Constantinople: A Sketch of its History from its Foundation to its Conquest by the Turks in 1453/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
CONSTANTINOPLE FROM CONSTANTINE TO JUSTINIAN.
A.D. 324-527.
ITH a new capital and a new religion, Constantine may perhaps have flattered himself that he had settled everything on a perfectly satisfactory basis. He certainly had reasons for believing that his city was in all respects well fitted to be the seat of the world's government, and that now at length the Christian Church bid fair to win supremacy over men's minds and consciences. His leading thought, no doubt, was to secure the empire against anarchy and civil strife, and this was to be accomplished by uniting the forces of Roman Imperialism and of the Church. But he saw that he could not do this at Rome, which, with Italy, was still too much under pagan influence, whereas in the East the new faith was already in the ascendant among all classes, and was every day becoming more powerful. Probably the empire was too vast, and made up of provinces too unlike in character, and communication between its different portions was too slow and difficult, to allow it to be effectively directed by one head. But Constantine—indeed, any statesman of the time—would naturally suppose that this was the only solution of the difficulty, and that to avert anarchy there must be a strong central administration. This it was which he did his best to create, and he did his work with much ability; but one of the inevitable results was a want of sympathy between the government and the governed. The administration was in the hands of a multitude of imperial officials: it was a bureaucracy, with all the weaknesses of that system. How Constantine could have done otherwise in the interests of order, it is not easy to see. The empire had to be held together, and there was apparently only one way of preserving its unity; but unfortunately that way was one which led to a method of government in which anything like national feeling and a sense of responsibility among the governed had no place. At the same time, some of Constantine's reforms were really wise and beneficial, and as they were on a great scale, and produced lasting effects, we may fairly call him a great legislator. Henceforth the emperor was not, as he had been, so much a military commander-in-chief as a political ruler, and the army was thus subordinated to the civil power. Justice, too, was more regularly administered, and, with better laws, oppression was rendered less easy. To this result Christianity largely contributed. Cruel punishments—that of crucifixion among them—were abolished; the rigours of imprisonment were softened; slavery itself was fenced by restrictions tending to make it tolerable. The Jew, the heathen, could not have a Christian slave, and many ways were opened to the attainment of freedom. Parents were no longer allowed to expose or to sell their children. If they could not support them, provision was made for them at the public cost, after the manner of our parochial relief Constantine's legislation, on the whole, certainly conduced to the morality and happiness of his subjects. With the Church and clergy he dealt liberally: he gave them privileges, a good social position, and handsome endowments; the public purse was always open to them, and they were put in the way to grow rich and influential. But he kept them under a tight rein, and was quite as much the head of the Church as he was of the State. As such, he summoned the first general council, the famous Council of Nice, in 325, which condemned the theology of Arius.
In one important respect his government was felt to be oppressive. It was very costly, and taxation in those days was carried out in a clumsy fashion, and on what we regard as thoroughly bad principles. A system of administration which attempted so much as that of Constantine could not possibly dispense with an immense revenue, and this was raised by methods which really discouraged industry and economy. Everything seemed to be sacrificed to the imperial court and its belongings, the property of the clergy alone being somewhat favoured. The emperor's palace in its establishment was made a very heavy, and to a great extent a useless, burden on the resources of the empire. Constantine's idea was, no doubt, partly to have a number of well-paid offices which might attract men of ability, partly to impress the people with the spectacle of outward magnificence. But for all this the cultivator of the soil had to pay heavily in the shape of a land-tax; and though the greed of tax-gatherers was restrained by a number of laws devised by Constantine for the protection of his subjects, the fact remained that a useful class of the community was grievously oppressed for the benefit and enrichment of the emperor's household. Matters were made worse by legislative attempts to bind a man down to the condition in which he happened to be born. The son of a farmer or landed proprietor was obliged to abide in his father's calling, unless he had a brother to take his place and to pay the land-tax. In fact, the rural population was tied to the soil, and reduced to serfdom. These people, which had been the strength of Rome's armies, had now to be disarmed, lest they should rise in rebellion. They could not become soldiers, and thus the soldier-class became a distinct one, quite apart from the rest of the community. The military profession almost became hereditary. The result was that emperor and army and the whole machinery of government were out of sympathy with the people. But the system had some compensating advantages. Of patriotic and political virtue there could be but little in a state of things in which the people had no voice and could express no opinion about public affairs; but there is reason to believe that the lower orders had an easier and more comfortable existence than in the periods which we associate with the greatest glories of Greece and of Rome.
This is not the place to tell the story of the fortunes of Constantine's three unhappy sons, between whom, contrary to what we might have expected, he divided his empire. Not one of them was at all fit to reign, and Constantius, a cruel and weak man, after a very brief tenure of empire, made way by his opportune death for Julian, who, if he was a pedant and a fanatic, had some real merits. Julian was sole emperor from 361 to 363. His expedition against Persia, then ruled by the war-like and formidable Sapor, was a failure, and cost him his life. Its conclusion was peculiarly inglorious, as Julian's successor, Jovian, had to make peace with the enemy by ceding to him the five provinces east of the Tigris, with the very important city Nisibis, the fortifications of which were the chief bulwark of the Roman empire in those remote regions. This was, indeed, an epoch in Rome's decline, which we may compare with the abandonment of Britain in the following century. It was a confession of weakness. A brave soldier, a native of Illyria, who had fought with glory under Julian in Persia, was now chosen emperor by the imperial ministers in preference to several candidates. This was Valentinian. As was natural, he was the favourite of the army. He was probably nothing more than a brave and capable officer, and may have at once felt that if he was to hold empire he must divide the responsibility. The late disastrous war with Persia may have led him to this decision; perhaps, too, being a plain soldier without much education, he may have thought he was peculiarly ill-fitted to reign over the more highly polished eastern half of the Roman world. "The weight of the universe," he is represented as saying, "is too great for the hands of a feeble mortal." So he associated with him as his colleague in empire his brother Valens, who was indeed grateful for the honour conferred on him, but who seems to have had no great and worthy qualities. The choice, in fact, as the event proved, was altogether an unfortunate one, and ended in a deplorable calamity. Hitherto the theory had been that the empire should have a single head. Now at last, in the year 364, it was finally and once for all divided, the division being formally executed by the two brothers near Nissa, a name which we have before had occasion to mention. Valentinian was to be the emperor of the West, Valens of the East, and on this understanding they took leave of each other. And now a result, for which circumstances had long been preparing the way and which on the whole could not be regretted, was thus at last accomplished.
Valens is for two reasons a well-known name. To the readers of ecclesiastical history he is the furious Arian and savage persecutor of the orthodox or Athanasian party. To those who follow with interest the declining fortunes of Rome's empire, he figures as one of the most unfortunate of her rulers, perishing as he did in as fatal a reverse as ever befell the Roman arms. It was in the reign of Valens, from 364 to 378, that the Huns first appeared in Europe, and drove before them the Goths, then in some degree a civilized and Christian people, to the banks of the Danube. We must bear in mind that for some time past the Goths had been on peaceful and even friendly terms with the empire, and had supplied a great number of its soldiers. Now in their distress they sought its protection, and prayed that they might be allowed to cross the Danube and to settle in Thrace, as Roman subjects. Their prayer was granted, and they were to be received into Roman territory on condition of surrendering their arms, giving up their children as hostages for their good behaviour, and letting them be dispersed throughout the province of Asia. All this, in their dismay at the Huns, they conceded, and after some delay, and with much difficulty and danger and loss, one of the three great tribes of the Gothic people, the Visigoths, were conveyed across the broad and rapid stream of the Danube. But by a fatal error, due, it would seem, to the covetousness and dishonesty of the emperor's ministers, who let themselves be bribed into disregarding the most important of the conditions required from the Goths, the vast multitude were permitted to retain their arms, and now they stood, a formidable and threatening host, on the plains of Bulgaria. It seems that many of them were very rich, and this stimulated the greedy Romans to charge them extortionate prices for the necessaries of life. The Goths bore it patiently for a time, thinking, perhaps, that it was better to be robbed in peace and safety than to fall a prey to the terrible Huns. But at last they were provoked beyond endurance, and somewhere near Shumla, their leader, Fritigern, who had their entire confidence, roused them to action against their mean and grasping oppressors. The Roman officer on the spot, Lupicinus, who, to quote Gibbon's words, "had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who had presumed to despise them," could not withstand their might, and his legions were broken and put to flight by their resolute onslaught. "That day," says the Gothic historian Jornandes, "put an end to the distress of the barbarians and the security of the Romans." The regions south of the Danube, all Moesia and Thrace, were now open to the Goths, and were not spared by them. These fruitful provinces were cruelly ravaged, and though they could not capture the cities, yet soon, to the terror and dismay of the Romans, the Gothic host, to the number of 200,000 men, were under the walls of Adrianople.
Valens at this perilous crisis was at Antioch. Persia was still under the formidable Sapor, and it was necessary to watch his movements and to guard the frontier. Valens, who does not seem generally to have been a man of any conspicuous energy and ability, was prompt on this occasion, and withdrew the legions from Armenia for the defence of his capital and its neighbourhood. He asked aid from his nephew, Gratian, now the emperor of the West. Gratian, who was but nineteen years of age, had just won a decisive victory in Alsace over the Alemanni, a powerful confederation of German tribes, and he was quite prepared and willing to throw the whole weight of his power into the approaching conflict with the Goths. Valens ought to have waited for his arrival, and then he might have confidently reckoned on success. As it was, as soon as he reached Constantinople, he was pressed by the ignorant and clamorous populace to lead his army instantly against the barbarians who had dared to intrude themselves into Roman territory. One is not surprised to hear that these silly, bragging townspeople, who cared for nothing but the amusements of the circus, assured him that if only arms were put into their hands, they would drive the Goths back to their settlements on the other side of the Danube. Provoked by all this popular clamour, and possibly, too, by some jealousy of Gratian, Valens took the rash resolution of at once encountering the enemy. He advanced on Adrianople, and encamped near the city, strengthening his position in the usual Roman fashion with a fosse and rampart. Even now, had he listened to the prudent counsels of one of his generals, all would have been well. Gratian was advancing by rapid marches, and the two armies, it may be presumed, would have overpowered the Goths. But Valens was eager to snatch a victory, and on the ninth day of August, in the year 378 A.D., as black a day in the Roman calendar as that of Allia or Cannæ, he marched to attack the enemy, who was now about twelve miles from the city. His troops, weary and exhausted by exposure for several hours to a burning sun, must have been unfit for battle; and though they seem to have fought bravely, they must have fought at a great disadvantage. The cavalry of the Goths, numerous and well mounted, cooped them into narrow limits, within which the Roman legionaries could not use with effect their formidable javelins or manœuvre in their accustomed manner. The battle seems somewhat to have resembled that of Cannæ, and its end was far more disastrous. Valens and his staff perished in a cottage in which they had taken refuge and which the enemy fired. Two-thirds of his army were slain. The Goths were now in undisturbed possession of the entire country south of the Danube.
It was fortunate for the empire that it contained several strongly fortified cities. This indeed was its preservation. In this respect the East was better able to resist the tide of barbaric invasion than the West. The Goths were brave warriors and even good soldiers, but they had no idea of conducting a siege, and their fierce assault on Adrianople was repelled by the skill and resolution of the defenders. They could not face the volleys of missiles poured on them from the engines on the city walls, and they soon gave up the attempt in despair. From Adrianople they moved on to the capital itself, and were able to plunder its suburbs, made up of the homes of its rich citizens. But the city itself could easily defy them, and they had, in Gibbon's words, merely the satisfaction "of gazing with hopeless desire on its inaccessible beauties." One remarkable incident occurred. Goths and Saracens came into collision; a body of the latter serving in the Roman army under Valens, having sallied out, attacked the besiegers with even more than barbarian ferocity. The Arab cavalry on this occasion overmatched that of the Goths, an omen this of the future Saracenic triumphs. Soon the mighty host retired from the impregnable walls of Constantinople, and dispersed itself throughout the wilder parts of Thrace. The Eastern empire was safe, though much of its territory had suffered calamities so dreadful that Jerome quaintly describes them as leaving nothing in the countries desolated but "the sky and the earth."
Once more the world was to be united for the short space of a few months under one head, in the person of a man of whom Gibbon says, "that with him the genius of Rome expired." This was Theodosius, the first emperor who humbled himself before a Christian bishop. His submission to Ambrose and his public penance in the church of Milan for his barbarous punishment of a riot at Thessalonica, are perhaps the most familiar facts in the history of the period. Two important events mark his reign; the permanent settlement of the Goths within the boundaries of the empire, and the final overthrow of paganism, at least, of its outward forms and manifestations. His father was a distinguished general, and had suppressed rebellion in Britain and in Africa. But he fell into disgrace, and for some unknown cause was executed at Carthage. The son, who had already governed with ability the province of Moesia and saved it from an inroad of Sarmatians, had retired to Spain, the country of his birth, and thence, like Cincinnatus in the old days of the republic, he was summoned from his farm to be the colleague of Gratian in the empire. Much was expected of him, and it was hoped that he would prove himself a second Trajan, whom in his features he was said to resemble. He had been well educated, and at the same time trained in the simple habits of a soldier, and under his father he had had a wide and various experience of military service. He had first to deal with the Goths, and this he did more by skilful negotiations than by war. It does not seem that he avenged the defeat of Adrianople by any decisive triumph. In fact, like the famous dictator Fabius in the war with Hannibal, he avoided battles, and sought to win advantages and to restore confidence to the Romans without running serious risks. The Gothic chief, Athanaric, worn out with age and fatigue, was glad to make peace with the emperor, and the story is told that he went himself on a friendly visit to Constantinople, the grandeur of which so much impressed him, that he saluted Theodosius as "a god upon earth." There he died, and was buried with befitting pomp. This conciliated the Goths, and the policy of Theodosius was successful. Within four years of the defeat and death of Valens, one tribe of this formidable people, the Visigoths, ceased to be the open enemies of the empire, and were peacefully settled in the provinces south of the Danube, a large colony of them being established in Roumelia.
Theodosius had been brought up as a Christian, and it may be fairly assumed that his Christianity was more sincere and earnest than that of Constantine, who was after all but half a pagan. At any rate, he did not defer his baptism till the close of his life. He was baptized in the first year of his reign, and his next step was to fix the creed of his subjects. Arianism was the prevailing belief of the capital, and the bishop was himself an Arian. The emperor was orthodox, and the bishop was requested to resign, and this he promptly did. In order to establish the faith as defined in the Nicene Creed, the second of the general councils was held in 381, on the imperial summons at Constantinople. It was, however, in reality simply a council of the Eastern Church, though its œcumenical character was subsequently acknowledged. It condemned every phase of Arianism, and in the most distinct and precise terms confirmed the catholic faith. It appears that the most abstruse doctrines of theology were subjects of engrossing interest and daily conversation even among the mechanics and artisans of Constantinople. The people of the city seem to have been as curious and speculative as the men of Athens in St. Paul's time. It shocks us to hear that in the very shops and streets, and even in the baths, the profoundest mysteries of the Christian faith were freely canvassed. This was due not, as we might suppose, to conscious irreverence so much as to a restless and excitable temper. The council itself, as we are told by Gregory of Nazianzus, who presided at it, came to a scandalously turbulent close. The emperor at once proceeded to enforce its decisions by persecution, and penal enactments were passed against all heretics, those especially who at all inclined towards Arianism. But it seems that these rigorous laws were not often carried into effect. Theodosius could be cruel at times, but we may fairly believe that, in his efforts to extirpate paganism and Arianism, he was severe on principle and from deliberate conviction. He probably did not deserve all the praises showered on him by ecclesiastics, still less the preposterous eulogy of one Pacatus, his panegyrist, that "could the elder Brutus revisit the earth, that stern republican would abjure his hatred of kings at the feet of Theodosius." But in many respects he was a good and a great ruler, and at a peculiarly difficult time he rendered the empire important service. He deserves to have gone down to posterity as Theodosius the Great.
It was not till nearly the end of his life that he became for a brief space the emperor of the West as well as of the East. An insurrection in Britain in the year 383 A.D. was the means of ultimately accomplishing this result. The movement was headed by one of the generals in the province, Maximus, who was particularly popular with the troops, and was even proclaimed emperor by them. The rebellion was at once carried into Gaul. Gratian, Valens' nephew, now the reigning emperor of the West, was defeated in the neighbourhood of Paris, and murdered by one of the emissaries of Maximus near Lyons. The provinces of Britain, of Gaul and Spain, now submitted the usurper, and Gratian's brother, Valentinian, a mere youth, feeling that his position in Italy was precarious, fled with his mother Justina to Thessalonica, and threw himself on the protection of Theodosius. The emperor of the East received the fugitives kindly, and fell in love with Valentinian's beautiful sister, the princess Galla. It seems that his passion for her prompted him to restore her brother to the imperial throne. As soon as he had married her, he decided on war against Maximus. At the head of an army made up of various nations—a mixed host, it is said, of Goths and Huns—he fought a decisive battle at Aquileia, at no great distance from the northern shores of the Adriatic, in the year 394. His rival was given up to him and killed, and now Theodosius was able to hand over the empire of the West to his youthful brother-in-law. But the unfortunate Valentinian was himself soon afterwards murdered by one of his generals, Arbogastes, who had served under Theodosius in the war with Maximus, and who was then commanding the Roman army in Gaul. The man, instead of having himself made emperor (he was but a barbarian), raised to the imperial power one Eugenius, said to be a rhetorician, and his secretary. But the murder of Valentinian was speedily avenged. With the aid of the famous soldier Stilicho, Theodosius, again in the neighbourhood of Aquileia, in the same year, overthrew this new and contemptible rival. It is said that heaven favoured him in the battle, and contributed to his enemy's discomfiture by a violent storm. Now for the last time the empire was united under a single head. For a few months Theodosius was emperor of the East and of the West, but in the following year (395) he died. His two sons, Honorius and Arcadius, had already received the rank and title of Augusti. The first was a boy of eleven years of age, and, with Stilicho for his guardian, he was to reign over the West. It would seem that the father trusted that the principle of hereditary succession was now in some degree recognized, and might be sufficiently respected to ensure something like a permanent settlement.
His elder son Arcadius was to succeed him in the East. With Arcadius begins the definite final separation of the two empires, and what we may properly call Byzantine history. The East and the West soon became thoroughly out of sympathy with each other. At a time when a community of feeling and sentiment was specially needful in the face of the terrors of barbarian inroads, there was positive strife and discord between these two great divisions of the world. Italy claimed to represent the old republic of Rome, and looked down on the East with a sort of contempt which a senator in old days would have felt for Greeks and Asiatics. It was itself again despised as rude and barbarous by the more civilized, if too luxurious and effeminate, inhabitants of the eastern provinces. Already there was a schism between East and West. With two governments, as Gibbon notes, two separate nations came into existence.
From Theodosius to Arcadius there was as great a fall as from Edward I. to Edward II. Arcadius was not unlike the latter prince. He was a poor feeble creature, whom we can hardly think of as a Roman emperor, though of course he bore the title, and was styled Cæsar and Augustus. His appearance was contemptible; he was short of stature and almost deformed; and of accomplishments, such as might be fairly expected in a prince, he seems to have possessed but one, an elegant handwriting. His faults and weaknesses were those of a Persian and Oriental despot. He was ruled by women and eunuchs. Of these last the chief was Eutropius, who rose to the highest honour, and instigated his master to many a cruel act under the pretext of punishing high treason. The man's fate was such as he deserved, and such as history often has occasion to record. A Gothic chieftain had raised a formidable rebellion, and declined all negotiations with the Emperor unless the head of the imperial favourite was delivered up to him. The emperor's scruples, whatever they may have been, were soon overcome by the Empress Eudoxia, the daughter of a Frank, and a lady of conspicuous ability and strength of purpose. So within four years of the accession of Arcadius his unworthy minister was driven into exile and ultimately beheaded.
It is said that paganism declined during his reign, and that the Church could count many converts. The emperor was at least orthodox, and did his best to promote orthodoxy. In other respects the time was dark and dismal. Theodosius knew how to manage the Goths: they were partly afraid of him; partly, too, they sincerely respected him, and had been conciliated by his judicious concessions. But the weak Arcadius, and the treacherous ministers who directed his policy, soon provoked them. Under their renowned king Alaric they rose in revolt, and poured into Thessaly and the Peloponnese, capturing and plundering Corinth, Sparta, and Argos among its ancient cities. Athens saved itself by a vast ransom. Greece, the population of which had for some time enjoyed peace and prosperity, was so fearfully impoverished by this inroad, that a law had to be passed a few years afterwards relieving it from two-thirds of its customary contribution to the imperial revenue. It was not merely a number of precious works of art which perished, but roads, aqueducts, and public buildings were so utterly destroyed, that the country was condemned to a long period of poverty. The fortifications, indeed, of Constantinople, and the fortunate situation of the city, could defy Alaric, and save it from the ruin which he was soon to bring upon Rome. But the Eastern world, though it arrested the barbarian, was rudely shaken, and sustained fearful loss and damage. The civilization of Greece received a shock from which it never recovered, and the Greek race itself, to the capacities of which mankind owe so much, now grew feebler, and began to dwindle away into insignificance.
Meanwhile the capital presented a striking contrast to all this misery and desolation. Constantinople was plentifully supplied with gold and silver from the regions of Thrace and the Pontus, and its coinage was particularly famous. Its merchants, too, almost monopolised the commerce of the world, and its wealth and luxury seem to have become prodigious. There is every reason to believe that many of the countries under the sway of the Eastern empire were richer and more populous than at present. Along with all this material prosperity there went, according to the writers of the time, a deplorable corruption of life and manners. It is very possible that they may have exaggerated the luxury and depravity of the Romans under Theodosius, though we may admit the force of Gibbon's remark, that the perils of the age and the presence of the rapacious Goths may have inspired them with "the mad prodigality which prevails in the confusion of a siege or a shipwreck." And so, amid the calamities of a falling world, there may have been a progress of luxury which could not have been too severely reprobated. The splendour of the imperial establishment at Constantinople was, unless we have been utterly deceived, grotesquely elaborate and magnificent. It was of a thoroughly Oriental type, as we gather from the invectives of Chrysostom, the most conspicuous figure, perhaps, of the inglorious reign of Arcadius. To his eloquence and earnestness we may, no doubt, fairly attribute the gathering strength and numbers of the Christian Church, a fact which we have already noted. The crying sin of the age was, in his judgment, its vulgar luxury and extravagance. There is a memorable passage in one of his homilies, familiar to all readers of Gibbon, in which, as the historian says, "he celebrates while he condemns" the excessive pomp and show of the court of Arcadius. The emperor's throne was of massive gold; his silken robe embroidered with golden dragons; his chariot drawn by mules of spotless white, glittering with gold, and itself of pure and solid gold, with purple curtains and snow-white carpet, and precious stones of a size to amaze the beholders. Within the impregnable walls of his city the degenerate son of Theodosius knew that he could safely enjoy all this state and grandeur, which must have taxed heavily even the resources of an empire stretching from the Adriatic to the Tigris, and embracing the richest regions of the world. The fact that Huns and Goths, in Asia and in Europe, were menacing its order and civilization, does not seem to have seriously troubled him.
Along with the idle love of vain show and amusement in the capital there must have been genuine religious feeling. By the lower orders Chrysostom was honoured and respected. He had been raised to the archbishopric by the eunuch-minister Eutropius, who had heard him at Antioch, and had much admired his preaching. Base as the man was, Chrysostom thought it his duty to protect him when the rebel Gothic chief, an Arian and a heretic, demanded his life. The archbishop's eloquence saved him at the moment, though, as we have seen, he soon afterwards got his deserts. Chrysostom's great merit was that he did not spare rank and wealth. There was no taint of worldly-mindedness about him, and in such a city as Constantinople this was quite enough to bring him a host of enemies. Of these the chief and leader was the Empress Eudoxia, whose feeble husband was now wholly under her control. Chrysostom's denunciations of luxury might easily be construed into pointed reflections on the emperor, and be regarded as almost treasonable. But, as with John the Baptist, all men counted him a prophet, and with the mass of the population he was a great favourite. A furious riot would have been the result of any openly hostile proceedings against him. The empress endeavoured to crush him by the instrumentality of another ecclesiastic, Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, who seems to have feared that Chrysostom's fame would depress his own rank among the bishops of the Church. To this fear was added a bitter feeling which had grown out of some theological controversy between them, and, on the strength of it, an attempt was made to fasten a charge of heresy on Chrysostom. But the synod which was to consider the matter could not be safely held in the city, and it was summoned to meet in one of the suburbs of Chalcedon. Strangely enough, one of the charges against Chrysostom was inhospitality, although it was notorious that he had dispensed great sums out of his episcopal revenues in charity. A writer of the time, quoted by Gibbon in a note, explains, by way of defence, that Chrysostom never tasted wine, that he often fasted till sunset, that he disliked the bustle and levity of great dinners, and saved the expense for the relief of the poor. But, notwithstanding the bishop's undoubted piety, notwithstanding his wonderful popularity, he was deposed from his see for contumacy, to be, however, recalled within four months by the empress, who is said to have been terrified by an earthquake, which the public voice pronounced a sure sign of Divine wrath. A riot, too, had broken out; a furious mob had threatened the palace, and Eudoxia herself insisted that he should be restored. We see what strength the Church must have already acquired among the masses of the people. It is true, indeed, that he was again banished, and banished finally, through the influence of the empress, whom he exasperated by condemning the honours paid to one of her statues. It was said by his enemies that he began a sermon with the words, "Herodias again rages; once more she dances; once again she requires the head of John." On this occasion the previous sentence of deposition was confirmed at the instigation of the incensed Eudoxia, and the eloquent and noble-minded Chrysostom died in exile in Pontus. But the day of his departure from Constantinople witnessed a tumult and a fire, in which perished, among numerous other buildings, the church of St. Sophia and the senate-house.
This is far the most striking and significant episode in the reign of Arcadius. It was in 404 that Chrysostom went into his first exile. Arcadius's reign was now near its end. Not one single memorable deed has been recorded of the son of Theodosius the Great. In his last years the provinces of Asia Minor were harried by the Isaurians, a robber tribe issuing from the wild country under the Taurus range, and now becoming famous and formidable. So weak was the government, that it could not stop the incursions of these barbarians, and even Syria and Palestine did not escape their ravages. The administration of the empire seems to have become thoroughly disorganized under this feeble prince. It was a period of every sort of woe and calamity, in which famines and earthquakes and flights of devouring locusts are said to have rapidly followed on each other. All this misery was set down by the unhappy and discontented people to the contemptible character of the emperor and his persecution of Chrysostom. In 408 this wretched reign of outward splendour in the capital, and real feebleness and grievous disaster around it—an inauspicious beginning for the empire of the East—came to a close.
A little boy, eight years of age, the late emperor's only son, who had received the title of Augustus in his early infancy, was the successor of Arcadius. This was Theodosius II., or Theodosius the Younger, as he is sometimes called, by way of distinction from his grandfather. His reign covers the first half of the fifth century, and is one of very considerable interest. His sister, Pulcheria, only two years older than himself, appears to have moulded his character and manners. She may be said to have been his guardian, and practically empress. With ecclesiastical historians she is a peculiar favourite. She devoted herself to a life of celibacy and of charitable works, and her vow was recorded in a golden tablet in the great church of St. Sophia. She was thoroughly orthodox in her opinions, strict and devout in her life, and liberal on an imperial scale to the Church and to the poor. With all this she combined a keen interest in the welfare of the empire, and she made herself really responsible for its administration. Her brother was a mere puppet in her hands. She treated him as a child all his life, and though she taught him how a prince should behave himself on state occasions, and drilled him thoroughly in what we call "deportment," she does not seem to have encouraged him to rise to a position at all worthy of a Roman emperor. In fact, she kept him in leading-strings, and he grew up a poor weak-minded man, of whom the best that could be said was that he was gentle and amiable. "Idle amusements and unprofitable studies," says Gibbon, "occupied his unlimited leisure." It is almost surprising to find that he was fond of hunting. He painted and carved after a mechanical fashion with the most patient industry, and, like his father, he wrote a beautiful hand, which last accomplishment procured him the surname of Kalligraphos—the fair writer. He applied it especially to the illumination of manuscripts. Cut off from the world, he acquired a positive distaste for anything like business, and he signed papers without reading them, thereby often getting credit for harshness and injustice. He was the one last man in the world with whose name we should have expected an important code of legislation would have been associated. The so-called Theodosian Code, which marks his reign, was the fruit of an intelligent reforming spirit now beginning to make itself distinctly felt.
It was the good fortune of the young prince to have also the counsels and guidance of a good minister. The time, as we have said, was a perplexing one, and now the empire was menaced by a host of Huns who had penetrated far into Thrace. Their chief, Uldin, boasted that he would lead them on to the rising sun, but his vaunt soon ended in his having to retire, and even recross the Danube. The prime minister, as we may call him, Anthemius, took prompt measures, which were really the means of saving the empire in the East. On the frontiers of Illyria and Upper Moesia—in what is now Servia—he established fortresses; but his chief and most valuable work was to strengthen Constantinople itself by building, in the year 413, the great walls, as they have been called. These were such as effectually to defy the most furious assaults of mere barbarians.
The young emperor's marriage was the most singular passage of his reign. There is an air of romance about it. His sister of course arranged the whole matter for him, and she chose happily. The lady's name, Eudocia, is one of the most famous in the annals of the Byzantine empire. She was not of royal or imperial lineage, but was simply the daughter of a Greek philosopher and professor at Athens, Leontius, still a worshipper of the heathen divinities. Her original name was Athenais. She was beautiful, clever, accomplished, and familiar with the whole range of literature and science. It seems that she attended—other ladies, we may presume, did the same—her father's lectures, and she also had the advantage of mingling freely in the best society of Athens, among whom culture was fashionable. There can be hardly a question that she was a woman of real genius. To this her father confidently trusted her future, leaving her without any fortune. But for some reason or other she could not find a husband at Athens. In her twentieth year, as it would seem, she betook herself to Constantinople, and was introduced to Pulcheria, then only about fifteen years of age. Soon she professed herself a Christian, and she so charmed her patroness that she became her constant companion, and perhaps stood to her in the relation of a maid of honour or lady in waiting. So she lived for about seven years. But Pulcheria meanwhile had destined her to great honour. With her brother she could do as she pleased, and she decided to marry him to Athenais. He was himself but twenty years of age. It is said that by his sister's contrivance he saw his bride for the first time from the concealment of a curtain, and that he instantly approved her choice. The marriage was at once celebrated, and the professor's daughter, under the name of Eudocia, which she had received at her baptism, became the empress of the East.
The rest of her story is somewhat sad. For several years she was content to live in submission to the wishes of Pulcheria, and to take little or no part in public affairs. After twenty years, when she was not far from fifty, she was the subject of a strange scandal; but it is fair to say that our accounts of the matter are obscure, and the incident we are about to mention is regarded by Gibbon as one which might have found a fitting place in the "Arabian Nights." We may well suppose, at any rate, that it has been exaggerated or distorted by the gossip of the court. The story goes that as the emperor was on his way to church on the Feast of the Epiphany, he was presented by a poor man with a singularly fine apple; that having ordered him to be rewarded on a princely scale, he forthwith sent the apple as a pleasant surprise to the empress, who was, it appears, passionately fond of fruit. The sequel of the tale is certainly very ridiculous. Eudocia, we are told, was too fond of a gouty old man, Paulinus by name, one of the chief officials in the court, and to him she sent the apple. Paulinus, instead of retaining the gift for the sake of the giver, as he ought to have done under the circumstances, took the poor man's view of the matter, and thought the emperor the only person worthy of such a splendid present. The result was that Theodosius on his return from church found his apple awaiting him, and thinking that there must be something amiss, asked the empress about it. By a most unlucky falsehood she replied that she had eaten it. Her gentle husband, who was intensely fond of her, at once suspected mischief. There was, in fact, a scene—old Paulinus was banished, and Eudocia had to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But there is another account which attributes her final downfall to ecclesiastical squabbles, in which she and Pulcheria took opposite sides. It is said that for a time she had the advantage, that she won over the emperor to her own views, and that Pulcheria had to withdraw from Constantinople. She was, however, soon recalled and recovered her influence. Eudocia, it is said, ruined herself by procuring the murder of a minister, through whose agency two of her favourite ecclesiastics had been put to death. By this she quite destroyed her position, and lost the state and even title of empress. But the accounts we have are confused and contradictory. She was, it is certain, a considerable author, and wrote paraphrases of certain portions of the Scriptures, and she was something of a poet. In one of her poems she commemorated the victories won by her husband's armies over the Persians. The emperor, it may be presumed, knew next to nothing about this. The most fulsome panegyric was the fashion of the day, and was one of the worst disgraces of the Byzantine court. It was indeed the fitting companion of vulgar show and luxury. There had indeed been in 422 some fighting in Armenia and Mesopotamia between the empire of the East and Persia. But nothing decisive—or worthy of commemoration had been accomplished. The emperor's ambassadors had talked pompously and absurdly about the power and the wealth of their master, the poor inoffensive stripling then shut up in his palace under his sister's tutelage. But the stronghold of Nisibis remained in the enemy's possession, and the conclusion of a long war left nothing but a small district of Armenia to the Roman emperor.
His long reign, indeed, which lasted till 450, was anything but glorious. Its last years witnessed a signal humiliation. We have seen that at the beginning of his reign the Huns withdrew from the neighbourhood of Constantinople to the northern bank of the Danube. But in 441 the "scourge of God," the terrible Attila, brought them back into the southern provinces of the empire, and again unhappy Thrace, up to the very fortifications of the capital, was at their mercy. The cities of Illyria which Anthemius had fortified, among them the strong position of Singidunum, now Belgrade, could not resist the barbarian. The armies of the empire were thrice discomfited by him in the plains of Bulgaria. Amid these woful calamities, in which seventy cities are said to have perished, the emperor took his ease, and life in Constantinople seems to have undergone no change. But the citizens must have been fearfully panic-stricken by the great earthquake in 447, which shattered their walls into a ruin and threw down fifty-eight of the towers. The city may have been still defensible, but we can hardly doubt that in the last extremity it could have been held even against Attila. As it was, however, a peace was concluded, which gave the conqueror the larger part of the Balkan peninsula, and left the empire a mere fragment of European territory. He claimed, in addition, a vast indemnity, which was raised with extreme difficulty. The empire was supposed to be immensely rich, but wild extravagance in the court and capital and an ill-administered financial system had made it poor. We are told that the wealthy nobles and citizens had to sell their wives' jewels by auction, and part with the sumptuous furniture of their mansions, which usually included a semicircular table of solid silver and a dinner service of gold. It seems as if henceforth the empire was to exist simply on sufferance. The young Theodosius was styled indeed a Roman emperor, but of the Roman there was really nothing about him. So far as he had feelings and tastes of his own, he was a Greek of a rather inferior type. Some mental culture he no doubt acquired under his sister's influence, but for the actual government and administration he probably did little or nothing. In fact, he was simply the nominal head of the empire. But it seems clear that he had some able and enlightened men around him. His reign, unprosperous as it was for the empire generally, saw several reforms and improvements. There was a real desire to get rid of burdens and abuses, and to better the condition of the governed. The Theodosian code must have been compiled and drawn up by skilful and learned commissioners. It dealt thoroughly with every branch of the law, and laid down principles with some degree of clearness and precision. We may infer that there were many able and learned lawyers at Constantinople. The imperial revenue had been raised in a bad and oppressive way; the rich provinces were drained for useless expenditure in the capital, and thus steady industry was discouraged. Liberal concessions were made, and arrears of taxation, which had accumulated during the calamitous periods of barbaric invasion, were remitted. The remission is said to have covered as much as sixty years. One would suppose, indeed, that the ravages of the Huns must have totally destroyed many sources of the imperial revenue. We have already had occasion to note the impoverishment of Greece from the plundering expedition of Alaric and his Goths in the first year of the reign of Arcadius. Some relief for the taxpayer, and some reforms in the methods of levying the taxes, were no doubt among the first necessities of the time. All this was arranged by the Theodosian Code, and it was made easier for any who were oppressed to obtain legal remedies against the wrong-doer. So, while there must have been much misery and confusion in the world, we may believe that the seeds of improvement were being sown, and that there was real progress in the condition of the poor and labouring class. It is said that the system of police was so efficient that the streets of the chief cities of the East were as safe by night as by day. The friendly relation too of the clergy with the people seems to have had a salutary influence. Among the clergy were scholars and men of learning. Their flocks could hear the Scriptures read and explained to them in their own native language. The abstruse theological speculations in which the Greek mind delighted were by no means without their use. If they did not lead to any positive results, we may be sure that their general effect was humanising. It was better for the higher and wealthier class to take pleasure in discussing theological dogmas than in witnessing the last agonies of dying gladiators. No doubt the luxury of the time, in the capital especially, was a scandal and a source of corruption and feebleness; but luxury is, we know, inseparable from wealth and softness of manners, and throughout the East it may have been a civilizing and not a purely demoralizing agency.
A university was founded at Constantinople in the reign of Theodosius—a distinct symptom of intellectual activity. We may conjecture that the emperor's cultivated and energetic sister helped on the movement. It was not the result of private liberality; it was the act of the state, and the university was maintained at the public cost. The professors held very honourable positions, and attained them after having given decisive proof of profound learning and excellent character. A chair in the university was obtained by competitive examination. A professor of twenty years' standing received the title of "count," and became, in fact, a nobleman of the empire. It seems that the officials of the civil service were chosen from distinguished members of the university. Greek was one of the chief subjects of study; Latin was by no means neglected, and there were chairs of law and philosophy. The Eastern world evidently set a high value on learning and culture. Literature was hardly popular in our sense of the word, but religious books were widely read, and religious controversy, as we have seen, excited a keen interest. It is remarked by Mr. Finlay that "the very constitution of society seemed to forbid the existence of genius." The truth is that literature and art addressed themselves to a somewhat narrow circle, which completely set the fashion in taste and criticism. This will usually be the result of imperialism. The writers and artists of the time merely copied good models, and so their works, though not wholly without merit, were apt to be stiff and artificial.
The latter half of the fifth century—indeed, we may say, the whole period from the death of Theodosius down to Justinian—is obscure, from the scantiness of our historical materials. It embraces the reigns of five emperors. After Theodosius, who died in 450 from an accident in the hunting-field, the empire fell to a man strangely unlike his predecessor. Marcian, by birth a Thracian peasant, had begun life as a common soldier, and at the age of fifty-six he was a member of the senate. He had served in wars in Persia and Africa under an able general, Aspar, a man of barbaric origin, whom the imperial minister had found it useful to employ. Pulcheria made him emperor, and, at the same time, for political purposes, her nominal husband. She could do this—so at least she thought—without breaking the vow by which in early life she had bound herself. Marcian's reply to the ambassadors of Attila who came to demand from him the stipulated tribute has made him deservedly famous. "I have iron for Attila," said the soldier-emperor, "but no gold." As we should expect of such a man, Marcian took little interest in the theological disputes which were so attractive to many of his subjects. Yet the Council of Chalcedon was summoned at his instance. The emperor hoped to secure unity for both East and West: as it was, he had to see the Eutychian and Nestorian heresies establish themselves in Egypt and in Asia.
To Marcian, who reigned but for seven years, succeeded the first of the Leos, Leo the Great, as with rather slender reasons he has been styled. His succession was due to the influence of Aspar, who might have been emperor himself but for his heterodox opinions, which were unpopular. He, too, was a native of Thrace and a soldier. He seems in many respects to have reigned well, and to have consulted the welfare of his subjects by carrying out the financial reforms which had been begun under Theodosius. Taxes were lightened, and in cases of public calamity, as when Antioch was shaken by a terrible earthquake, were for a time altogether remitted. He may perhaps have been called "the Great" rather in consideration of his orthodoxy than of his other merits. Although he had been a plain soldier, he knew and recognised the value of learning and education. Once a courtier ventured to upbraid him for giving a pension to a philosopher. Leo's reply was, "Would God that I had to pay no other people than scholars!" He was a really wise and well-meaning ruler. His reign, too, was not without some military glory. The Huns were checked near Sophia, and were glad to make peace. His attempt, however, with the aid of the empire of the West, now much enfeebled, to overthrow the kingdom of the Vandals under Genseric in Africa, was a disastrous failure. It was undertaken on a prodigious scale, implying the possession of wealth and resources which it is difficult to understand when we think of the losses and calamities which the empire had had to suffer. More than 1,100 ships and more than 100,000 troops are said to have sailed from Constantinople to Carthage. Genseric's fire-ships baffled and confounded this great armament, and the Vandal king again swept the Mediterranean with his fleets. Leo the Great must have seen with bitter disappointment this fatal and ignominious conclusion to his enterprise, and he must have known well, too, that the end of the empire of the West could not be far distant.
It was reserved for his successor Zeno to witness the catastrophe early in his reign. Zeno was called to the throne in 474 on the strength of being the late emperor's son-in-law. He was an Isaurian, and therefore a barbarian in Greek estimation. The accounts, or rather notices, we have of his reign are not flattering, but it is quite possible that they may be biassed. He had at least his share of trouble and misfortune during his reign of seventeen years, and perhaps in disgust and weariness he may have taken his ease and pleasure, as Greek writers say that he did, to the neglect of his imperial duties. Not only had he to see the Goths again under the walls of his capital, and to patch up a miserable peace with their great chief Theodoric, but he was also harassed by palace intrigues and serious outbreaks among the citizens. In the first year of his reign he had to flee from Constantinople, out of the way of an insurrectionary movement stirred up by Verina, the queen-dowager, and her brother Basiliscus. Some few years afterwards he was kept a prisoner in his own palace by his brother-in-law, the grandson of the emperor Marcian and husband of one of Leo's daughters. Theodoric the Goth took advantage of the confusion, and would have made himself master of Constantinople had he not, so the Greek historians tell us, been bribed on a vast scale to retire. Zeno's reign was one of wars abroad and troubles at home, and he really seems to deserve our pity. One good work, at least, he is said to have done for the empire: he raised a force of native troops to save it from the fate which had fallen on the West. The man who did this, remarks Mr. Finlay, could not have been contemptible; and the fact that he did succeed in baffling the formidable Theodoric may suggest to us that history has not done him justice. A barbarian by birth, a heretic, it was insinuated, in his theology, Zeno could hardly have hoped to escape some slander and misrepresentation.
Anastasius, his successor, was elected to the empire in 491 because he married the last emperor's widow, Ariadne. Probably the lady chose him for a husband, just as Pulcheria had chosen Marcian. Anastasius was sixty years of age, and he had been an officer in the imperial guard. Gibbon speaks of him as "a prudent emperor;" a title he deserves, as he contrived by skilful administration to relieve the burdens of his subjects, and to bequeath a well-filled treasury to his successor. One particularly oppressive tax, a poll-tax on men and domestic animals, he abolished with very happy effect; and we may suppose, with Mr. Finlay, that some of the triumphs of Justinian's reign were due in part to these reforms of Anastasius. With a state revenue which he had increased by judicious economies, he executed several public works, thereby no doubt greatly adding to the general wealth of the empire. Hitherto the suburbs of Constantinople had been exposed to every barbarian invader, and had been plundered and burnt by Goths and by Huns. The great wall, forty-two miles in length, stretching, in the form of an arc, from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea, was the work of Anastasius. It may, as Gibbon says, "have proclaimed the impotence of his arms," but it probably was the means of long preserving some sort of civilization for the capital of the East, and, we may add, for the world. And it is fair to the memory of Anastasius to remember that his arms were occasionally successful, and that a rebellion in the wild and difficult country of Isauria was thoroughly quelled, his successor in empire, Justin, distinguishing himself in the war. It is true, indeed, that he had in the year 505 to buy a very costly peace from the Persians, who were laying waste Mesopotamia. He was then an old man, but he lived on to ninety years of age, bequeathing the empire, after a reign of twenty-seven years, to a man of humble birth, and also a soldier, Justin. "Reign as you have lived," is said to have been the people's prayer on the accession of Anastasius, and he seems not to have disappointed their hopes, or to have been unworthy of his elevation.