The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (34 page)

Two months later, on Ascension Day, as the
basileus
was proceeding in state through the city after attending Matins in the Church of the Virgin at Pegae, abusive shouts were heard from the crowd — coming, it was said, from the families and friends of those who had perished during the Easter disturbances; and within moments he was surrounded by a hostile mob. As always when physical danger threatened, Nicephorus betrayed no trace of emotion, continuing his measured pace and looking neither to right nor left; but had it not been for his personal guard, who formed a dense phalanx around him and shielded him from blows and even missiles, he would have been lucky to return to the Palace alive.

The next morning two women, a mother and her daughter, who had been arrested for hurling bricks at the Emperor from a nearby rooftop, were burnt alive in the Amaratas district; and Nicephorus gave orders for the fortification of the Great Palace, sealing it off completely from the surrounding streets. Within this huge enclave, down towards the little harbour of the Bucoleon, he built what seems to have been a private citadel, for the use of himself, his family and his closest associates. By now it was clear to all of them that — perhaps for the first time in his life - the Emperor was afraid. On the battlefield he had not known the meaning of the word; but Constantinople, where the very air was loud with rumours of plots and portents, had become sinister and threatening. His aspect grew still more sombre, his religious observances ever more morbid and morose. He no longer slept in a bed, but on a panther-skin laid on the floor in the corner of the imperial bedchamber. The death of his father, old Bardas Phocas, who had finally expired at the age of ninety, had utterly prostrated him; and he seemed never to have fully recovered from the shock that he had suffered one day in the late summer when he had been accosted in the middle of a religious procession by an unknown monk of repellent aspect, who had thrust a note into his hand before disappearing into the crowd. It read: 'O
basileus,
although I am but a worm upon the earth, it has been revealed to me that in the third month after this coming September you shall die.'

What ultimately brought matters to a head was the fate of Bulgaria. By the summer of 968 King Peter was desperate. Partially incapacitated by a stroke, he sent first an ambassador
1
to Constantinople to appeal for military aid against Svyatoslav, and shortly afterwards two little Bulgar princesses, intended as brides for the young Emperors Constantine and Basil. But it was already too late. On 30 January 969 he died after forty-two years on the throne, leaving as his successor his elder son Boris, a callow youth unremarkable except for an enormous red beard. Six months or so later Peter was followed to the grave by Princess Olga of Kiev, the only restraining influence on her headstrong son Svyatoslav, who in the early autumn swept down, at the head of a huge and heterogeneous army of Russians, Magyars and Pechenegs, into the

1
This curious figure, 'unwashed, with his hair cropped short in the Hungarian fashion and girt about with brass chains', had been the unwitting cause of furious indignation on the part of Liudprand of Cremona when given precedence over him at the Emperor's table.

Bulgarian heartland. Preslav fell after scarcely a struggle, and young Boris with his entire family was taken off into captivity. Philippopolis by contrast put up a heroic resistance; but it too had to capitulate in the end, and paid dearly for its heroism when Svyatoslav impaled 20,000 of its citizens. By the onset of winter the Russians were ranged along the whole Thracian border, and few doubted that at the first signs of spring they would launch their attack upon the Empire.
1

At this point there returns to the forefront of the stage the lovely but ever-fateful figure of the Empress Theophano. Unlikely as it is that she - or anyone else for that matter - could have felt any physical attraction for Nicephorus, there can be little doubt that at some moment during the previous six years she had fallen passionately in love with his erstwhile colleague, the outstandingly good-looking former Domestic of the Schools John Tzimisces. The degree to which the tiny but irresistible Armenian returned her love is perhaps somewhat less certain: there were plenty of other emotions — ambition, jealousy, resentment towards the Emperor, who had recently deprived him of his military command and exiled him to his Anatolian estates - that might have impelled him to act as he did. But Theophano at twenty-eight was still as beautiful as-ever: whether or not his heart was engaged, her embraces cannot have been altogether distasteful.

Her first task was to convince her husband that he had been unjust towards his former friend - to whom, after all, he probably owed his crown - and to persuade him to rescind the sentence of banishment. This was not as difficult as might have been imagined: she could nearly always get what she wanted from him if she put her mind to it (another indication, perhaps, of the genuineness of his love for her) and he readily agreed to recall Tzimisces, on the condition that he remained in his family's house at Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, coming over to Constantinople only when given specific permission to do so. Obviously, from the lovers' point of view, the situation was still rather less than ideal; but dispositions were made, and before long the little general was slipping nightly across the strait under cover of darkness to a hidden corner of the Palace where the Empress was waiting — and where, among other less reprehensible occupations, the two of them cold-bloodedly planned her husband's murder.

1
Older historians tend to date the fall of Philippopolis to the early spring of
970;
I prefer to follow Sir Steven Runciman's chronology
(First Bulgarian Empire
,
pp.
205
-6).

Accomplices were not hard to find. By now there were few in his immediate entourage who had a good word to say for Nicephorus Phocas, and those party to the plot included Basil the
parakoimomenos
and several other high court officials; also implicated was Michael Bourtzes, hero of Antioch, whose conquest of the city had been furiously resented by the jealous Nicephorus and who had shortly afterwards been relieved of his command.

The date of the assassination was fixed for 10 December. On the afternoon of that day the leading conspirators, disguised as women with their swords concealed beneath their robes, entered the
gynaeceum
of the Palace ostensibly on a visit to the Empress, who distributed them among various small rooms in which they could wait unobserved until the time came for action. As evening drew on, Nicephorus received another message of warning, this time from one of his chaplains, telling him that the danger was now imminent and that his intended murderers were already hidden in the Palace. He immediately dispatched Michael, his chief eunuch and major-domo, to investigate; but Michael too had been suborned by the Empress and returned to report that he had found nothing untoward.

Darkness came early during those December days, and as night fell there arose a dreadful blizzard. The conspirators remained in hiding in the darkened Palace. They dared not act without John Tzimisces - but would he be able, in such weather, to make his secret journey across the Bosphorus? Meanwhile it was for Theophano to allay her husband's suspicions and to make sure that there would be no problems of access when the moment came. She had decided, she told him, to pay a quick visit to the two little Bulgar princesses, to see if they were comfortable in their new accommodation. She would not be gone for very long, so he must be careful not to shut her out: they could lock up properly after her return. Nicephorus raised no objection. For some time he continued to read one of the devotional works of which his library was full; then, as usual, he settled down to his prayers. At last, with his wife still absent, he wrapped himself up in his uncle's hair-shirt and stretched himself out on the floor to sleep.

Outside, the storm continued. It was bitterly cold, and snowing hard; the wind had whipped up the waves on the Bosphorus and John Tzimisces, making his way from Chalcedon with three trusted friends in an unlit boat, had had a long and perilous crossing. It was not until eleven o'clock that his accomplices heard the low whistle by which he

had promised to announce his arrival. Silently a rope was let down from a window of the Empress's apartments, and one by one the conspirators were drawn up into the building. Tzimisces was the last to enter. Once inside, they lost no time. A eunuch was waiting to lead them straight to the Emperor's bedchamber. There was a moment of alarm when the bed was found to be empty, but the eunuch quietly pointed to the far corner of the room where their victim lay on his panther-skin, fast asleep.

The last minutes of Nicephorus's life, dwelt upon with relish by the chroniclers, do not make pleasant reading. Awoken by the noise, he tried to rise; at the same time the
taxiarc
h
Leo Balantes struck him a violent blow with his sword. It was aimed at the neck, but the Emperor's sudden movement deflected it; he received its full force diagonally across the face. Streaming with blood, he called loudly upon the Holy Virgin Theotokos for aid while he was dragged to the foot of the great bed, on which John Tzimisces was sitting as if in judgement. There they tried to make him kneel, but he fell to the ground and lay motionless as his former companion-in-arms cursed him for his injustice and ingratitude, kicking him savagely and tearing out handfuls of his hair and beard. After Tzimisces had finished it was the turn of the others. Each had his own private score to settle. One smashed his jaw; another knocked out his front teeth with the end of his scabbard. At last - we do not know by whom - he was run through with a long, curved sword. It was the
coup
ie
grace.
Nicephorus Phocas was dead.

The news spread fast. Minutes after the deed was done Tzimisces's men were out in the snow-covered streets of the city, shouting 'John, Augustus and Emperor of the Romans!' at every corner; they were soon joined by others, led by the Chamberlain Basil himself, on whose instructions they shouted also for the two child-Emperors Basil and Constantine but were otherwise no less vocal in their support of the new regime. Meanwhile in the Palace complex itself - which never slept - the duty guard of Varangian Vikings, axes in hand, hurried down to the Bucoleon. There by the light of flaming torches they saw the head of Nicephorus, struck from his body and held triumphantly aloft at a window by one of the assassins. At once they were still. Had he been alive, they would have defended their Emperor to the last breath; dead, there was no point in avenging him. They had a new master, and that was that.

As to the identity of that new master, there too they were faced with a
fait
accompli.
As soon as the deed was done, John Tzimisces had made his way to the
Chrysotric
linium,
the great golden throne room of the Palace, pulled on the purple buskins and decked himself in as much of the imperial regalia as he could find; already he was seated on the throne, Theophano and her two sons at his side, while his fellow-conspirators and a growing crowd of court officials hailed him as Emperor of the Romans.

Throughout the next day the city lay silent and apparently deserted. Basil - who was henceforth to be ever at John's right hand, his most experienced and trusted lieutenant - had proclaimed a curfew. The citizens were so far as was possible to stay at home; those obliged to venture abroad were forbidden to congregate or to make the slightest disturbance, on pain of instant execution. By now the wind had dropped. The storm had been succeeded by an eerie soilness, the fog hung thick over the Marmara - and the body of Nicephorus lay below the window from which it had been flung, an obscene bundle on the bloodstained snow. After such a death there could be no question of a state funeral. Instead, when night had fallen, it was picked up, thrown on to a makeshift wooden stretcher, covered with a rough blanket and carrie
d quietl
y through the empty streets
to the Church of the Holy Apostl
es, where it was laid in one of the marble sarcophagi ordered by Constantine the Great six centuries before. It was an honourable resting-place; but Nicephorus Phocas, the White Death of the Saracens, hero of Syria and Crete, saintly and hideous, magnificent and insufferable, had deserved a better end.