It is against this background that one should view the various manuals of
governance and law-collections dating from Leo’s reign. They evince his
enthusiasm for order, godliness and good learning. Besides commissioning,
compiling or interpolating these works he wrote numerous sermons. He
aspired to be acknowledged as the fount of wisdom and pious enlightenment,
judging by the description of his bathhouse near the palace complex.
Leo’s sobriquet, ‘theWise’, implied in the bathhouse imagery, acclaimed by
contemporary courtiers and derided by Symeon of Bulgaria, was not wholly
undeserved. Like his father Basil I, he wished his rule to be associated with
illustrious figures of the Christian empire’s acknowledged heyday, notably
Constantine and Justinian. At the same time he propagated the idea of
renewal in, for example, his highly euphemistic version of Basil’s accession:
the former state of affairs had been removed together with Basil’s senior coemperor,
Michael III, ‘for the purpose of fresh and well-ordered change’.10
The concept of ‘cleansing’ government and society of the corrupt and
the obsolete is threaded through the novellae of Leo VI, an assemblage of
113 ordinances, mostly dating from the earlier years of his reign. They are
largely concerned with morality and church discipline, and envisage a welltempered
society whose laws apply to all men save the emperor; he has been
granted ‘discretionary powers’ (oikonomia) over earthly affairs by God. The
laws, it is repeatedly asserted, are to help men, bringing benefits to their
souls as well as to their bodies.11 How far Leo’s novellae were practicable
administrative instruments and how far they were enforced is, however,
uncertain.
The Book of the eparch was issued in 911 or 912 in the name of Leo VI.
Its preface invokes by way of analogy the tablets upon which the Law was
disclosed by God’s ‘own finger’ for all mankind,12 but its scope is confined
to Constantinople, whose administration was supervised by the eparch.
It regulates the conduct of nineteen guilds, and lays down harsh penalties
for those who breach the regulations. General professions of concern
for the welfare of the emperor’s subjects are here juxtaposed with detailed
administrative procedures. The Book of the eparch reveals something of
the government’s assumptions and priorities. It is particularly concerned
with top-quality products such as silks, purple dyes, silver- or goldwork
and spices. Five guilds connected with the silk industry receive detailed
attention, whereas tanners and leather-softeners get cursory treatment and
numerous other known guilds are not mentioned at all. The monopolisation
and rationing out of luxury goods was the stock-in-trade of imperial
statecraft, at home and abroad. Great efforts were made to ensure that the
various stages of production and retail of silk remained in the hands of different
professions, and dealers in less valuable goods such as groceries, meat
and soap were also not to merge their enterprises. Small-scale units could
safely be allowed to monitor their own operations and their own tax assessments
and collections to a large extent; fewer officials were thus required
for them. The Book of the eparch essentially envisaged self-regulation by
craftsmen and traders in conjunction with the City authorities.
A still more urgent priority for the government was provisioning at
affordable prices. The heads of the fishmongers’ guild were to report to the
eparch at dawn on the night’s catch, whereupon he set a price. The prices of
meat and bread were likewise set by him; rigorous inspection of all weights
and measures was enjoined. The drafters or revisers of the Book of the eparch
assumed that residence in Constantinople was a privilege, and ‘exile’ was a
harsh penalty in itself. No clear distinction was drawn between provincials
and foreigners: for example, anyone ‘from outside’ bringing any kind of
merchandise ‘into the God-protected city’ was to be closely supervised by
the eparch’s deputy; a list of their purchases was to be made at the end
of their stay, ‘so that nothing forbidden should leave the reigning city’.13
The sale of pigs and sheep was regulated in detail; the express aim was
cheaper food for the populace, and the interests of provincial producers
were secondary.
All this probably had a positive effect on the citizens’ well-being, but
it also publicised the emperor’s solicitousness. An emperor enjoying the
citizens’ goodwill was screened against would-be usurpers. Leo broadcast
his piety and accentuated the mystique of emperors born in the Porphyra
(himself and his son Constantine). He maintained the festival celebrating
the consecration of the Nea Ekklesia built by Basil I. A dirge composed
soon after Leo’s death linked Constantinople and the reigning family thus:
O City, sing, intone the praise
of Basil’s noble offspring,
For they impart a deeper hue
To thy imperial purple.14
Bread-and-butter issues were at least as important as pomp in winning the
sympathies of the populace. Leo seems to have realised this.
Concentration on the emperor’s home town rather than the provinces is
not particularly surprising.More striking is Leo’s assumption, in compiling
his Tactica in (for the most part) the 890s, that the provinces are vulnerable
to enemy attack and that this will continue indefinitely. He states that the
work is for fighting the Saracens, who harass his subjects ‘day by day’.15Warfare
is essentially defensive, and commanders must ensure that all necessities
are removed from areas under attack to safe places, livestock dispersed and
the population evacuated. The Arab raiders should be attacked only when
returning, weary and preoccupied with booty. Here, at least, the emperor
was attuned to life as it was lived in the eastern provinces. Much the same
tactics are advocated in Skirmishing, which drew on first-hand experience of
the ninth- and earlier tenth-century borderlands and was composed in the
milieu of the Phokas family; it presupposes that humans as well as livestock
will be amongst the raiders’ encumbrances, and the strat¯egos is to assume
that his troops will be numerically inferior to the raiders.16
The subterranean settlements of Cappadocia provide material evidence
for the insecurity of the south-eastern provinces. Some predate the Arab
invasions, but others, such as Salanda, 80 kilometres west of Caesarea, were
created then. Several of the millstones which closed its numerous entrances
are still extant, though such ingenuity did not prevent this redoubt from
being captured in 898 and again in 906–7. Skirmishing sets notably less
store by man-made fortifications than by familiarity with mountain heights
and natural defences from which observers can gauge enemy numbers and
movements.17 Rapid movement was here at a premium, thus limiting what
the mounted raiders could take back. Their numbers seldom exceeded
10,000, and were often far smaller. The brunt of the seasonal land raiding
was borne in the south-east borderlands. Nonetheless, Skirmishing’s
preoccupation with finding out the raiders’ targets betrays the difficulty of
keeping track of them, let alone of mustering soldiers from widely scattered
agricultural holdings. Its detailed provisions for coping with major invasions,
replete with siege equipment, bespeak a state of alert and uncertainty
as to where the next blow would fall.
No less uncertainty overhung the southern and western coastal districts
of Asia Minor. The amir of Tarsus despatched or led naval razzias, and
these, like the piratical fleets operating from north Syrian ports, enjoyed
a safe haven in Crete, if needed. It was there that the pirate chief Leo of
Tripoli withdrew after sacking Thessaloniki, the empire’s second city, in
904, and there 22,000 prisoners were counted before being auctioned to
the Cretans. For a while Leo’s fleet was expected to attempt an attack on
Constantinople; it was probably this, rather than just the humiliation at
Thessaloniki, that spurred Leo VI into large-scale countermeasures. But a
combined land-and-sea operation soon collapsed. The commander of land
forces, Andronikos Doukas, had recently led a successful incursion into
Cilicia. He now fell under suspicion of rebellion and fled to Baghdad after
holding out in the fortress of Kabala for six months in 905.
A later, massive task force under the command of a trusted civil servant
and relative-by-marriage of Leo VI, Himerios, was directed at least partly
against Crete, from which the Byzantines had vainly tried to dislodge the
Arabs in the ninth century. Himerios was no more successful in 911–12,
even though he seems to have followed the precepts of Leo’s Tactica, and
Leo of Tripoli remained at large in the Aegean for ten more years.18 Arab
raids are quite commonplace in tenth-century hagiography; the tales may
be fabulous, but their setting has substance. The sermons of Peter, bishop
of Argos (c. 852–c. 922), and his Life concur in suggesting that the locals
looked to the saints and to Peter himself, rather than to the emperor, for
protection.19 Peter regularly ransomed captives from pirates who put in at
Nauplion; and, reportedly through the miraculous production of flour, he
acted to relieve a famine. Peter’s ransomings were not far removed from
tribute, and it seems that a regular form of tribute was exacted from the
inhabitants of southern Aegean isles such as Naxos.
At one level these facts of provincial life make a mockery of the bien
pensant Leo VI’s public pronouncements. Yet the raiding fleets were normally
modest, and the boats in everyday piratical use needed to be small
and light, to facilitate swift concealment in Aegean coves. So their carrying
capacity was restricted. In any case, not even Byzantine orMuslim authorities
could achieve high standards of seaworthiness; naval technology did
not allow either side to dominate the seas, and vessels of any bulk tended
to ply a limited – and predictable – range of routes. The Muslim fleets
seldom liaised with one another, being intent on plunder, not conquest.
The account of one of Leo of Tripoli’s captives of 904 suggests there was
more or less covert trafficking between the Muslim and Christian zones,
involving redeemable prisoners and other commodities.20 The smattering
of copper coins belonging to Cretan amirs found on the Greek mainland
may hint at commercial exchanges. In the border regions, local self-reliance
and deals with the men of violence were unavoidable.
Some of the areas most exposed to enemy raids actually showed signs
of increasing economic activity and wealth. In Sparta and Corinth the
coin sequences which had begun in the mid-ninth century continue uninterrupted
through the first half of the tenth. Still more suggestive is the
proliferation of painted chapels and churches in the rocks of Cappadocia.
Some formed part of monasteries, but most were lay foundations, serving
as shrines, marks of piety and oratories. Similar monuments may well have
been raised above ground in other provinces, particularly those in northwest
AsiaMinor, long secure from Arab raids.On the fertile southern shore
of the Sea ofMarmara lay several large wealthy monasteries, and ports such
as Kyzikos, Pylai and Trigleia offered outlets to convey produce and livestock
to the megalopolis. Under intensive police and customs scrutiny,
the Sea of Marmara was the inner sanctum of the empire, prosperous and
secure. There are signs of economic dynamism at Constantinople itself in
the early tenth century. The size of the population remains uncertain, but
the number of buildings was apparently increasing. Leo’s novellae regulate
building land and the spaces to be preserved between buildings, in ways
not found in the Justinianic planning legislation, and this hints at greater
building density.21
Yet even in the megalopolis, driver of the Byzantine economy, the scale
of activity and growth was modest. The citizens’ needs could apparently be
met by twenty-four notaries. Five of the nine owners of the shops listed in a
mid-tenth-century rental note were officials or title-holders, and only one is
identifiable by his trade. The richest pickings came from supplying the state
or holding office, and the government was by far the largest employer in
Constantinople. The palace complex required many hundreds of servants;
eunuchs, pages and foreign bodyguards were reportedly numbered in their
thousands. Most of those attending banquets or other ceremonies were
holders of offices, heads of guilds or other such city worthies, but persons
who held titles yet lacked a state function could attend. A text deriving
from Leo VI’s reign specifies the sums payable for certain court titles and
offices, and indicates the roga payable annually by the treasury to titleholders
according to their rank. Provided that the purchaser lived on for
several years, he could make a profit, but the advantage lay mainly in
the conspicuous connection with the imperial court, invaluable given the
multifarious dealings which any man of property would have with tax
inspectors and other officials.22
The purpose of the unremitting palace ceremonial was set out by Constantine
VII Porphyrogenitus (945–59) in the preface to the handbook
on ceremonies he commissioned: ‘may it be an image of the harmony of
movement which the creator gives to all creation, and be regarded by our
subjects as more worthy of reverence and therefore more agreeable and
marvellous.’23 The establishment over which the emperor presided was as
just and as immutable as God’s, and attempting to overturn it was tantamount
to challenging God’s order of things – and no less wicked or
futile. The ceremonies also dramatised the emperor’s role as the sole source
of legitimate authority, and of serious money. Leo VI recommends the
appointment as general of a ‘good, well-born and rich [man]’ even while
piously urging a more meritocratic approach.24 Leo probably appreciated
how much the running of his army in the provinces depended on officers’
local connections and resources. The rank and file did not receive substantial
regular cash wages, and Leo’s Tactica discusses the problem of ensuring
a high turn-out of well-drilled soldiery after a call to arms. His solution is a
combination of fiscal privileges for the soldiers with the arousal of religious
fervour throughout provincial society, so that non-combatants would be
predisposed to contribute unstintingly to the war effort. In this respect, at
least, the Muslims’ mobilisation of their society to participate in the jihad
appeared to Leo a shining example.25
The reforms would have to be carried through by one of the army’s
few full-time components, officers above the rank of droungarios. These
were appointed directly by the emperor and drew their salaries from him,
but their effectiveness would not be the less for their being gentlemen
of private means. The strat¯egos who commanded them had to cope with
enemy incursions. He had to take major decisions, and possessed sweeping
powers to requisition and to evacuate civilians.He was left largely to his own
devices, but the term of office was short and he was forbidden from owning
land in the theme he governed, a provision evidently designed to prevent
close ties growing up between the governor and local society. It could not
always be enforced, especially in the distant south-eastern borderlands.
Yet on the whole a balance was struck between affiliations, imperial and
local.
Imperial propaganda did not merely proclaim an ideal of good order from
the palace. The palace rites nearly all involved prayer or the veneration of
the sainted.Many involved liturgical celebrations in St Sophia or churches
outside the palace complex. The emperor constantly led his entourage in
prayers for the welfare of his subjects, acting together with the patriarch and
fortified by the concentration in his palace of Christendom’s finest relics,
the Instruments of Christ’s Passion among them. The rhythmic intercession
gained in significance from the disorder which many provincials endured,
constituting both an oasis and a clarion call for supernatural aid. Such a
combination of imprecation and material splendour amidst all-enveloping
turbulence could be found in the west, in Cluny, and the spell which
Cluny’s sumptuous liturgies cast on the propertied classes of Francia was
perhaps akin to that of the basileus’ festive prayers in Byzantium. His ritual
displays of intimacy with God and philanthr¯opia for his subjects were the
visible accompaniment of works of legislation and tabulations of good
administrative practice.
Those who did not view their interests or spiritual salvation as best served
by the imperial establishment were too poor, localised and ill-equipped to
take concerted action; the nearest they came was to respond tardily, if at
all, to the general call-to-arms which the authorities periodically issued.
Widespread if unchronicled apathy meant that strat¯egoi had little hope
of turning their forces against the government successfully. Their regular
soldiers were too few and often too dispersed, and their principal mode of
guerrilla warfare was ill-suited for an assault on Constantinople’s formidable
walls, which were ringed by water.
World History
