Universal

69. Taken in the mass, this is a nation to be feared, and a treacherous one. Treaties of friendship exercise no restraining influence over these barbarians, and even oaths sworn over their sacrifices are not respected, for they reverence no deity at all, not to speak of God. To them all things are the result of chance, and death they believe to be the end of everything. For these reasons they make peace with great alacrity and then, when they find it necessary to resort to war, they at once violate the terms of their treaty.

If you conquer them in war, they invoke a second treaty of friendship; if it is they who win the combat, they massacre some of their captives and hold a magnificent sale of the rest. For the rich prisoners they fix the price high, and if they fail to get ransom, they kill them.

Unbroken line of Roman shields

70. Determined to drive this people from Roman territory, Isaac set out against them with a strong force. He was particularly confident before an enemy that was so scattered and had such a different conception of war; he led his army in an attack on the strongest enemy concentration. It was difficult to fight them and no less difficult to take them captive. As he drew near, they were filled with terror, not only on his own account, but also because of his army. In fact, they had not the courage to defy a man whom they looked upon as ‘wielder of the thunderbolt’, and when they saw the unbroken line of Roman shields, they abandoned the idea of fighting in mass.

So they attacked in isolated groups, howling their war-cries. But they found the Romans too compact for them, and having discovered that they could neither catch them by ambush nor face them in open battle, they made a proclamation that they would fight on he third day from then. Thereupon, on the self-same day on which hey made this declaration, they left their tents, forsaking all those incapable of flight, that is, aged people and the very young, and hen dispersed in the inaccessible regions of hat country.

According o the agreement, the emperor marched out to meet them on the third day, with his troops lined up for battle, but not a barbarian as to be seen. As he thought it unwise to pursue them, partly because he was nervous of secret ambushes, and partly because they ad three days start on their flight, he destroyed their tents, and taking away what booty he found there, returned laden with the trophies of war. The return journey, however, proved unfortunate, for a sudden storm fell upon his army with great violence, and he lost many of his soldiers.**3 Still, he did return to the capital, his lead crowned with the garlands of victory.

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68. More than other nations they are difficult to fight and hard to subdue. They are neither vigorous of body, nor brave in spirit. They wear no breastplates, put on no greaves, and no helmets protect their heads. They carry no shields of any kind whatsoever, neither the long sort like those traditionally borne by the Argives, nor the round shield, nor do they gird on swords. The only weapon they carry in their hands is the spear, their sole defensive armour. They are not divided up by battalions, and when they go to war they have no strategic plan to guide them. The terms ‘vanguard’, ‘left wing’, ‘right flank’ mean nothing to them.

Opposing force withstands

They build no palisades for their own protection, and they are unacquainted with the idea of defensive ditches on the perimeter of their camps. In one mass, close-packed and pell-mell, fortified by sheer desperation, they emit loud war-cries, and so fall upon their adversaries. If they succeed in pushing them back, they dash against them in solid blocks, like towers, pursuing and slaying without mercy. On the other hand, if the opposing force withstands their assault and if their ranks preserve an unbroken line in face of the barbarian onslaught, the latter forthwith turn about and seek safety in flight. But there is no order in their retreat.

They scatter in all directions, in small groups. One hurls himself into a river, and either swims to land or is engulfed in its eddies and sinks; another goes of into a thick wood and so becomes invisible to his pursuers; a third escapes in some other way. They all disperse at the same moment, but later, in some strange fashion, they meet again, one coming down from a mountain, another from some ravine, another from a river, all from different hiding-places. When they are thirsty, if they find water, either from springs or in the streams, they at once throw themselves down into it and gulp it up; if there is no water, each man dismounts from his horse, opens its veins with a knife, and drinks the blood.

So they quench their thirst by substituting blood for water. After that they cut up the fattest of the horses, set fire to whatever wood they find ready to hand, and having slightly warmed the chopped limbs of the horse there on the spot, they gorge themselves on the meat, blood and all. The refreshment over, they hurry back to their Primitive huts and lurk, like snakes, in the deep gullies and precipitous cliffs which serve as their walls.

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In the case of other men, virtue is supposed to be some such thing as not yielding to circumstances, not tempering one’s freedom of speech, not attempting by one’s own mildness of character to turn men of sterner material into slaves. So it has come about that mankind has dared every sea, gone in the face of all winds, and some, caught by the waves, have sunk, while others have been rebuffed with much violence.

With Constantine, however, the varied pattern of his life enabled him to deal successfully with every precise philosophic problem, and at the same time with all questions of practical government. Moreover, he handled affairs, not like an orator, but as a philosopher would deal with them: there were no wasted words, no histrionics. He played either rôle, churchman or politician, without deviating one iota from his natural habits.

Graceful manners of a diplomat

As a politician, he impressed his interrogators by his priestly dignity, yet when you approached him in his capacity of Patriarch, even if you stood in considerable awe of him and trembled a bit, he still appeared human, with the graceful manners of a diplomat, a man of sturdy character and smiling gravity. His whole life inspired confidence: on the one side, his military and political career, on the other, his great dignity, his courtesy.

It was natural, even before this appointment, that I should often predict for him promotion to the Church’s highest offices. His manner of life taught me what to expect in the future, and now, after he has actually become High Priest, I still see in him a gentleman of the noblest character.

67. By appointing such a man as Michael’s successor, therefore, the emperor paid a compliment to the late Patriarch. I will now deal with the barbarians.

In the east Isaac put an end to their incursions; in that part of the world the task proved to be well within his power. Now he proceeded to march in full force against the western barbarians. In the old days they had been called Mysians,**212 but later their name was changed to its present form. They live in all countries divided from the Roman Empire by the River Ister (Danube). Suddenly they left these districts and emigrated to our side of the river.

This movement areas caused by the activities of the Getae, their neighbors, who by their plundering and ravaging compelled them to abandon their own homes and seek new ones. So, at a time when the Ister was frozen over, they crossed as though on dry land and emigrated from the Trans-danubian territories to our province. The whole nation was transported, bag and baggage, over our borders, incapable of living at peace themselves, and bound to spread consternation among their former neighbors.

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65. An example of this is found in his treatment of the Patriarch Michael.**209 The latter had spoken frankly to him on a certain occasion, using language that was somewhat bold. At the time the emperor passed it over and checked his anger, but he cherished resentment deep in his heart. It broke out unexpectedly, and in the belief that he was following a precedent he expelled Michael from the city. He was condemned to exile in a circumscribed area, and it was there that he died. However, I will not explain how this came about now, for it is a long story.

If anyone cares to examine the quarrel between these two, he will blame the one for the start of it, the other for its ending, when the emperor cast the patriarch off as if he were a load on his shoulders. One point here that I almost forgot: a messenger returning from a distant mission brought to him the news of the patriarch’s death, with the air of a man who was freeing him from all trouble in the future, but Isaac, when he heard of it, his heart immediately touched, bewailed loudly an unusual thing for him — and mourned him deeply. He was sorry for the way he had treated the patriarch and often tried to propitiate his soul.

As if to justify himself, or rather to appease the dead man, he at once granted to Michael’s family the privilege of speaking freely in his presence, and they were allowed to join his immediate retinue. As Michael’s successor in the sacred office, he presented to God and honoured with high rank one whom his previous life had shown to be blameless, one whose eloquence had left him without a rival, even among the most eminent scholars.

The Choice of The Patriarch Constantine

66. This gentleman was none other than the famous Constantine, who in the past had on more than one occasion restored peace to a storm-tossed Empire and had been much sought after by many of the emperors. The crowning-point of his career came with his elevation to the Patriarchate.**210 All other candidates for the office yielded to his claims.**211 All were agreed that he had pre-eminent qualities which fitted him for the duty above the rest. And to the glorification of this dignity he dedicated all his efforts, a man who lived the life of a priest, yet possessed qualities of statesmanship and great public spirit.

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Nothing on earth restrained him, no proffering of wiser counsels, no fear for the future, no hatred of the mob, none of the other factors which, in normal men, curb vanity or check mighty ambition. Had some rein kept him under control, he would have overrun the whole inhabited world, country by country. He would have won glory on every battlefield, and none of the emperors before him would have been his rival.**208 But lack of restraint, refusal to accept reason as his guide, these were the ruin of his noble character.

63. I have described more or less, the alarm and confusion he caused in the political world. In the world of foreign affairs, his ambition was to effect a union of the eastern and western barbarians. They themselves were heartily afraid of him. For the first time they changed their usual tactics. Having observed the quality of the man they had to deal with, instead of pursuing an aggressive strategy they sought safety in obscurity.

The ruler of Egypt

The Sultan of Parthia, for example, the arch-revolutionary of former times, now adopted an almost retrogressive policy. In no place would he stay for any length of time, had no fixed abode, and — a thing which is really astonishing — went into complete retirement, cutting himself off from intercourse with everyone. The ruler of Egypt, too, even to this day is terrified of the man and still courts his favour with flattery. He even goes so far as to lament Isaac’s downfall. The truth is, the emperor’s appearance and the emperor’s words were as potent as his hands were strong, hands with which he had torn down many a city and destroyed walls defended by thousands of warriors.

64. He preferred to be ignorant of nothing, even down to the smallest detail, but since he knew this to be impossible, he would try to obtain his information by indirect means. He used to send for an expert and, without questioning him on the subject about which he was ignorant, by clever manoeuvring round it, he would make the other reveal what he himself did not know, in such a way that the expert was apparently explaining something that was common knowledge to both of them alike. He often tried to catch me like that too, but when on one occasion I ventured to tell him it was a secret, he was taken aback and blushed as if he had been caught doing something wrong. Being a man of great pride, he had a horror of being rebuked, whether openly or subtly.

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In pursuit of such a policy it was inevitable that he should add to his other victims the priests of the Church. Indeed, he cut off the greater part of the monies set apart for their sacred buildings, and having transferred these sums to the public funds, he estimated the bare necessities for the clergy, thereby making the name ‘place of meditation’ really appropriate. He did this with the insouciance of a man picking up a grain of sand from the seashore. He just set his hand to the task, and it was all done without the slightest commotion. Indeed, I never saw any man on earth so deliberate in his reasoning; or so quiet in the execution of vast ideas.

Vilify the emperor’s actions

61. This conduct at the time seriously alarmed most of his subjects, but after a while the majority became more resigned to it. Obviously, if men wished to vilify the emperor’s actions, it was sufficient for him to point out that they were in the public interest. And the policy would have been hailed with applause, if only the emperor, like a man who has swum to shore out of the sea, had given himself some time to get back his breath.

Isaac, however, did not know what it was to lie at anchor for a while, or rest in harbour. On the contrary, he braved the sea a second time, a different sea this time, and then a third, and after that a greater and most fearful one, as if he were not merely engaged in stirring up the waves of politics, but in cleaning up the dung of Augeas’s stable.**207

62. As I have emphasized before, if this emperor had chosen the proper time for his reforms; if he had condemned one practice, shall we say, and allowed another to stand for the time being, destroying it at some later date; if, after the amputation, he had rested before attempting another operation; if he had advanced thus, step by step, in his extermination of evil, quietly and without attracting attention like the Creator in Plato, this man who, like him, had inherited a world — in his case the world of politics — in a state of flux, without harmony, without order, then he too, I affirm, would have brought it back from chaos to calm, and he too would have introduced real harmony into the affairs of state. God is described by Moses, the leader of His people, as creating the universe in six days, but if Isaac did not complete his whole task in a single day, he reckoned the failure intolerable, such was the excessive zeal with which he tried to accomplish his purpose.

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Nor were they satisfied with the presentation of a mere sufficiency to their places of meditation (we had better call them that). The imperial wealth was divided into three parts: one to pay for their pleasures, another to glorify their new-fangled buildings, and a third to enable these who were naturally lazy and made no contribution to the balancing of the nation’s budget, to live in luxury and bring dishonour on the practice and name of virtue, while the military were being stinted and treated harshly.

Roman Empire’s contemptible state

The present emperor, of course, had been commander-in chief of the army. He was already aware, for many reasons, of the cause of the Roman Empire’s contemptible state. He knew why it was that our neighbors prospered while all our affairs had declined, and why not one Roman had been able to put a stop to the attacks and robberies carried out by barbarians. When he had the additional prestige conferred by the title of ‘Emperor’, Isaac at once rooted up the cause of our troubles. So far his actions were worthy of his exalted position, but I am by no means disposed to commend his efforts to do everything at once. However, let me describe what he did.

60. In the first place, once he had taken the government on his own shoulders — from the moment of his coronation indeed — and once he had, by his coronation, legalized his position as emperor, his policy was radically opposed to that of the aged Michael. Donations which Michael had given, Isaac took away; wherever Michael had done something of note, Isaac destroyed it. Then, becoming gradually more bold, he went too far in his reforms, and here too he wiped out and rescinded much of Michael’s work.

Quite a number of his measures he completely annulled. The consequence was that the people came to hate him, and no small section of the army agreed with them — all those soldiers, in fact, who found themselves deprived of their wealth by their new ruler. Having gone so far, instead of relaxing his programme somewhat, he went further, like the grammarian who in analysis starts with the complex and then proceeds to the simple. He classed under one heading the acts of his predecessors, thus attacking all and bringing all into discredit at once.

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58. Isaac was a devotee of the philosophic life: he abhorred anything that was physically diseased or corrupt. But his hopes were disappointed, for he found nothing but disease and festering sores, the imperial horses running at full speed from the starting-post, quite impossible to master, heedless of the reins.

In the one case he ought to have waited for the appropriate moment before he applied surgical remedies and cautery; it was wrong to operate on the internal organs with the surgeon’s heated iron without reasonable premeditation. In the case of the horses, the right course was to discipline them gently with the reins, and break them in, caress them lightly in a professional way, and make a fuss of them, then climb aboard his chariot and give them the rein, after the style of Philip’s son when he taught Bucephalus to answer the bit.**206 But Isaac wanted to see the chariot borne along on a straight course at once, before this initial training. He wanted to see the sick body restored to health immediately.

Unsuccessful efforts

What with his burning and cutting here, and his mighty pulling and tugging with the reins on his runaway horses there, he somehow or other failed to notice that he himself had caught the disease before he got control over these troubles and restored them to order. Do not imagine that I am finding fault with the man for trying. I do accuse him, though, for choosing the wrong time for his unsuccessful efforts. As for the third stage of the disease, that must wait. Let us dwell on the second a little longer.

59. As I have often remarked, the emperors before Isaac exhausted the imperial treasures an personal whims. The public revenues were expended not on the organization of the army, but on favours to civilians and on magnificent shows. Finally, to ensure that after their death the funerals should be more impressive and the interment more extravagant, they prepared monuments of Phrygian or Italian marble, or of Proconnesian slab. Houses were then built round them and churches lent them sanctity.

Groves were planted, while parks and meadows encircled the whole area. Then, as they had to enrich their places of meditation (the name they invented for these buildings) with money and possessions, they not only emptied the palace treasury, but even cut into the money contributed by the people to the public revenues.

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55. This emperor also having quickly met his end — I will pass over his nephew who, after a wretched reign, came to an even more wretched death — Constantine Euergetes, the nickname by which he is known to most folk (I refer to Monomachus), succeeded to the imperial throne. He took over the state as though it were a merchantman loaded to the safety-line, so that it barely topped the wash of the waves, and having crammed it up to the very decks, he sank it.

Peaceful and civilized existence

To put it more plainly, and at the same time revert to my former comparison, he first added a host of new limbs and new parts to a body already long-corrupted, injected into its entrails liquids even more unwholesome, and then, having done this, took it out of its natural state and deprived it of peaceful and civilized existence. He practically drove it mad and brought it to the verge of savagery, by making many-headed, hundred-handed, monsters of the majority of his subjects.

After him, the Empress Theodora became sovereign, with more legal claim to power. Although she apparently refrained from reducing this strange animal to a state of complete insanity, yet even she imperceptibly added some hands and a few feet to it.

56. Theodora’s drama played out to its finish, the reins were put into the hands of the old man Michael. Unable to bear the move- ment of the imperial chariot, with his horses running away with him from the start, he made the show more confused than ever, and being scared out of his wits at the uproar, he retired from the race and took his place by the non-runners.

Of course he ought to have held on; he should have kept a pretty tight hold on the bit. In practice, however, he was like a man who is dismissed the service — in his case, the throne — and returns to his former manner of life.

57. Here then we have the first crisis. The greater part of the nation had been changed from men into beasts. They had been fattened up to such an extent that it was necessary to administer purgative drugs, and that in considerable doses. A second course of treatment was demanded — I mean, of course, surgical operations, cauterization, cathartics. The opportunity for healing recurred and Isaac Comnenus, wearing his crown, climbed into the Roman chariot. In order that we may consider him, too, in the light of allegory, let us liken his position partly to that of a charioteer, partly to that of a doctor.

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52. After the death of Basil the Great (Basil the son of Romanus,**204 whose family inherited the Empire to the third generation) his brother, Romanus’s younger son, succeeded to the throne. He inherited great wealth, for Basil had been emperor for many years, longer than any other sovereign, and had made himself master of many nations whose riches he transferred to the imperial treasury. In Basil’s reign, therefore, the revenues vastly exceeded expenditure; and when he died immense sums were at the disposal of his brother Constantine.

Power inviolate

The latter was already an old man: many years had passed before he finally realized his ambition. Yet, once that ambition was attained, he not only made no attempt to win military renown and add to the dominions he possessed but did not even care to preserve the bounds of his power inviolate. On the contrary, he plunged into a life of pleasure, determined to squander and spend everything, and if death had not quickly carried him off, Constantine alone would have sufficed to the destruction of the Empire.

53. He was the first emperor to corrupt and swell out the body politic, partly by fattening some of his subjects with great wealth, partly by raising them to positions of honour and giving them opportunities to live in depravity and vice. At his death, his kinsman Romanus became emperor, with the intention of being a real autocrat.

The family of the Porphyrogeniti**205 was now extinct, and Romanus’s ambition was to lay firm foundations of a rival dynasty. In order, therefore, that the civil population, as well as the military class, might be ready and willing to accept the principle of hereditary succession in his own family, he proceeded to anticipate their approval with the distribution of largess on a generous scale, thus adding to a body which was already gross, and aggravating the disease, and filling the corrupted part with superfluous fat. His ambitions ended, however, in utter failure, not only in his ideas about his family, but also in his hopes of bequeathing to his descendants a well-organized state.

54. At his death, Michael ascended the throne. He stopped most of the evil practices, but he was not strong enough to deny some small additions of fat to this body, so accustomed to its nourishment of bad juices and unwholesome, fat-making, foods. Even Michael contributed somewhat to its grossness, however niggardly. Doubtless he would have perished on the spot if he had not followed, in some small measure, the policy of his predecessors. On the other hand, had Michael continued a few years longer in power, his subjects would one day have learnt to live wisely. In any case, a bursting-point was inevitable one day, for they were gorged to the limit of well-being.

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