 Section 7 of the Byzantine Empire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Bottels. The Byzantine Empire. The rearguard of European civilization by Edward Ford. The warrior Heracliads. The period 641 to 717 is in many ways the most obscure in late Roman history. The records are scanty and unsatisfactory. There is a reason to think that important events are misrepresented. The whole epoch is a twilight one. The natural successor of Heracliads was his eldest son and colleague Constantine III. But the old emperor could deny nothing to his wife and had designated her son Heracliads as co-heir with Constantine. He was only 16. Constantine was already nearly 30. It was evident that the name of Heracliads II would be merely a cloak for the exercise of his mother's power. Martina showed her hand by accompanying the emperors to the hippodrome when they went in the state to be acclaimed by the people according to custom. But the Constantinopolitan populace would have none of her. She was greeted by angry shouts and finally told in decided tones that the Roman Empire should never fall so low as to be governed by a woman. She withdrew in wrath. There does not appear to have been any demonstration against Heraclius II. Heraclionas as he is commonly called to distinguish him from his father. But the general voice was certainly in favor of Constantine III. Martina, determined to assert herself, began to intrigue against her stepson. Court and capital split into factions. There seemed every probability of a civil war. In the midst of plot and counterplot, Constantine died at Calcedon after a reign of little more than three months. He was not, perhaps, a man of any great strength of constitution. His mother had been a delicate woman. But public opinion declared that Martina had poisoned him. Certainly her reckless action gave color to the report. She promptly proclaimed her son sole emperor. The act was unwise. It was scarcely constitutional. It was intensely unpopular and all Constantinople, court, senate, and army, loudly demanded the coronation of the dead man's eldest son, Flavius Heraclius Constantinus. Riots at once broke out. The senate voiced the popular demand. Martina, in terror, gave way and the youthful Constantinus was crowned emperor at the age of eleven. For a while, this content was outwardly silenced. But it still fermented in secret. And in September 642 the senate executed a coup d'etat deposed Heraclionus and exiled him and his mother to Kerson in Torida, the friend and ally of the Empire, the last surviving free Greek city-state. They were treated with barbarous cruelty. The tongue of the mother and the nose of the son were slit. We shall meet with instances of these hideous practices again. Martina was certainly generally believed to have poisoned Constantin III. It was a shocking end to the story of the woman who had been the darling of the great Heraclius. Martina was morally neither better nor worse than a hundred million women today who plot for their children's advancement. But her stake was the Roman Empire. She failed and had to pay a terrible penalty. The young Constantin IV was now sole emperor. For some curious reason, impossible to define with any certainty, he has come to be known to several chroniclers, both in east and west as Constants. But he will be called here by the name which he bears upon his coins and by which he was known to his own people. For some years the government was carried on by the Senate. There was little internal trouble. The great African House had won the love and respect of the people. Constantin's youth gave the Senate much influence which, so far as appears, was exercised with prudence and patriotism. They were never more needed. The Mohammedans were thundering at the gates of Taurus. The people, if attached to Heracliads, were more or less discontented and restive beneath the burdens which they had to bear and had not yet realized that, though under the caliphs the direct taxes might be lightened, their indirect burdens would be greatly increased. After a spell of personal experience, men began to discover that under the supposedly tolerant Mohammedan rule, they had absolutely no guarantee against oppression and even persecution, that the administration of justice was irregular, arbitrary and corrupt, and that they and theirs were at the mercy of an irresponsible religious despotism. As yet, there was no great disposition to think that the rule of the Crescent was worse than that of the Cross. People heard the mild and sanctimonious proclamations of the caliphs and forgot that they and their followers were half savage freebooters and religious maniacs. The reign of Constantin IV was probably the true crisis of the struggle. The Empire thrown on the defensive was pressed continually and had no time to rally. Once it gained a breathing space, it stood up gallantly to its terrible foes and even in its present wasted and mangled condition could wage a not unequal conflict, but the respite was yet to come. The great caliph Omar was still urging on the work of its prophet and the Empire continued to lose ground. Internally, the earlier years of Constantin IV were not marked by any events of much importance. There were one or two slight outbreaks which were easily put down, but there was a good deal of disaffection due to the religious question which always occupied much of the East Romans' attention. Heraclius, as we have seen, had tried and failed to soothe the dissensions in the Church by his exorcists. Now, in 648, Constantin and his advisors published a fresh addict on the subject, the type by which all were enjoyed to observe complete silence on the burning question of the single and double wheels. It was as completely ineffective as the exorcists. It failed to satisfy even the monothalites, while the Orthodox attacked the young emperor as a monothalite himself. The Western clergy exclaimed against the addict. Bishop Theodor of Rome excommunicated Paul, patriarch of Constantinople. His successor, Martin, unathematized the exorcists and the type alike, but it was a dangerous act to bear the strong and determined Constantin IV, and Pope Martin's unathema had disastrous results for himself. We must now turn to the Saracen War, which for the whole of this period is the dominating factor in East Roman history. Alexandria fell during the brief reign of Heraclius II, and the state of affairs at home prevented any immediate attempt to recover it, but the government had no intention of taking the blow calmly. As soon as internal affairs had to some extent been arranged, preparations were made for the reconquest of Egypt. They were interrupted in 645 by a rebellion in Asia Minor, but this was put down, and in 646 the general Manuel recaptured Alexandria. It was once more besieged by Amru, who after more than a year finally retook it, celebrated his conquest by a massacre of its Greek inhabitants, and left it to ruin, not to recover for many centuries. So much indignation is commonly expanded over the barbarity of Rome in destroying Carthage and Corinth, that it seems necessary to dwell for a moment on the immeasurably worse barbarity of the much-loaded Arabs. The Roman was savagely cruel at times, but at his worst he conferred a certain benefit upon the peoples whom he conquered. Even the oppression of such as Veris incidentally inform us that under Roman rule men and cities could become rich. At his best Roman government did much. The Arab could confer no such benefit upon mankind as Rome. His civilization was an exotic and unhealthy growth, which withered early. In 646 Gregory, exarch of Africa, revolted. The outbreak seems to have been largely in the nature of a protest against the monothelitism of Constantine. Thereupon the Arabs invaded Africa with a large army under the emir Abdullah Abusar. Gregory was defeated and slain. Tripolis was captured and the Saracen frontier pushed forward to the Gulf of Gables. But the Christian population recovered its spirit, when once it found the Mohammedans among it and soon began to wage a fierce partisan warfare against the invaders. The Arabs succeeded in occupying Carthage, but their possession of the famous city was very precarious and was only rendered possible by the solely pressed condition of the empire in the east. The great Caliph Omar had died in 643. His successor, Ottoman, was not so strong a ruler and the emirs began to fall out of hand. The conquest of Persia also was still slowly preceding and the haphazard strategy of the Arabs dissipated their forces all the east over. Still, however, the Mohammedans advanced, though far more slowly than at first. Cyprus was overrun by a dash from Syria and put under tribute in 643. In 646 a small Roman force, which still hovered in northern Syria, was beaten back across Taurus and Saracen raiders began to appear in Asia Minor and Armenia. Muavia, a mere of Syria, must have the credit of being the first to see that nothing decisive could be accomplished against the empire while it still retained command of the sea. Alexandria was untenable for this reason. In Syria, the Sigurd fortress of Aradus was still holding out. Muavia set himself to build an enormous naval armament. He was much hampered by the fact that the Lebanon region was only partially subdued and still full of desperate Christians who waged an incessant predatory war, sometimes raiding almost to the gates of Damascus. Nevertheless, Muavia persevered and in 649 a huge flotilla made an attack on Cyprus. This was repelled, but next year Aradus was blockaded, captured and with a customary blind barbarity of the conquerors utterly destroyed. Another stage in the ruin of the sea commerce of Syria. In 651 there were raids into Asia Minor. In 652 the patrician Pasagnathis surrendered Roman Armenia to the Arabs and such as towns as did not refuse to submit were occupied. A fresh expedition to recover Alexandria was encountered and defeated by Muavia's fleet off the Canopic mouth of the Nile. An event of great importance since thereby the Saracens acquired confidence on the sea. Various attempts made by the Roman troops to recover the lost portion of Armenia were frustrated and the Saracen Navy sailed into the Aegean plundered coasts and occupied roads, loading their ships with the fragments of the famous colossus and returning in triumph to Syria. Muavia now resolved to strike up the Aegean at Constantinople. It is to be noticed that there had been no attempt to force the passes of Taurus. Constantin had put Asia Minor into a good state of defense. It is to do with this period that the winter is inclined to attribute the new thematic military organization to which reference will shortly be made. It certainly explains satisfactorily the young emperor's apparent inaction. In 655 the Saracen fleet started for the Aegean while Muavia advanced to force the Taurus passes. Off Faceles in Licia the Arab armament was met by the Roman fleet under the emperor and a tremendous battle was fought. Constantin was in the hottest of the fray. His own ship was boarded and taken. He only escaped by a wild leap into another galley which forced its way up to the rescue, while his flag captain and remnant of his guards fought to death to give him time. The overthrow of the Romans was complete. They lost 20,000 men but their enemies had suffered almost as much and could not follow up their success. Muavia had failed to achieve anything in the Taurus region and though beaten in the actual fighting Constantin had evidently gained a strategic success. In 656 the Caliph Ottoman was murdered and civil war broke out among the Saracens. Muavia who professed to be the Avenger of Ottoman prepared to march against Ali in Mesopotamia but he could not leave the Roman Empire in his rear. He proposed the truce on the basis that for every day during which it lasted he was to pay the emperor a horse and a slave. Even granting the urgency of the case it is tolerably evident that he considered the empire a very formidable foe. It is possible that he had suffered more severely in his mounting campaign of 655 than we are aware. We may notice that Constantin had had a year in which to prepare for a fresh effort and evidently his toil had not been without result, that he was right in preferring the truce to further warfare. Even with a fair chance of success is indubitable. Having secured the Asiatic frontier Constantin turned to the west where the Slavs had literally eaten out the heart of the Balkan peninsula. The stern young emperor was determined to concentrate his attention upon a thorough reorganization of the remaining strength of the empire and he began with the Balkan regions. The Slavs were reduced for the time to complete subjection. Large numbers of captives were carried off and a regular tribute was imposed. This settlement probably took up most of 657 and 658 and for some three years thereafter Constantin labored at his task with very considerable success. The fact that he was able soon afterwards to go himself with a great part of his available troops to the west shows that he has satisfactorily arranged matters and this is further borne out by the fact that the Arabs made no serious impression on Asia Minor during his absence. The new thematic system must now be briefly alluded to. It grew out of the military needs of the empire and its development is traced in greater detail in the chapter on the imperial naval and military systems. Here it is only necessary to notice that the whole imperial territory was now mapped out into large military departments probably at this period 12 in number varying greatly in extent and in the strength of the forces cantoned in them. The most important was the great Orient or Anatolic theme. The department of the troops who had contested Syria with the Arabs none of the others were so large. The general of each theme was also the civil governor a state of things brought about by the constant pressure of the Mohammedans. The entire force of the themes at this time may have been about 200 000 men but of course only a part of these were available for the field. The east reduced to order and in a better case for defense than it had been for many years constant in turn to the west. In 655 he had succeeded weak as was his hold in Italy in laying hands on Pope Martin I and exiling him to Kerson but north of Rome his authority was very precarious and the Lombards under the great king Rotary were steadily extending their boundaries. Constantine's purpose seems to have been to recover the west perhaps he did not realize that the Lombards were firmly established in Italy but at all events he was not a man to shrink from any task. Africa too had to be recovered before he started westward he had one grim deed to do in 660 he put to death his only brother Theodosius to expand language over the act is absurd the ethics of morality cannot be applied to it we do not know the cause we must remember that even brotherhood is not incompatible with treason the Heracliad emperors indeed seem to have been lacking in natural affection Constantine IV was certainly a hard man regardless of human suffering but he lived in terrible times if in his haste and desperate purpose he removed the possible source of trouble it is well to remember this in 662 the emperor left his capital never to return he left his family under the guardianship of the senate so dark are the shadows around him that we do not even know his wife's name in Piraeus he gathered a large fleet and army and sailed to Tarantum his first quarry was the great Lombard duchy of Beneventum but the moment of his arrival was ill-timed Greenwald its Duke had seized the Lombard crown and his son Romwald had been left in charge of his ancestral possessions the whole Lombard kingdom therefore was for once in a state of cordial union the emperor however overrun the entire duchy and penned up Romwald in Beneventum but on hearing that King Greenwald was on his way to his son's rescue he granted him peace on easy terms and moved off to Rome leaving 20,000 men under a Persian exile named Shapur to watch Greenwald Shapur was beaten at Forino by Romwald and possibly the news may have induced Constantine to alter his immediate plans he remained only 12 days in Rome and gained a reputation almost as bad as that of Gayseric ringing out of the scanty population a forced contribution in money to complete which he even stripped the pantheon of its gilded bronze roof leaving Rome stripped in sullen Constantine set out for the south evidently he had made up his mind that the conquest of the Lombards must be deferred his ascendancy in the field is shown by the fact that he marched from Rome to Regium without molestation he crossed into Sicily and for the next four years had his headquarters at Syracuse still a large and important city his change of plan was largely due to the important circumstance that Moavia's rival Ali was dead and the former now supreme in the east was recommending his attacks on the empire he had already experienced the strength of the Taurus as a defensive line and was more disposed to push westwards against Africa than to uselessly throw his hosts against the great mountain chain on the whole Constantine was successful he recovered Carthage and the surrounding country and though an army which he sent against Egypt was severely defeated before Tripoli's the Saracens could move no further westward it was evident that the empire could still meet its enemies on equal terms in Italy Romwald succeeded in taking Tarentum and Brundusium but gained no great advantage and the weakening of imperial rule there was more due to Constantine's crashing taxation than to the Lombards defaulting taxpayers were sold into slavery men said that nothing like Constantine's exactions had ever been heard of he went as far as stripping the churches of their plate he was perhaps right the public necessities were great but his proceedings were undoubtedly harsh and did much to alienate Italian public opinion meanwhile the Arabs each year directed ravaging expeditions into Asia Minor they were as purposeless as such rates commonly are but were so far useful to the Saracens that the great army in Asia was kept pinned to its stations and could not be utilized to reinforce Constantine in the west otherwise an attempt would probably have been made to reconquer Egypt and Syria from the rear as it was Constantine could not do more than hold firmly to Africa and the extreme south of Italy while the Arab horsemen raided through Taurus in 668 Shapur the general of the Armenian theme revolted the rebellion was suppressed with no great difficulty by the government of Constantinople but the Arabs seized the opportunity to make an unusually determined inroad captured Amorium in Phrygia and garrisoned it with 5000 troops the place was retaken by escalate and the Arab garrison exterminated Constantine IV always gives the impression of loneliness his treatment of his brother emphasizes his terrible isolation he lived alone in the west his family never joined him while he was recovering Africa holding back the Saracen gathering strength for a fresh attack on Lombardy or an invasion of Egypt he was solitary uncheered by the society of wife or child probably feared and shunned by the officials and courtiers who dreaded his stern fierce nature slowly gathering discontent at last came to a head and the strange strenuous desolate life ended in a strange death the emperor one day went to bathe in the Daphne bus he was attended by a servant named Andreas and having stripped held out his hand for soap the man instead of giving it smote his master a furious blow on the head with a marble box and throwing it away fled leaving one of the ablest and strongest of the emperors of the Roman east lying lifeless cut off in his vigorous prime Constantine IV was only 38 at the time of his death we can only wonder what might have happened had he lived and ruled for 20 years longer he is emphatically a man of whom we would gladly know more he left Asia Minor solidly organized and defended the Balkan Slavs reduced to submission and established a Syracuse he had recovered Africa and was prepared to turn at the right moment on Italy or Egypt under his firm rule the empire had lost very little more territory and was well organized to meet its foes the effects of the grim emperor's work were to be felt in the reign of his son Constantine V was at Constantinople when the news arrived of his father's murder and the revolt of the army in the west he was only 18 but he never seemed to have hesitated he sailed at once for Sicily and quashed the sedition Mesitius the Armenian general whom the troops had crowned was executed and some at least of his supporters were treated with the severity that showed that the young emperor had inherited his father's heavy hand having put Sicily in order he started back for the capital in 669 scarcely had he turned his back on Syracuse when it was taken and plundered by an expedition from Egypt the Saracens made no attempt to retain the place and the story that they carried off the treasures of Constantine IV is manifestly highly improbable we may be fairly certain that they were safe in the halls of his son's galleys on the way to the capital when he started for Sicily Constantine was a smooth faced youth but as his ship came up the golden horn on his return the spectators saw that his chin was thick with a sprouting beard the nickname of Pogonatus has clung to him down the ages a fair example of the absolute caprice of popular nomenclature for Constantine V was but one of many bearded emperors Constantine's return was marked by a curious military demonstration by the Anatoliki they demanded that he should give his two brothers Heraclius and Tiberius an equal share with him in the administration Constantine appears to have already created them Augusti and his nominal colleagues but he was resolved to permit no encroachment by soldiers on his imperial supremacy he suppressed the mutiny with firm determination but he does not seem to have molested his brothers though Theophanus says that he sleet their noses the general consensus of modern opinion seems to be that this was done in 680 or 681 when they were deprived of their imperial rank both were evidently men of little weight or ability but they may have been centers of conspiracy and though the act was a sufficient cruel and barbarous one Constantine shrunk from Fratricide and this should be remembered to his credit his treatment of his brothers is so far as is known the one blot upon his character he was certainly far less harsh than his father while he inherited a good share of his vigor and ability he was a worthy member of the great house of Heraclius a hard worker a steady fighter with a high and strong sense of duty and one who while having a great opinion of his dignity was yet moderate and tactful now that Constantine IV was gone Moavia believed that his time had come in 669 three armies invaded the empire one as we have seen plundered Syracuse a second through itself upon Africa and in 670 founded the fortress of care one only 80 miles from Carthage to which it constituted a standing menace the third under the emir Fadil pushed through Asia Minor and raided the shores of the Propontis in 670 and 671 there were only desultory raids on Asia Minor which were kept at bay with little difficulty but it was merely the loud before the storm Moavia had resolved to break down the stubborn resistance of the empire by attacking it at its very center Constantinople gone the conquest of its outlying members could be affected at leisure in 672 it became known that a vast Saracen armament would be before Constantinople that year or the next. Constantine like Stilico in 401 drew back all the troops possible to the point of danger and stationed his whole available fleet to guard the hellish point the troops who kept the Slavs in subjection were withdrawn and they promptly rose in revolt and proceeded to blockade Thessalonica Africa was left to itself the same was certainly not the case with Asia Minor we hear of no conquest of importance there during the siege of the capital as would have happened had the country been denuded of defenders it seems very doubtful whether the Saracen force was not mainly transported by sea certain it is that the fleet was exceptionally strong in March 673 the Saracen armada forced the hellish point despite all opposition took Cisacus and based on that town landed its army in Thrace and proceeded to blockade Constantinople the fleet took station along the Thracian coast with its right at the southwest angle of the city the army lay encamped before the landward walls there was much hard fighting there were attempts to storm but Constantinople was impregnable the fleet lay secure in the golden horn and coming out with the current round Seraglio point made repeated attacks upon the Saracen ships to their loss and demoralization the strange duel went on for six months then in September the Arabs embarked the blockading army and withdrew to winter at Cisacus their fleet still held the passage of the hellish pond and was too overwhelmingly strong for the far weaker Roman squadrons to destroy and by means of convoys foraging expeditions and corn grown on Arctonisos and the mainland the Saracens had collected supplies enough for the winter in the spring of 674 the army was once more landed in Europe and blockaded Constantinople for several months without the slightest result in the sequel the Saracens again fell back on Cisacus and prepared for a fresh sally in the spring Muavia seems to have resolved to wear down the stubborn Constantin by keeping up siege operations year after year the idea was good but not so the tactics of his generals in the winter the emperor was left free to reprovision his capital for the next year's ordeal then again the Arabs were not skilled in sieges they clearly had no knowledge of Constantinopolitan topography instead of directing their attacks upon the point where the walls cross the Laicos valley they seem to have made them near the golden gate that one of the strongest parts of the landward barrier the only circumstance in favor of the success of the plan as it was carried out was the possibility that the great city would surrender from sheer weariness of constant legal but emperor troops and people were solidly united in determination to do their duty they had reason to the full height of the situation there is no reason to doubt that the greatness of the occasion was fully understood africa meanwhile was holding out gallantly left to themselves the provincials and troops fought with splendid determination and repeatedly drove back the arab invasions in 676 caravan was taken and though reinforcements continued to pour in for the muhammadans from the wild tribes of barbary they made no headway creed was subdued indeed by force landed in the island by the sarasam fleet but in syria the christians of lebanon were doing gallant service to the cause raiding almost to the gates of damascus and terrorizing the lowlands the year 676 dragged away without anything decisive occurring at constantinopol but in 677 matters at last came to a head for several centuries the roman siege corps had employed some kind of incendiary compound of a very fierce nature as witness amianus the general opinion appears to be that its basis was petroleum we are told repeatedly and emphatically that it could only be effectually smothered with earth or sand the obstacle to its effective employment was that it could not be projected to even a moderate distance since employed at close quarters it was as dangerous to friends as foes but about this time some kind of a recipe for the manufacture of gunpowder had reached the empire from china how or why is a mystery perhaps the chinese government had obtained information as to the desperate plight of the roman empire and dreaded lest their turn should come next possibly some daring east roman risked his life to obtain the secret be this as it may the trouble of projection was overcome the powder was used to project incendiary shells or rockets filled with a fire from tubes or siphons probably the powder was very bad and the dangerous compounds were not stored in any great quantity on board ship for fear of accidents very possibly they were not employed frequently owing to the difficulties of procuring enough of the materials for a large quantity of the fire but on the whole greek fire was by no means a contemptible weapon and on favorable occasions it might be very formidable such an occasion was the present one the roman fleet or part of it had been fitted with siphons canon in fact and a bold attack was made on the saracen fleet which was completely defeated the spirit of the whole armament had been greatly depressed by its continued ill success its commander in chief abdrahman had fallen so too had abu ayub one of the few surviving original companions of muhammad and the naval victory completed its demoralization the army was able to get back to the asiatic coast and begun to retreat by land while the fleet sailed down the helis pond and made its way homeward around the coast constantain followed up his success with energy the saracen land army was now commanded by the emir sofyan ibn anf on his retreat he was overtaken by the persian roman army under the generals petronas florus and syprianus and totally defeated with a loss of 30 000 men only a shattered remnant of the host reached syria the fleet was scattered by a storm of the coast of lycia and before it could reorganize the roman navy was up on it and nearly destroyed it muavia had done his best and he had failed completely and disastrously the loss of life must have been immense and it was likely to be the more severely failed because in the nature of things it fell chiefly upon the arab's who still composed the great bulk of the muhammadan forces in the east the mar dates of lebanon were wasting syria the one success that had been gained by the forces of the caliphate was in africa where emir zohar had temporarily recaptured caravan but the war in africa was a mere side issue and was hardly more than a continuation of the old roman berber guerrilla warfare it did not affect the fortune of the main struggle the caliph decided to make overtures for peace before konstantin should make a counter attack and the emperor was willing enough to accede to honorable proposals he sent the patrician johannes pizzigodas as his plenipotentiary to damascus and a treaty for 30 years was concluded muavia gave up all his conquests and covenanted to pay for every year that the truth lasted 3 000 pounds of gold about 140 000 pounds 50 arab horses and 50 slaves from all parts envoys poured in to konstantin opel to congratulate the emperor on his splendid triumph and once more the empire stood out before the eyes of the world as a leader of europe it may be that there were englishmen among them certainly there were avars lombards and francs it is probable also that the serbs croats and others at this time made formal proffer of allegiance the slavs who all this time had been swarming about thecelonica were driven off and again coerced into submission the triumph of konstantin was a great one had konstantin opel fallen the consequences must have been terrible lombardy was weak and disunited while francia was in a state of anarchy visigothia was being ruled by the last of its vigorous kings the famous wamba but was without real strength it was to collapse like a house of cards before a small expedition 30 years later the salvation of the empire was the salvation of europe and to the great heracliads must the chief glory be given the peace did not lead to a cessation of hostilities in africa where the irresponsible mohammedan emirs continued to make attack after attack all of which were stoutly met and repulsed for the emperor could now spare assistance to his gallant liegemen two years later in 679 there was an unfortunate mishap in europe which ultimately led to serious consequences but at the time it did not appear to be of any great importance a tribe called the bulgarians probably of turkish race had long been domiciled on the middle volga and a part of them had joined the avars in their advance westward after 626 they had revolted and their king kurt had made an alliance with heraclius in 679 they crossed danube and began to settle in messia now only inhabited by a sparse population of slavs constantian promptly took an expedition by sea to the mouth of the danube but after some preliminary success a panic seized part of the army and while in confusion it was attacked and cut up by the bulgarians messia was practically worthless and constantian decided not to attempt for the present to further molest the intruders he gave them permission to settle subsidizing them to refrain from raiding thrace and thus for the present matters were left he probably intended to subdue them later but as it happened did not live long enough to do so his last years were passed in well-deserved peace in 680 he decided to call a general council of the church to dispose of the monothelite heresy his reputation was shown by the eagerness with which his proposal were accepted and his courtesy and tact were well displayed in his dealings with the pope and other patriarchs of the christian faith an assembly of over 170 delegates from all parts of the christian world finally met under the personal presidency of the emperor in a great domed hall in the imperial palace at constantinople and after 18 sittings monothelitism was condemned and the doctrine enunciated that in the saviors being there are two natural wills and two natural energies without division alteration separation or confusion to the lay student disappears involved but it was and is highly satisfactory to ecclesiastics and the successful outcome of the sixth ecumenical council put the keystone on the arch of the glory of constantin who had now at the age of 30 saved his heritage from imminent peril of destruction forced his most terrible enemy to a humiliating peace and had quelled the dissension in the christian church meanwhile in 680 moavia had died and the caliphate had become involved in civil war his successor yazid at once renewed the treaty with the empire on similar terms in 683 caravan was taken once more by the army and provincials of africa and the country swept clear of its enemies in 684 abd al malik engaged in strife with other candidates for the caliphate hasten to secure himself by renewing the peace with the empire and secure on every hand victorious and renowned in war and peace honored alike in east and west constantin might well look forward with confidence to the future and anticipate many years of peaceful revival and reconstruction but it was not to be in 685 at the age of only 36 cut off like his father in his vigorous prime constant in the fifth died leaving the throne that he had defended so well to his youthful son just in in the second end of section seven recording by mike botez section eight of the bizantine empire this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by mike botez the bizantine empire the rear guard of european civilization by edward ford section eight destruction of the work of the heracliads the early death of constantin the fifth was for the empire a disaster of the first magnitude his hair was a lot of 16 justinian the second had all the fierce courage of his warrior line and a fair share of their capacity but he had no time to acquire experience he had not been brought up like his father in the school of adversity he could recollect only victory and peace and knew nothing of the terrible struggle that had been waged to win them he was reckless and high-handed callous the suffering perhaps not untamed with insanity cursed in any case with a savage temper which led him into the commission of every kind of injustice and cruelty at the opening of his reign all went well constantin the fifth had probably designed an expedition against the christian kingdoms beneath caucuses with a view to bringing them into direct subjection to the empire iberia and albania were invaded by leontius general of the anatoly key with a large army and reduced subjection justinian was gratified by the news of victory and what was also of importance considerable returns of tribute money the caliph abd al malik engaged in strife with powerful rivals renewed the peace on terms outwardly far more favorable to the empire than the treaty between constantin the fifth and moadia the revenues of iberia armenia and cyprus were to be equally divided between the two empires and the caliph engaged to pay annually 365 000 nomismata about 228 000 pounds 365 arab corsairs and 365 slaves but the young emperor in return agreed to the removal of the mardetes from syria and directed leontius to cooperate with the caliph in affecting the deportation leontius behaved with gross treachery to his core religionists he caused the assassination of a chief who was the strongest opponent of the migration eventually the removal was carried out 12 000 mardete warriors were enrolled in the roman army colonies of them were established at atalia in pamphilia and in trace a portion still remained in lebanon but the advantage which the empire had derived from the operations of this warlike community at the very gates of damascus was lost forever 687 for the present probably the roman government congratulated itself on the acquisition of a strong core of experienced soldiers many syrians had taken advantage of the presence of the army of leontius to migrate under its escort into the empire justinian also persuaded or compelled a great part of the syprian christians to settle in the northwest of asia minor needless to say all these forced migrations and settlements must have been attended with great difficulty and expense and probably some loss of life but they were at least well intentioned having thus arranged affairs in asia justinian in 689 marched against the slavs of balkania who were again owing to the arrival of the bulgarians in a state of ferment the expedition was a complete success the bulgarians and slavs entirely defeated 30 000 prisoners were taken and enrolled as auxiliaries in the imperial army in asia at home however justinian was already becoming unpopular it is possible that he had some idea of emulating justinian the first his general policy is often a caricature of perhaps consciously modeled upon that of the earlier emperor justinian the second formed great schemes of foreign conquest he also indulged in building on a grand scale naturally he was soon forced into copying the worst part of his namesake's policy his fiscal extortion the cruelty of his agents theodotus one of the worst ecclesiastical politicians and the eunuch stefanus soon made the young emperor's name detested not without reason for he made no attempt to restrain them he is even said to have allowed stefanus to beat his own mother anastasia the widow of constantin the fifth without inflicting upon him any adequate punishment we can only hope that the shameful story is a fabrication for justinians next and most fatal action there is no excuse to be found in 692 he declared war on caliph abt al malik because the yearly subsidy was paid in new arab dinars bearing a religious inscription the caliph would probably have remained at peace but for this frivolous and outrageous quarrel picking but as it was he was fairly well prepared having put down rivals and revolts and there can be no doubt that he was entirely in the right justinian led a large army including a contingent of his bulgar's and slavs into cilia and at sebastopolis sustained a heavy defeat his unwilling recruits deserted to the saracens and the prestige of victory passed again to the crescent all the work of constantin the fifth was undone the arabs pushed through torus into asia minor great part of roman armenia was lost owing to the treachery of its governor the native named sembat who deserted to the caliph in 694 and 695 the line of torus was repeatedly penetrated and the border provinces wasted justinians misfortunes stimulated his cruelty to excess he not merely massacred the wives and children of the slavonic deserters but he put to death numbers of core who had remained faithful he distrusted everybody he imprisoned leontius who appears to have served him faithfully senators and officials were seized and executed on mere suspicion he was detested alike by people army and civil service and had no supporters except theodotus and staphonus who are more hated than himself in 695 he suddenly released leontius and appointed him to the command of the theme of helas the general regarded himself as a doomed man and in his despair broke into revolt with only a few friends and their servants to back him they burst open the state prison liberated and armed the hundreds of political prisoners and followed by them and by a mob of exasperated citizens dashed at the palace the guards were taken by surprise perhaps were disaffected justinian was captured with theodotus and staphonus leontius with utterly misplaced mercy for which he was later to pay with his life spared the fallen tyrant the death penalty but slit his nose and banished him to kerson theodotus and staphonus were delivered to the tender mercies of the mob and their end is best passed over in silence the deposition of justinian was merely a stage in the period of anarchy which was to last yet for 22 miserable years so far the succession of the emperors had for the most part been peaceful and unopposed the elevations of focus and heraclius are the only real exceptions to the general rule but the enterprise of leontius was merely the first act in a perfect carnival of military capris and license in the general disorder and lack of supervision the civil administration was rapidly in efficiency and the instinct of loyalty which had appeared to be greatly strengthened under the strong brave and popular heracliads was lost the troops engaged more and more in civil war became demoralized they were not often at their post on the frontier and the saracens made headway almost without opposition at first these evils were not very apparent leontius was a capable man and at any rate was not disposed to lay the way his time on the throne his first year was comparatively peaceful but in 697 lazica revolted to the saracens and africa was invaded caravan was once more taken and hassan the arab general advanced upon carthage and captured it soon becoming master of the most of the province leontius was already preparing an army for its reconquest under john the patrician it arrived too late to relieve carthage but recaptured the city and several of the lost fortresses but apt almalik neglecting the war in asia poured in reinforcements the romans bitten in a sea fight were finally forced to abandon carthage and this time the loss was not to be retrieved ad 698 some of the defeated roman generals fearing the anger of leontius plotted his deposition the commander in chief was removed by assassination and the fleet sailed for constantinople leontius was seized and his nose slit he was confined in a monastery and apsimarus general of the naval theme proclaimed emperor under the title of tiberius the third tiberius the third was a strong capable soldier who in better circumstances might have founded a dynasty he appointed his brother heraclius caesar and commander in chief in asia and heraclius was not slow improving that he was worthy of his name in 700 he crossed torus captured mobsuestia in silicia and burst into northern syria he laid waste the whole country took many towns captured antioch and finally with true unmolested bringing back immense spoil and no less than 200,000 captives or emigrants during 701 and 702 the world languished abd almalik being perhaps more occupied in africa and armenia in 703 the province of armenia for sofine was invaded and overrun by the arabes but this was offset by a great victory gained by heraclius in silicia next year he recovered the remainder of silicia and confirmed the reconquest by another great defeat of the arabes cyprus was also recovered and repopulated it appeared as if the caesar heraclius might rival the deeds of his namesake but the year 705 was to see an end of all these fair hopes justinian the second was still alive after a long detention he had escaped from kerson and taken refuge with the turkish kazars he was well received by the kan who gave him his sister in marriage the lady was baptized as a christian by the name theodora justinian's mutilation was probably more nominal than real he certainly seems to have inspired his bride with devotion if not love tiberia is the third hearing of his adventures bribed the kan to give up the refugee theodora warned her husband he sprung up on the emissary who came to seize him killed him and fled out to sea with his few attendants in an open boat in a violent storm we shall drown cried one frightened man as the little craft labored amid the raging billows it is for the emperor's sins oh augustus swear to pardon your enemies and god may save us yet no shout at the desperate exile god drown me here and now if ever i spare one of them when my time comes justinian was most unkingly in his cruelty and recklessness but at least he had a king's courage the storm went down and justinian safely made the coast of bulgaria he ingratiated himself with king terbell as easily as with the kazarkan he promised him the title of caesar and further strip of country south of eastern hemis terbell was gained over to the exiles cause and augustus and caesar started for costantinople the city was betrayed by heracliad sympathizers tiberias the third was taken in the palace and leontius drugged out of the monastery in which he had been confined for seven years they were bound hand and foot and laid side by side on the platform of cathisma in the hippodrome justinian sat with his feet on the necks of the vanquished emperors while his triumph was celebrated by chariot races and his adherents cried thou shalt trample on the lion and the asp then the two unfortunate men who are certainly worthy of a better fate were drugged around city and beheaded the great general heraclius was seized in his camp brought to constantinople and hanged with all his chief officers for five years there was a rain of terror the savage emperor maintained his recovered rule by sheer blind cruelty the patriarch kalinikus who had crowned leontius and apsimarus was blinded everyone whom justinian suspected of having borne the slightest part in his humiliation was doomed the army was decimated by executions the best of the defenders of the empire were sacrificed to justinians insane thirst for blood justinians forum policy was chiefly governed by his desire for vengeance in 706 he quarreled with terbell of bulgaria but the difference was composed the war with the saracens meanwhile drugged on its disastrous course abd al malik had died in 705 but his successor valid continued the struggle the victories of heraclius had evidently cowed the saracens considerably though very feebly opposed by the decimated bad officer then ill commanded roman troops they took four years to slowly recover salicia and the armenian border but in 710 after much desultory raiding they firmly established themselves on roman soil by the storm of the great kapadosian fortress of tiana justinian seems to have made no serious effort to bar their progress he was busy in the more congenial task of taking vengeance on his enemies within the empire in one direction only does he appear to have continued the policy which he had followed at the beginning of his reign and which as has been suggested had probably been traced out by constantin the fifth he sent about this time a mission into iberia to keep the Caucasian mountaineers faithful to the christian cause and prepared to follow up his diplomacy by the dispatch of an army the mission was under one of the imperial Spatari aid de camp leo the isorian the son of a syrian settled in Thrace who had rendered service to justinian when on his way to recover his throne in 705 having dispatched him the emperor was seized with an insane feat of suspicion and held back the army thereby leaving leo helpless among the naturally distrustful and treacherous mountaineers he only saved himself by dint of never failing resource and pluck but eventually succeeded in picking up a stray company of roman troops which had lost itself in the mountains and made his way down to fascis in 713 the affair is mentioned chiefly because it introduces us to a man who was presently to become famous and immortal there is a certain pleasure in turning for a moment from the blood stained and disastrous annals of this gloomy period to justinian's private life he did not forget the brave barbarian bride who had risked so much for him and one of his first acts was to send a fleet to bring her to him if necessary by force it met however with disaster in a storm and the kazar khan wrote to his brother-in-law one wonders if he had really intended to kidnap him to say that no fleet was necessary why could he not send like a brother and friend justinian thereupon sent a small squadron and the kazar empress with a baby boy whom she had born to her husband during his absence arrived safely at constantinople she was crowned ogasta by the terrible spouse who really seems to have felt strong affection for her the child was baptized tiberius and proclaimed ogastas and colleague of his father we hear no more of theodora she did not long survive probably the maiden of the steps languished amid the perfumes of the palaces of the roman emperors but the little that we know of her is very much to her credit and her name deserves to be saved from oblivion having cleared his home provinces to the best of his ability of suspects justinian turned his attention elsewhere ravina and kerson were marked out for vengeance ravina was treated with barbarous cruelty even worse was the fate of kerson to which the emperor had a special aversion as being the place of his exile he sent thither a powerful expedition with orders to suck and destroy it the commanders shrunk from the literal execution of the savage command but justinian hearing that the town had not been destroyed ordered the expedition to return and complete its task the fleet sailed but mutinied proclaimed an armenian named vardan emperor under the title of philippicus and returning seas constantinople while justinian was absent at synapee justinian at once marched in wild rage on the capital but his army abandoned him en masse his hideous cruelty had destroyed the last remnants of the loyalty of the troops to the heraclit warrior emperors and he was seized and beheaded emitting threats to the last one child now alone remained of the great imperial line the little tiberius had been taken by his grandmother anastasia to the church of the virgin of black herney philippicus sent a band of his followers under an officer named strutas to kill him they found the child clinging to the altar his neck hung with sacred relics clasping a fragment of the holy cross while his honored grandmother the widow of the great constantin pogonatus stood beside him the murderers forced her away drug tiberius from the altar tearing the holy relics from his neck wrenching the sacred wood from his hands and carrying him to the door cut his throat on the steps there are red pages in bizantine history but in its naked horror in its combination of hideous brutality with sacrilege in its utter disregard of every law human and divine this murder of a helpless child in the presence of an age relative seems the foulest of all the roman empire had indeed been degraded to the very dust when its nominal head could order the commission of deeds that would ill become a king of dahome yet this horror was no more than the expression of the universal demoralization of which we have seen terrible traces in the reign of heraclius which had seemingly progressed still farther under his successors art science and literature were at a low ebb religion largely consisted in the practice of groveling rights of superstition culture and enlightenment had nearly perished we shall soon meet with a hideous example of the utter demoralization of the people at large their hopeless ignorance the shocking barbarity of the practices in which their craven superstition found its vent morally the empire could sink no farther politically the worst was yet to come the first year of felipicus was marked by widespread disaster king terbell invaded trace to avenge justinian the second the saracens captured amasia the home of the achaemenids of pontus and practically made themselves masters of northeast asia minor in the far west they inflicted a crushing blow on europe by the conquest of spain felipicus was a mere glutton and drunkard his one positive act was to make confusion worse confounded by re-establishing the monothelite heresy in 713 the saracens again invaded asia minor pushed across kapadosia and leconia and stormed antioch in pesidia the caliph valid considered that the time had come to renew the attack on constantinople the way through asia minor was practically clear and the enterprise was less difficult than it had been 40 years before while the caliphate under valid was much more powerful than it had been under muavia not only syria and egypt but the newly conquered africa also were called upon to supply ships the armament was to be such as had never been seen since the days of thirties in 713 felipicus was removed by a haphazard conspiracy seized at his drink blinded and thrust into a monastery in his place the conspirators crowned the first secretary of state artemius who assumed the title anastasius the second he was a man of considerable capacity but his name carried no weight either with the army or the officials who since the death of the strong justinian the second had usurped much of the imperial authority and despite his good intentions he could do little he did his best to prepare for the impending blow repairing the walls of the capital and gathering in supplies he appointed the spatarius leal the isorian general of the anatolic theme artavas dos an armenian officer of approved capacity was placed in charge of the armenia key anastasius undid the evil work of felipicus by formally restoring orthodoxy in the church in 715 he determined to make an attempt to burn the saracen fleet fitting out in the ports of syria the expedition consisting of a strong fleet and the troops of the obsidian theme was placed most unwisely under a civil official johannes the grand treasurer an able soldier was absolutely necessary for the conduct of so important an enterprise the appointment of johannes irritated the troops a mutiny broke out at roads johannes was killed and the fleet and army returned to depose anastasius the mutineers picked up at adramitium a popular tax collector named theodosius and presumably because they felt assured of perfect license under a non-entity invested him with a purple theodosius the third was a quiet and amiable man and seemingly accepted the crown in fear of his life he was perfectly sensible of his unfitness for the post to which he had been elevated the mutineers defeated anastasius and after a long blockade entered constantinople the new emperor amnestied all his opponents he could hardly have done less than to compel his fallen rival to take the tonsure for about a year he held his nominal imperatorship but practically controlled only constantinople and its neighborhood leo and artavazdos had not been able to come up in time to the rescue of anastasius and the danger in asia minor was so great that they dare not leave their posts but they paid no attention to the puppet emperor leo was more immediately in danger than his colleague as the fortress of amorium the present objective of the saracens lay in his own theme after much maneuvering some desultory fighting and long negotiations with the saracen commander in chief maslama leo succeeded in saving amorium and in inducing the enemy to withdraw quite possibly he was guilty of treachery or diplomacy to use the polite modern word it may be that his only object in getting rid of maslama was to be able to declare war on and depose theodosius in september he advanced towards the bosphorus and defeated the obsicians commanded by the son of theodosius he then occupied nicaea from which famous city he could keep a watch on the saracens and at the same time negotiate with the theodosians at constantinople he was clearly in no hurry to grasp the prize perhaps to his position with the impregnable capital still defined behind him and saracen hosts for all he knew moving against him in front was not an enviable one but early in 717 the theodosians yielded the great saracen expedition was almost ready to start and precious time was being wasted theodosius himself was perfectly ready to abdicate his patriotic action deserves to be remembered he retired into private life and the crown was offered to leo who formally accepted it he entered constantinople on march 25 717 and rode to the church of the divine wisdom where he was crowned and after 22 years of agony the empire had once more a master and of section 8 recording by mike botas