back to his house and mounted guard over him, the remainder seized bricks, stones and anything else - even church furniture - that might serve them as a weapon and flung themselves on Bringas's soldiers.

The riot, once started, spread like wildfire through the city. At the outset, in the manner of all riots, it was largely uncontrolled; but as it gathered momentum it also began to reveal a guiding force behind it: that of Basil, the natural son of Romanus Lecapenus. Presumably to protect the interests of his elder, legitimate, sons Romanus had had him castrated in infancy; but from his youth Basil had always shown outstanding intelligence and ability and had long played an important part in affairs of state. As early as
944
Constantine Porphyrogenitus had created him Patrician and appointed him Exarch of the Grand Hetaireia;
1
a few months later he was
parakoimomenos.
In
958
we find him commanding the army of the East, winning a splendid victory over Saif ed-Daula and being granted a triumph on his return to the capital. With the death of Constantine the following year, it was he who had personally laid the

1
The imperial guard, recruited exclusively from the barbarian tribes (including Russians and the redoubtable Varangians, or Northmen), which provided the garrison of the Great Palace and attended the Emperor on campaign.

Emperor's body beside that of his father Leo, in the same sarcophagus. Then, on his promotion to
proedrus,
he found himself replaced by Joseph Bringas, whom he disliked and mistrusted.

As soon as he heard the first sounds of the insurrection, Basil knew that his opportunity had come. Quickly he gathered together all his servants and retainers -
4
,000 of them if the chroniclers are to be believed, a figure which gives some idea of the state maintained by noble Byzantines at this period - and led them down to the Forum, where the crowd was thickest and where he quickly assumed control. His first action was to send men to every corner of the city to proclaim the imminent arrival of the new Emperor; next - one suspects with still more satisfaction - he led the mob to Bringas's private palace, which was first plundered of everything that it possessed of value and was then burnt to the ground. After this the burning and looting became general: what had begun as a legitimate protest rapidly deteriorated into a howling, hysterical rampage. It was three days - by which time half Constantinople lay in ruins - before Basil was able to reassert his authority and impose some semblance of order. Then and only then could he lead his men down to the Golden Horn, take possession of all the vessels that lay at anchor within the harbour and sail the vast flotilla across the Bosphorus to the Hieria, where Nicephorus was still patiently waiting for him.