The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (20 page)

The Emperor was ready for this. Knowing full well that the Ignatians had always been staunch upholders of papal authority, and had indeed received invaluable support from Rome during the stormy days of the Photian dispute forty years before, he now revealed that he had recently submitted the whole question of the
tetragamy
(as it had come to be called) to Pope Sergius III, from whom he confidently expected a favourable reply. If the Supreme Pontiff were now to give his blessing, what better authority could Euthymius require? He could issue the dispensation forthwith - and, Leo might have added, save his face as well.

How, we may ask, could Leo be so sure that the Pope would react as he hoped? First, there was the fact that the early Catholic Fathers had never been unduly exercised over the question of plural marriages; what caused far more concern in Rome was the ever-widening rift between the Eastern and the Western Churches, and no Pope worthy of his throne would let slip so golden an opportunity of seeming to impose his authority on Constantinople. Second, Sergius was in desperate need of military assistance in south Italy where the Saracens were showing every sign of strengthening their hold, and the Emperor had no doubt that the Pope would consider his approval for the fourth marriage a more than acceptable
quid pro quo.

Meanwhile, he was prepared to bide his time. Not a word was said publicly about his negotiations with Euthymius or his appeal to the Pope. He refused any suggestion that Zoe should be separated from him
while the question remained unresolved, insisting that she should be treated with all the honour and respect due to an Empress; when, on the other hand, at Christmas 906 and on the Feast of Epiphany following, Patriarch Nicholas denied him entry into St Sophia, he turned back without protest to the Palace. Then, in February 907, the night before the papal legates were due to reach the capital, he struck. Nicholas was accused - with what justification we shall never know — of having been in secret communication with the rebel Andronicus Ducas, put under close arrest and forced to sign an act of abdication from the Patriarchate.

Now such an abdication, even if the Patriarch had been guilty of treasonable activities, would not have been valid without the approval of his fellow-Patriarchs and, at least in theory, of the Pope in Rome. Once again, however, Leo had made his preparations in good time. That same embassy that had been sent to Baghdad to negotiate the exchange of prisoners — and that had, incidentally, proved so disastrous for Andronicus Ducas — had also been entrusted with a further task: to bring back to the capital accredited representatives of the three Eastern Patriarchates - Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Pope Sergius, too, had been secretly apprised of Leo's intentions. It was gratifying enough to him to have been asked to pronounce on the fourth marriage; an additional appeal by an Emperor against his own Patriarch was an even more valuable testimonial to the respect in which the Papacy was held in the East, and was certainly not to be refused.

The letter from Sergius, which the legates delivered on their arrival the next day, justified the Emperor's highest hopes: in the circumstances, His Holiness could see no objection to his remarriage. Before the end of the month Euthymius, newly enthroned as Patriarch, duly granted the long-awaited dispensation. He did not, it should be emphasized, even now
sanction
the marriage: for as long as he continued to associate with Zoe Leo would be admitted to the Great Church only as a penitent, being debarred from the sanctuary and forbidden to sit at any time during the service. For the Emperor, however, this was a minor humiliation — little enough price to pay for a happy married life. Sinful as it might be, his marriage was at least reluctantly recognized. He and Zoe were man and wife, and the baby Constantine, now eighteen months old, was held to be
porphyrogenitus,
'born in the purple' - a title by which he is still known to this day. Insofar as it ever could be in those uncertain times, the succession was assured.

*

The autumn of the year 905 was, for the Emperor Leo the Wise, a blessed season. September had seen the birth of his son, October the destruction of a Saracen fleet and the destruction of Tarsus. At last, it seemed, the wind was beginning to blow in his favour; and though the following year had brought a further deterioration in his relations with Nicholas, his triumph over the Patriarch during the first weeks of 907 must have provided further confirmation of his changing fortunes. The baby was crowned co-Emperor on
11
M
ay 908, and two years later Himerius sailed against the Syrian port of Laodicea (now Lattakia), sacked the city, plundered and ravaged the hinterland and returned safely to Constantinople without the loss of a single ship.

It would have been better for Leo if he had died there and then. Instead, in the autumn of 911 he sent off his admiral on a final attempt to recapture Crete. For five years he had been working to improve the imperial navy, and the force at Himerius's disposal was stronger and infinitely better equipped than any that had been previously thrown against the island. Alas, the occupying Saracens had been working simultaneously on their defences, and the expedition proved no more successful than its predecessors. For six months - all through the winter and into the spring - Himerius kept up the siege; but the defenders held firm, and the Byzantines could make no appreciable impact on the massive fortifications. Then, in April 912, there arrived an urgent message from the capital: the Emperor's health, which had been giving cause for anxiety since the beginning of the year, had taken a sudden turn for the worse. He was now gravely ill, and unlikely to live. Reluctantly, the admiral gave orders for the raising of the siege and set sail for the. Bosphorus. His ships were just rounding the island of Chios when they found themselves surrounded by a huge Saracen fleet under the command of Leo of Tripoli - he who had practically annihilated Thessalonica eight years before. Now he subjected the Byzantine vessels to much the same fate. Nearly all were sent to the bottom, Himerius himself narrowly escaping to Mitylene whence, slowly and with a heavy heart, he made his way back to Constantinople.

By the time news of the disaster reached the Imperial Palace, Leo's life was ebbing fast. He lived just long enough to hear it, then turned his face to the wall. On the night of 11 May he died. In a reign of just over a quarter of a century he had proved himself, if not perhaps a great Emperor, at any rate an outstandingly good one. He had, it is true, split the Church more deeply than ever; but this was the inevitable result of his fourth marriage, without which there would have been no obvious heir to the throne after the death of the childless Alexander. By his determination to marry Zoe Carbonopsina and to legitimize their son, he ensured both a universally recognized succession and the continuation of the Macedonian house, which was to survive for another 150 years - the greatest dynasty in the history of Byzantium. Compared with those two inestimable benefits, the damage done to the Church was of little long-term account.

For the rest, although he lacked that combination of relentless ambition, superhuman energy and boundless self-confidence that had distinguished his father — and is probably as good a definition of greatness as any other - he had ruled wisely and conscientiously over his subjects; and although his armed forces suffered more than their fair share of defeats at the hands of their Arab and Bulgar enemies, there can be no question but that he left the Empire, at least internally, in far better shape than when he inherited it. As befitted an intellectual and a scholar, he was not an exhibitionist: no great churches or sumptuous additions to the imperial palaces stand to his memory, and his mosaic portrait over the Imperial Door of St Sophia - which shows him, incidentally, in an attitude of prostration before Christ - dates almost certainly from several years after his death.
1
His most enduring achievements - the codification of the law, the reorganization of the provincial administration, the restructuring of the armed forces - were by definition unspectacular; but they were no less valuable for that. In his lifetime Leo was genuinely loved and respected by his people; and after his death posterity had good cause to be grateful to him.

1 This mosaic, in the lunette above the central doorway of the nine leading from the narthex into the main body of the church, carries — most exceptionally - no identifying inscription, and has consequently been the subject of much learned argument. By far the most convincing interpretation is that given by N. Oikonomides, who believes it to represent Leo's repentance after his fourth marriage and his salvation after the intercession of the Virgin - pictured in a medallion above him, with the Recording Angel opposite her. According to this theory the mosaic would be connected with the Council of 920, intended to illustrate the subjection of the earthly ruler to the King of Heaven and placed over the very door before which Leo was twice denied entrance to the church. See 'Leo VI and the Narthex Mosaic at St Sophia' in the
Dumbarton Oaks Papers,
Vol. jo (1976).