Part 23

The Iconoclastic controversy was far from being extinguished with the fall (in the person of Irene) of the house of Leo the Isaurian. It was destined to continue for over half a century longer and to be finally settled by another empress whose career bore marked similarity to that of the image-loving Irene; and it then remained settled because the second image-loving queen was succeeded by a royal house sprung from one of the European themes which was in sympathy, accordingly, with the Church of the West, rather than with the religious sentiment of the people of the Orient.

But a greater change had come over the Eastern Empire with the exile and death of Irene. Her elevation had, as we have seen, severed the connection between East and West and led to the appointment of a Western emperor in the person of Charlemagne. Hence, from this time onward the interests and sympathies of the two sections of the later Roman Empire diverge more and more, and the government at Constantinople becomes ever more Oriental in its proclivities. It is, therefore, more appropriate to use the adjective Byzantine for the remaining centuries of the history of Constantinople to its conquest by the Turks in 1453.

The careers of Irene and her successor, Theodora, the two image-worshipping empresses, in the contrast of the vicissitudes of their lives with the rapidity of their rise and the splendor of their power, offer materials for romance more truly than for sober history. Each was born in private station; and in each case it must have required rare beauty and fascination and high intellectual gifts to fill so successfully the exalted position of Empress of the Romans, and to overturn the iconoclastic reforms of their predecessors on the throne. Each of them, too, when regent, was grossly neglectful of the son over whose youth she presided, and whom she should have fitted for the high station to which he was destined. Yet herein lies the marked difference between the two queens: Irene finally expelled her son from his royal station, and sent him to pass his life as a blinded monk in a secluded cell; Theodora, finding she could no longer control the wild nature of her son, whose training she had neglected, retired from the court and sought relief in a life of penitence. For their pious acts, both empresses were canonized as orthodox saints, but Irene must ever be regarded as a demon at heart, while Theodora must pass as a misguided and self-deceived woman, who, in the performance of her religious duties, overlooked the most important task just at hand. But we are anticipating our consideration of Theodora, the second Irene.

The iconoclastic controversy was renewed by Nicephorus, who usurped the throne of Irene, as he was of Oriental extraction and therefore in sympathy with the so-called heretics. Neither Nicephorus nor his successor during a period of political anarchy came to a peaceful end, but Michael II., in 829 died a natural death in the royal palace, still wearing the crown he had won, and leaving the throne to his son Theophilus, destined to rank as the Haroun Al Raschid of Byzantine romance and story. Michael had married Euphrosyne, the daughter of Irene's son, Constantine VI., and the last scion of Leo the Isaurian. Euphrosyne had already taken the veil, but, to bring about a union which might probably continue the line of Leo, the patriarch absolved her from her vows, and she passed from the convent to the palace as Empress of the East. Yet, so far as we know, there was no issue of the marriage, and Michael's son--Theophilus--by a former wife succeeded his father on the throne. Euphrosyne remained for a time in the palace as empress-dowager, and seems to have been on the best of terms with her stepson, whom she at length assisted in the important but difficult task of selecting a consort.

Theophilus, since the time of Constantine VI., was the first prince to be brought up in the purple, and his education was the best the age afforded. The ninth century was an age of romance, both in action and in literature, and Theophilus was inspired with many of the ideas of Oriental monarchs. His reign, therefore, furnishes a series of anecdotes and tales like to those of the Arabian Nights, and was surrounded with an Oriental glamour and mystery. And, like his predecessors, he was a pronounced iconoclast.

Theophilus was unmarried when he ascended the throne, and the matter of choosing a wife presented many difficulties to the absolute ruler who could have his choice from among the daughters of the aristocratic families of Constantinople, or even from the provinces of his dominions. He finally took counsel with the attractive empress-dowager Euphrosyne, and between them they devised a plan which would permit of a wide range of choice and yet possess all the romance of mythical times.

The empress-dowager one day assembled at her levee all the most beautiful and accomplished daughters of the nobles of the capital. While the maidens were engaged in the interchange of friendly greetings, Theophilus suddenly entered the room, carrying, like Paris of old, a golden apple in his hand. He cast his eyes over the room, and there was a flutter in many a feminine heart over the object of his coming and the possible recipient of the golden apple. Struck by the beauty and grace of the fair Eikasia, one of the noted belles of the day, he paused before her to address a word to her. Already in the heart of the proud beauty there were anticipations of an imperial career. But Theophilus found no better topic to commence a conversation than the ungallant remark: "Woman is the source of evil in the world;" to which the young lady quickly replied: "Woman is also the cause of much good." Either the ready retort or the tone of her voice jarred on the captious mind of the monarch, and he passed on. His eye then fell on the modest features and graceful figure of the young Theodora, a rival beauty, and to her, without risking a word, he handed the apple. The shock was too severe for the slighted Eikasia, who had for a moment felt the thrill of gratified ambition, and was conscious of the possession of the endowments that would adorn the throne. She straightway retired to a monastery which she founded, and devoted her time to religious practices and intellectual pursuits. Many hymns were composed by her, which continued long in use in the Greek Church.

Perhaps it would have been better for Theophilus had he chosen Eikasia. Theodora, with all her modest demeanor, was self-assertive and proud, and as a devoted iconodule she caused her husband many an unhappy hour during his lifetime; and as soon as he was dead she set to work to undo his policy. The Empress Euphrosyne too soon realized the masterful spirit of the new empress as did Theodora's own mother, Theoktista, and the two dowagers retired into the monastery of Gastria, which afforded them an agreeable retreat from the intrigues of the court.

Theodora is the heroine of another tale which illustrated an unbecoming trait in her character and the love of justice of Theophilus. It was the practice of money-loving officials to engage secretly in trade and to avoid the payment of custom duties by engaging the empress, or members of the imperial family, in commercial adventures. By these practices, gross injustice was done the merchants, and the revenues of the state suffered. Theophilus learned that the young empress had lent her name to one of these trading speculations, and he determined to handle the matter in such a way that, in future, a repetition would be impossible. He ascertained the time when a ship laden with a valuable cargo in the empress's name was about to arrive in Constantinople. He assembled his whole court on the quay to witness its arrival, and when the captain of the ship demanded free entry in the empress's name, Theophilus compelled him to unload and expose his precious cargo of Syrian merchandise, and then publicly burn it; then, turning to his wife, he remarked that never in the history of man had a Roman emperor or empress turned trader, and added the sharp reproach that her avarice had degraded the character of an empress into that of a merchant.

Theophilus died in 842, leaving the throne to his three-year-old son, Michael. His mother, Theodora, as she had been crowned empress, was regent in her own right, and she quickly proved herself one of the most self-assertive of Byzantine princesses. As Theophilus and his predecessors overturned the work of Irene, so Theodora immediately began to undo the iconoclastic policy of her deceased husband; and as her successors continued her policy, the regency of Theodora marks the end of iconoclasm and the permanent establishment of image worship in the churches of the East, as of the West.

Within the first month of the commencement of the new reign, images had appeared once more in the churches of Constantinople, and the banished image worshippers were recalled from their places of exile. John the Grammarian, the patriarch who had served Theophilus, was deposed because he refused to convoke a synod for the repeal of iconoclastic decrees, and Methodius was appointed in his stead. A council of the church was held the same year at Constantinople, composed largely of the lately exiled bishops, abbots, and monks who had distinguished themselves as confessors in the cause of image worship. All the prominent bishops who had held iconoclastic opinions were expelled from their sees, and their places were filled by the orthodox. The practices and doctrines of the Iconoclasts were formally anathematized and banished forever from the orthodox church.

While the synod was being held, in the heart of Theodora a conflict was going on between her love of image worship and her affection for her deceased husband. She did not waver in her zeal for the orthodox church, but she did dread to think of her husband as consigned, as a heretic, to the pangs of hell. Consequently, she presented herself one day to the assembled clergy, and requested the passage of a decree to the effect that her deceased husband's sins had all been pardoned by the Church, and that divine grace had effaced the record of his persecutions of the saints. Deep dissatisfaction showed itself on the faces of all the clergy when she made this singular request, and when they hesitated to speak she uttered, with innocent frankness, a mild threat that if they did not act favorably on her petition, she would not exert her influence as regent to give them the victory over the Iconoclasts, but would leave the affairs of the Church in their present status. The patriarch Methodius finally found his voice to tell her that the Church could use its office to release the souls of orthodox princes from the pains of hell, but unfortunately the prayers of the Church were of no avail in obtaining forgiveness from God for those who died without the pale of orthodoxy; that the Church was intrusted with the keys of heaven only to open and shut the gates of salvation to the living, while the dead were beyond its help.

Theodora, however, was determined all the more to secure salvation for her deceased husband. She declared that in his last moments the dying Theophilus had tenderly grasped and kissed an image she had laid on his breast. Although the probabilities were that the soul of Theophilus had already sped ere such an event took place, the wily Methodius saw in the statement an escape from the dilemma that faced the synod; and upon his recommendation the assembled clergy consented to absolve the dead emperor from excommunication and to receive him into the bosom of the orthodox church, declaring that, as his last moments were spent in the manner Theodora certified in a written attestation, Theophilus had found pardon with God.

Like her more celebrated predecessor Irene, Theodora exhibited a masterful ability in governing, and, in spite of her persecuting policy toward the Iconoclasts, she preserved the tranquillity of the Empire and enhanced its prestige. Like Irene, too, she became so engrossed in things religious and political that she shamefully neglected the education of her son. It is a sad commentary on the history of the Church that in the long series of emperors from Theodosius to Basil only two were utterly unfit for the high station to which they fell heir, and these were the sons of the two empresses whose names figure so largely in the triumph of the image worshippers,--Irene's son, Constantine VI., and Theodora's son, Michael III.

Theodora, absorbed in imperial ambition, abandoned the training of her child to her brother Bardas, of whose profligate life she could not have been ignorant. Bardas reared the young Michael in the most reckless and unconscientious manner, permitting him to neglect his serious studies, and teaching him his own vices of drunkenness and debauchery. Michael proved to be an apt pupil in profligacy, and before he reached his majority had become a confirmed dipsomaniac. Meanwhile, his mother, with the aid of her minister, Theoktistus, arrogated to herself the sole direction of public business, and viewed with indifference her brother's corruption of the principles of her son. Perhaps she saw in his ruin the continuance and perpetuation of her own power; perhaps she feared that his influence would be cast with the Iconoclasts, as had been his father's before him, and that only by his wild career could he be prevented from overturning the cherished plans of her heart.

In spite of his irregular life, however, Michael manifested a strong will of his own, and, as the time of the attainment of his majority approached, he came to an open quarrel with his mother. He had fallen violently in love with Eudocia, the daughter of Inger, of the powerful family of Martinakes, and Theodora and her ministers saw in an alliance with this house the probability of a potent opposition to their own political influence. Theodora realized that she must in some manner prevent this marriage, and she exerted her maternal influence so strongly that she compelled the lad of sixteen to marry another lady named Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas--thus repeating the unfortunate policy of Irene on a similar occasion. The young roué, however, balked in his purpose to make Eudocia Ingerina his wife, straightway made her his mistress, and thus brought public disgrace on the court life of the day. His marriage also incensed him against the regency; and at the first opportunity, he asserted his majority, sanctioned the murder of the prime minister Theoktistus, and grew weary of the presence of his mother.

He succeeded in dismissing his mother and sisters from the palace, and even attempted to persuade the patriarch to give them the veil. With the hope of regaining her power over her son, Theodora formed a plot to assassinate her brother Bardas; but the plot was discovered, and Michael compelled her to retire to the monastery of Gastria, the usual residence of the ladies of the imperial family who were secluded from the world. Yet, the empress-mother never descended to the baseness of Irene, so as to seek the injury of her ungrateful son.

Meanwhile, Michael selected as his boon companion the courtier Basil, who had begun his career as a groom in the stables of some nobleman of the court. The two gave their time to debauchery and lust; and as a token of his favor, Michael compelled Basil to marry his discarded mistress, Eudocia Ingerina.

In the solitude of the cloister, Theodora deplored the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin of her worthless son, and, repenting of her earlier folly in neglecting his bringing up, endeavored to make amends for the mistake of her past life. Finally, after the death of her brother, Theodora regained some of her maternal influence and was permitted to reside at the palace of Saint Mamas, where occurred the last sad tragedy of her career.

Basil, who in spite of all carousals could always keep his head, observed how his friend Michael had thrown away the high privileges of his station and had become an object of contempt in the eyes of all good men. His overweening ambition to mount the throne overcame every noble sentiment, and he plotted to assassinate the emperor and to usurp supreme power. The tragedy occurred in the palace of the empress-mother. Basil and his wife, Eudocia Ingerina, were invited by her to a feast at her house, where Michael was present. An orgy ensued; Michael was carried to his room in a state of intoxication, and Basil and his conspirators succeeded in despatching him in his drunken sleep. Basil mounted the throne, and was destined to found the longest dynasty in the annals of the Empire. Theodora, bowed down with sorrows, and distressed beyond measure at the cruel destiny of her first-born, died in the first year of the reign of Basil I.

Theodora, because of her zeal for image worship, was eulogized as a saint by the ecclesiastical writers of both the Western and the Eastern Church, and is honored with a place in the Greek Calendar. Had her devotion to her children equalled her self-sacrificing loyalty to church affairs, she might have changed the course of Byzantine history. But, failing in her maternal duties, her name shared the ignominy as well as the glory of Irene, and, while not possessing the wickedness of the latter, she must rank as a queen who in neglecting her son brought disgrace on the Empire.

Basil I. was one of those remarkable men who after a career of infamy are sobered by great responsibilities and perform well the part which it was destined for them to play. But in his relations with women he had to endure the natural outcome of his earlier licentiousness. His first wife, whom he married at the beginning of his career, had lived but a few years, leaving him a son, Constantine, whom he associated with him on the throne, but who died after a lapse of ten years. Eudocia Ingerina, whom Michael had compelled him to marry, had a son, Leo, who succeeded Basil on the throne, but the emperor was ever haunted with the suspicion that this lad was the son not of himself but of Michael. The adventures of this empress and of Michael's sister, Thekla, who also shared imperial honor, are sad proofs of the corruption of morals of the age. With her brother's consent, Thekla had become the concubine of Basil, and after he had assassinated Michael and ascended the throne, Thekla consoled herself with other lovers. On one occasion it happened that an attendant employed in the household of Thekla was waiting on the emperor, when the latter asked the shameless question: "Who is living with your mistress at present?" The attendant imprudently told the name of the successful lover; Basil's jealousy was aroused, and he ordered the paramour of the woman he had put aside to be seized, scourged, and immured for life in a monastery. It is even said that he ill treated Thekla and confiscated part of her property. But the Empress Eudocia Ingerina avenged the unfortunate princess in a manner more pardonable in the mistress of a besotted debauchee than in the wife of an emperor. When her amours were discovered, the empress was prudent enough to avoid scandal by merely compelling her lover to retire privately to a monastery.

In pleasing contrast to the story of these licentious princesses, revealing the absence of any shame in the high life of Constantinople, is that of the widow Danielis who played the lady bountiful to Basil in his earlier years, and to whom he delighted to show his gratitude after he had mounted the throne.

Once when he was an attaché of the courtier Theophilitzes, whom Theodora had sent on public business into the Peloponnesus, he fell sick at Patras. A wealthy widow, Danielis by name, who had been struck with the handsome looks of the gallant attaché, had him removed to her house and carefully nursed him through his illness. When he recovered, she made Basil a member of her family, by uniting him with her own son John in those spiritual ties of brotherhood sanctioned by the Greek Church with peculiar rites; also she bestowed on him considerable wealth so that from that time on he could play well the part of a courtier, and had the means to make himself the boon companion, friend, and colleague of the erratic Michael.

The lasting friendship between the widow and the emperor constitutes the most interesting episode in the checkered career of Basil. When he became emperor, he displayed his gratitude by sending for the son of his former benefactress and making him protospatharios, or chief of the guards. He also urged the widow to visit him, and see her adopted son seated on the throne. The account of her journey to Constantinople, is a most valuable commentary on the life of Greek women in the ninth century, and shows how vast was the wealth of the few on Greek soil, and what an important part a wealthy widow could play in the affairs of state; the story is as follows:

"The lady Danielis set off from Patras in a litter or covered couch, carried on the shoulders of ten slaves; and the train which followed her, destined to relieve these litter bearers, amounted to three hundred persons. When she reached Constantinople, she was lodged in the palace of Magnaura, appropriated for the reception of princely guests. The rich presents she had prepared for the emperor astonished the inhabitants of the capital, for no foreign monarch had ever offered gifts of equal value to a Byzantine sovereign.

"The slaves that bore the gifts were themselves a part of the present, and were all distinguished for their youth, beauty, and accomplishments. Four hundred young men, one hundred eunuchs and one hundred maidens, formed the living portion of this magnificent offering; while there were in addition, a hundred pieces of the richest colored drapery, one hundred pieces of soft woollen cloth, two hundred pieces of linen, and one hundred of cambric, so fine that each piece could be enclosed in the joint of a reed. To all this, a service of cups, dishes, and plates of gold and silver was added. When Danielis reached Constantinople, she found that the emperor had constructed a magnificent church as an expiation for the murder of his benefactor, Michael III. She sent orders to the Peloponnesus to manufacture carpets of unusual size, in order to cover the whole floor, that they might protect the rich mosaic pavement, in which a peacock with outspread tail astonished, by the extreme brilliancy of its coloring, every one who beheld it. Before the widow quitted Constantinople, she settled a considerable portion of her estate in Greece on her son, the protospatharios, and on her adopted child, the emperor, in joint property.

"After Basil's death, she again visited Constantinople; her own son was dead, so she constituted the Emperor Leo VI. her sole heir. On quitting the capital for the last time, she desired that the protospatharios, Zenobius, might be dispatched to the Peloponnesus, for the purpose of preparing a register of her extensive estate and immense property. She died shortly after her return; and even the imperial officers were amazed at the amount of her wealth; the quantity of gold coin, gold and silver plate, works of art in bronze, furniture, rich stuffs in linen, cotton, wool and silk, cattle and slaves, palaces and farms, formed an inheritance that enriched even an Emperor of Constantinople. The slaves of which Emperor Leo became the proprietor were so numerous that he ordered three thousand to be enfranchised and sent to the _theme_ of Longobardia (as Apulia was then called), where they were put in possession of land which they cultivated as serfs. After the payment of many legacies, and a division of part of the landed property, according to the disposition of the testament, the emperor remained possessor of eighty farms or villages."