Byzantium

A History

John Haldon

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9780750956734
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Byzantinische Geschichte

Originally the eastern half of the mighty Roman Empire, Byzantium grew to be one of the longest-surviving empires in world history, spanning nine centuries and three continents. It was a land of contrasts – from the glittering centre at Constantinople, to the rural majority, to the heartland of the Orthodox Church – and one surrounded by enemies: Persians, Arabs and Ottoman Turks to the east, Slavs and Bulgars to the north, Saracens and Normans to the west.

Written by one of the world's leading experts on Byzantine history, Byzantium: A History tells the chequered story of a historical enigma, from its birth out of the ashes of Rome in the third century to its era-defining fall at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

Part 1

The Last Ancient State

1

The Transformation of the Roman World c.300–741

The end of the late Roman order

The third century saw the Roman world rent by a series of civil wars and barbarian invasions, which made fundamental administrative changes in both the military as well as the civil apparatus of the state inevitable. A number of features contributed to this. In the first place, the government had to contend with the enormous length of the imperial frontiers, stretching from Britain in the north, along the Rhine and the upper Danube, across the Danube to the northern Balkans and thence to the Black Sea; and in the east from the Black Sea and Caucasus region down through Armenia, Iraq and Mesopotamia to the Sinai peninsula. In Africa, the border stretched along the coastal strip and north of the Atlas mountains to the Atlantic coast and the westernmost province of Tingitania. Even in times of peace, maintaining garrisons and soldiers to police such a frontier incurred huge costs; while in times of war it was virtually impossible to defend if challenged on more than one front at the same time. Unfortunately for Rome, this is precisely what happened during the third century. In the eastern theatre the new Sassanid Persian kingdom – which had replaced the Parthian empire with which Rome had shared Iraq since the late Republic – presented a formidable and dynamic challenge to Roman control and influence in the region. In the north, Germanic immigrant populations pressed against the frontier defences along the Rhine and the Danube, so the eastern front required constant attention. The result was increasing concentrations of troops under provincial commanders whose distance from Rome meant that the central government was unable to exercise any effective authority. The demands of the soldiers for pay and rewards, the burden on the central treasuries, and the bond between soldiers and successful generals on the frontiers provoked rebellions and civil wars, so that the third century saw the empire’s very existence threatened by a long series of upheavals. By the end of the century, following a series of successful frontier wars, some semblance of stability was restored; but the system as a whole – which had far outgrown its ability to control and administer such a vast empire – was seriously compromised.

After a number of attempts to introduce the changes necessary to meet the challenges posed by the new situation had proved unsuccessful, the emperor Diocletian resolved to approach the problem from a different perspective. Given the size of the empire and the difficulties of communicating between Rome and the armies on the frontiers, it was decided to divide the empire’s military command into four regional groupings. A ‘college’ of rulers was established, consisting of two senior Augusti, Diocletian and Maximian, the latter in the West, the former in the East, each supported by a junior ‘Caesar’, Galerius and Constantius respectively. The latter would succeed the senior rulers when their rule ended, appointing two new junior Caesars in their place. This Tetrarchy – ‘rule of four’ – worked well initially, but collapsed when Diocletian abdicated in 305, compelling his fellow Augustus, Maximian, to abdicate along with him. Diocletian had formulated policy and directed government in all spheres; and, since the tetrarchic structure applied to the military only (the civil administrative apparatus remained unified), as soon as he resigned, squabbles among his successors resulted in further civil war and disruption. The sons of Maximian, former Augustus in the West, and of Constantius, his Caesar, were passed over in the appointment of new Caesars, the choice falling upon favourites of Galerius: Severus, now appointed in the West under Constantius, and Maximinus Daia in the East under Galerius. When Constantius died his son Constantine was acclaimed emperor by his troops at York; another claimant to the imperial throne appeared at the same moment, Maxentius the son of Maximian, who – with the support of his father, who came out of retirement – was able to force the surrender of Severus, whom he executed. Thus, Maxentius declared himself Augustus.

The following conflict involved a quarrel between Maxentius and Maximian, an alliance between the latter and Constantine, the appointment of Licinius – a client of Galerius – as Caesar in the West, and a second abdication by Maximian; by the year 310 the empire was ruled by no fewer than five Augusti. In 312 Constantine allied himself with Licinius, invaded Italy and defeated Maxentius at the famous battle of the Milvian bridge, during which Constantine’s soldiers bore the chi-rho symbol (the first two letters of the name Christos) on their shields. Constantine saw his victory as the response to his appeal to the God of the Christians. Once established in Rome, he disbanded the praetorian guard, and in 313 he met with Licinius and agreed an edict of toleration by which Christians would henceforth be entirely free in their worship, and have any property which had been confiscated during the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximin Daia restored. Galerius had already recognised the failure of Diocletian’s policies which, coming after a period of half a century of toleration of Christianity, were too late to destroy a by now well-established religious organisation. The edict of Milan of 313 finalised this recognition. Relations between Constantine and Licinius remained peaceful but uneasy. Finally, in 323 war broke out, and in 324 Constantine was able to defeat Licinius, depose him, and become sole emperor. The empire remained united until the end of the century.

Constantine recognised that the empire as a whole could no longer effectively be ruled from Rome. He moved his capital eastwards, to the site of the ancient Megaran colony of Byzantium, now renamed the ‘city of Constantine’, Konstantinoupolis. Its strategic position was attractive, for the emperor could remain in contact with both Eastern and Western affairs from its site on the Bosphorus. Roman civic institutions were imported wholesale to the new capital, with the establishment of a senate and of central administrative institutions. The city was expanded, new walls were constructed and the emperor undertook an expensive building programme. Begun in 326, the city was formally consecrated in 330.

Constantine inaugurated a series of important reforms within both the military and civil establishment of the empire. The fiscal system was overhauled and a new gold coin, the solidus, introduced in a successful effort to stabilise the monetary economy of the state. Military and civil offices were separated; the central administration was restructured and placed under a series of imperially chosen senior officers directly responsible to the emperor. The armies were reorganised into two major sections: those based in frontier provinces and along the borders, and several field armies of more mobile troops attached directly to the emperor’s court as a field reserve, ready to meet any invader who broke through the outer defences. The provincial administration was reformed; more and smaller provincial and intermediate units were established, to permit central control and supervision of fiscal matters. Finally, with the toleration of Christianity and its positive promotion under Constantine at the expense of many of the established non-Christian cults, the Church began to evolve into a powerful social and political force which was, in the course of time, to dominate East Roman society and to vie with the state for authority in many aspects of civil law and justice.

In spite of Constantine’s efforts at reform, however, the size of the empire and the different concerns of West and East resulted in a continuation of the principle of a split government, with one ruler in each part, although the tetrarchic system was never revived. Upon Constantine’s death in May 337, his three sons inherited his position with the support of the armies. Constantine II, the eldest, was recognised as senior and ruled the West. Constantius ruled in the East and Constans, the youngest, was allotted the central provinces (Africa, Italy and Illyricum). Tension between Constans and Constantine resulted in war in 340 and the defeat and death of the latter, with the result that Constans became ruler of the western regions as well. Following popular discontent among both the civilian population and the army in the West, however, Constans was deposed in 350 and his place taken by a certain Magnentius, a high-ranking officer of barbarian origin. Magnentius was not recognised by Constantius, and he invaded Illyricum. But he was defeated in 351, escaping to Italy where – after further defeats – he took his own life. Constantius ruled the empire alone until his death in 361.

In 355 Constantius had appointed his cousin Julian to represent him in Gaul; in 357, he was given the command against the invading Franks and Alamanni and, following a series of victories, he was acclaimed by his soldiers as Augustus. Constantius was campaigning against the Persian king Shapur who had invaded the eastern provinces in 359, and the acclamation may have been stimulated by the emperor’s demand that Julian send him his best troops for the Persian war. Julian marched east, but on the way to meet him Constantius died in 361, naming Julian as his successor. Although a competent general and efficient administrator, Julian was unpopular with many of his soldiers because of his attempts to revive paganism, often at the financial expense of the Church. During the Persian campaign of 363 he was mortally wounded, probably by one of his own men. The troops acclaimed the commander of Julian’s guards, a certain Jovian, as emperor. Having made peace with Shapur, Jovian marched back to Constantinople, dying in Bithynia a mere eight months later.

Jovian’s successors were Valentinian and Valens, brothers from Pannonia (roughly modern Austria and Croatia), elected by the leading civil and military officers at Constantinople. Valentinian ruled in the West and established his capital at Milan, while Valens had to face a rebellion almost immediately, led by the usurper Procopius and caused by the soldiers loyal to Julian, whose favourite Procopius had been. But the rebellion petered out in 366.

The two new emperors each had substantial military challenges to overcome. In the West Valentinian had to deal with invasions from Franks, Alamanni and Saxons in Gaul, from Picts and Scots in Britain, and from rebellious chieftains in Mauretania. He died in 375 while fighting a Germanic people in Pannonia, the Quadi, and was followed by his chosen successor Gratian. In the east, Valens had to deal with repeated Gothic invasions of Thrace, caused by pressure from the Huns who had destroyed the kingdom of the Ostrogoths (east Goths) in the Ukraine in 373, while he campaigned in Armenia in 371 to recover territories seized by the Persians. In 377 he moved back to Thrace to confront a Gothic invasion, and was disastrously defeated and killed at a battle near Adrianople in Thrace in 378. The Goths overran and plundered Thrace.

Gratian appointed the general Theodosius – son of a successful general of the same name and himself an experienced commander – initially as commander-in-chief and then as Augustus, and by a combination of diplomacy and strategy Theodosius was able to make peace with the Goths, permitting them to settle within the empire under their own laws, providing troops for the imperial armies in return for annual food subsidies. Following the death of Gratian in 383 as the result of a coup, and the eventual overthrow of the usurper, Magnus Maximus, by Theodosius in 388, Theodosius became sole ruler. He was, however, the last emperor to hold this position. At his death in 395 his two sons Arcadius (in the East) and Honorius (in the West) ruled jointly. But as minors they were greatly influenced by the chief military and other officers at court. The Germanic generals Stilicho and Gainas were the effective rulers, and although the latter held his position for only a short while at Constantinople, the weakness of the imperial authority was apparent. Even under Stilicho’s authority, however, the Western half of the empire began to fall apart. The British provinces were abandoned to their own devices in 410 (after further unsuccessful revolts); Rome itself was sacked by the Visigoths in 410; barbarian tribes were increasingly bought off – frequently by near kinsmen in positions of authority within the imperial government – with territorial concessions which effectively established more or less autonomous petty chieftainships within Roman territory. And by the 430s whole provinces were under barbarian rule, technically as allies or federates of the Romans, but effectively independent: the Vandals in North Africa, the Suebi in Spain, the Visigoths in southern France and Spain. When the last Western emperor was deposed in 476, Italy itself was effectively dominated by Germanic officers, led by the general Odoacer, and occupied by barbarian troops.

The eastern half of the empire survived for a variety of reasons: a healthier economy, more diversified pattern of urban and rural relationships and markets, and a more solid tax base, for Constantinople had Egypt and the rich provinces of Syria at its disposal. In addition, Eastern diplomacy encouraged barbarian leaders to look westward, while at the same time the walls of Constantinople – newly built on a massive scale under Theodosius II (408–450) – rendered any attempt to take that city fruitless. The magistri militum – ‘masters of the soldiers’ – who commanded the imperial field forces nevertheless remained for the most part of German origin and continued to dominate the court. Only with the appointment of Emperor Leo I (457–474) was this cycle broken, for Leo – although a candidate promoted by the master of soldiers, Aspar, the ‘king-maker’ – was able to take the initiative (through using Isaurian mercenaries) and during the last years of his reign rid himself of Aspar. While the Isaurians, who were involved in factional strife at court and in the provinces, were themselves something of a problem, some stability was thereafter re-established. Leo I was succeeded by his grandson Leo II, the son of a certain Zeno, who had married Leo I’s daughter and was commander of the excubitores, Leo’s Isaurian guards. Leo appointed his father co-emperor, but died in 474, leaving Zeno as sole emperor. After defeating a coup d’état and winning a civil war (which lasted for much of his reign) with the help of Gothic mercenaries, whom he was then able to send to Italy on the pretext of restoring imperial rule there, Zeno died in 491.

His successor was Anastasius (491–518), an able civil official chosen by Zeno’s empress Ariadne with the support of the leading officers and court officials. An Isaurian rebellion was crushed in 498; an invasion of Slavs was eventually repulsed; and a campaign against the Persians was finally brought to a successful conclusion in 506. Anastasius’ most important act was a reform of the precious-metal coinage of the empire, through which he stabilised the gold coin, the solidus (or nomisma in Greek), and the relationship between it and its fractions, on the one hand, and the copper coinage, on the other.

Upon his death in 518, Anastasius was succeeded by Justin, who had in turn been commander of the excubitores, and who was elected by popular acclaim and with the support of both the garrison troops in Constantinople and leading state officials and senators. His reign saw a stabilisation along the eastern front and the consolidation of the political stability won during the reign of his predecessor; when he died in 527 he was succeeded without opposition by his nephew, Justinian. The reign of Justinian was to prove a watershed in the evolution of East Rome – Byzantium – and can be said in many ways properly to mark the beginnings of a medieval East Roman world.

Throughout the period from Constantine’s accession, the history of the empire was marked by the fundamental importance of the Christian Church and the development of Christianity itself for its cultural and political evolution. For Constantine, the Christian Church had been a valued political ally in his effort to stabilise the empire and to consolidate his own power. For that reason, it had been essential that the Church remained united; discord and disagreement were politically threatening for an emperor who, while not being baptised until shortly before he died, nevertheless privileged the Christian Church both with the confiscated wealth from pagan temples and formal recognition in his political plans. But, almost immediately, Constantine was forced to deal with a major split within the Church, brought about by the appearance of Arianism, a heresy about the Trinity and the status of Christ. Arius (250–336) was a deacon of the Church at Alexandria. Trained in Greek philosophy, he became an ascetic, and in his attempts to clarify the nature of the Trinity, produced a creed which was for many contemporaries heretical. His philosophical background prevented him from accepting the notion that God could become man: he taught that Jesus was not eternal and co-equal with the Father, but created by Him. He was not God, but not human either, rather a kind of demi-God. Arius was excommunicated in 320 by the bishop of Alexandria, and in 325 he was condemned and exiled by the Council of Nicaea, which asserted the equality of Father and Son in eternity, and that Son and Father were homoousios, that is to say, ‘con-substantial’. Arius returned in 334, but died in 336. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Constantine himself began eventually to favour the Arian position, and after his death in 337 his son and heir Constantius approved it in the eastern part of the empire. In contrast, in the West, Constans supported the Nicene position. Many synods were held to debate the issue, until in 350 Constans died and the Nicenes were persecuted. But the Arians were themselves split into three factions: those who argued that Father and Son are unlike; those who believed that Father and Son are alike, but not consubstantial; and those who thought that Father and Son were of almost one substance – a group which eventually accepted the Nicene position. Constantius died in 361; in 362 the Council of Alexandria restored Orthodoxy, and in 381 the ecumenical Council of Constantinople reaffirmed Nicaea.

The early fifth century saw a further Christological split in the form of Nestorianism, which took its name from Nestorius, a monk of Antioch who had studied under Theodore of Mopsuestia. In 428 he was appointed bishop of Constantinopole by Theodosius II, but aroused considerable hostility in Constantinople when he publicly supported the preaching of his chaplain that Mary should not be referred to as the Theotokos – ‘the God-Bearer’. Demonstrations in the city followed; and the emperor was persuaded to summon the third ecumenical Council after Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria (which saw itself as a rival to Constantinople), appealed to Rome, and the Roman Pope Celestine condemned Nestorius. The Nestorians developed a theology in which the divine and human aspects of Christ were seen not as unified in a single person, but operating in conjunction, and they referred to the Virgin as Christotokos, ‘Christ-bearer’, to avoid attributing to the Divinity too human a nature. The Nestorians were accused, unfairly, of teaching two persons in Christ, God and man, and thus two distinct Sons, human and divine. But the Nestorian position was condemned in 431 (Council of Ephesus), and proceeded to secede, formally establishing a separate Church at their own council at Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Persia in 486, whence it established a firm foothold in Persia and was spread across northern India and central Asia as far as China during the following centuries. It survives today – particularly in northern Iraq – as the Assyrian Orthodox Church.

Although Nestorianism was driven out of the Roman state during the fifth century, the debates it generated contributed to the evolution of a much more significant split within Christianity in the form of the Monophysite movement, which – although only referred to under this name from the seventh century – represented a reaction to some of the Nestorian views. The key problem revolved around the ways in which the divine and the human were combined in the person of Christ, and although two ‘schools’ of Monophysitism evolved, the more extreme version – elaborated by a certain Eutyches – was that the divine was prior to and dominated the human element; hence the description ‘Monophysite’: mono meaning ‘single’ and physis meaning ‘nature’. A council held at Ephesus in 449, which was marred by violence and intimidation on the part of the monks who supported Eutyches, found in favour of the Monophysite position. But at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 a larger council rejected it and redefined the traditional creed of Nicaea to make the Christological position clear. The political results of this division can be seen both in the politics of the court at Constantinople and in the regional identities of different provinces of the empire. In Egypt and Syria in particular, Monophysitism became established in the rural populations, and led to occasional – but harsh – persecutions. At court, in contrast, imperial policy varied from reign to reign leaving some confusion within the Church as a whole, and involving persecutions by both sides. The emperor Zeno (474–491) issued a decree of unity – the Henotikon – which attempted to paper over the divisions. Anastasius supported a Monophysite position, Justin I was ‘Chalcedonian’, and Justinian, partly influenced by the empress Theodora (d.548), swung between the two. Theodora lent her support to the Syrian Monophysites by funding the movement led by the bishop Jacob Baradaeus (whose name was afterwards taken to refer to the Syrian ‘Jacobite’ Church); a similar ‘shadow’ Church evolved in Egypt, and the Armenian Church also adopted the Monophysite view. In each case, the form of traditional belief may have been one of the most important factors, but it has also been suggested that alienation from the Constantinople regime, especially following the occasional persecutions which took place, also played a role.

These were not the only heretical movements to affect the Church and directly involve the emperors during this period. The ‘Donatist’ movement, a strictly North African heresy, was led by a puritan sect claiming that the tradition of consecration of bishops of Carthage was improper. Because the Church authorities were supported from Rome, African regional feeling was inflamed, and the heresy flourished – although as a small minority – until the seventh century. Other regional heresies included Messalianism, a Syrian monastic heresy which spread from Mesopotamia to Syria in the fourth century. With a crude and materialistic view of God and sin, it was attacked and finally condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Pelagianism was a largely Western heresy, begun by a British monk, Pelagius, during the later fourth century. It was repeatedly condemned: in 411 and again in 416–448 and, finally, because its chief spokesman Celestius associated himself with Nestorianism, at Ephesus in 431. These local heresies had few longer-term results, but directly involved the emperors on every occasion and cemented the association between the interests of the Church and those of the imperial government.

The forging of Byzantium: Justinian to Leo III (527–741)

Although the western part of the empire had been transformed into a patchwork of barbarian successor states, the emperors at Constantinople continued to view all the lost territories as part of their realm, and in some cases to treat the kings of the successor kingdoms as their legitimate representatives, governing Roman affairs in the provinces in question until Constantinople could re-establish a full administrative and military presence. This is most obviously the case with the (Aria...