Chapter XXVII: Old Rome and New Rome--Rivals in Empire

The mighty Otto, after long consideration of the two plans proposed in council, committed the fatal error of alternately resorting to both, and, for the first time in his long and splendid career, met with mortifying rebuffs in negotiation as in war. Adopting at first the advice of the politic bishop, the emperor advanced to Naples and there received the envoys of Nicephorus in state. The Basileus, who sought only to gain time while he poured reinforcements and stores into his stronghold of Bari, lured on the Germans with hopes of obtaining the hand of the princess and the Italian themes as her dower. In the mean time he doubled the defences of Bari and despatched his trusty lord warden to take command of the provinces in Italy and to defend them to the last drop of his blood.

Otto, at last, finding himself baffled with hollow promises, listened to the advice of Count Pandulph of the Iron Head and of Count Gisulph of Salerno, and, securing his rear at Beneventum, he suddenly, without warning, dashed down upon Bari with a picked body of his Lombardic and German veterans. In his thirty years of reign Otto had swept his enemies before him from the Baltic to the Tiber, and he looked for an easy victory in the Lombard theme. He had made the expedition an imperial progress, with the empress and their son in his camp, and the flower of his Saxon, Swabian, and Italian troops. But he was too late. The gallant warden had provided at every point for a desperate defence. The fortifications of Bari stretched from sea to sea. A powerful fleet secured the coast and poured in provisions and arms; and the population, bound by long tradition and commercial interest in loyalty to the Byzantine empire, served with zeal in the defence of their city. To the summons of the Saxon to surrender the fort, Basil Digenes returned as proud a defiance. Otto had dashed upon it without the means of a regular siege, at the instance of Count Pandulph the Iron Head and his brother Landulph, who intended to make it their own. After weeks of bootless attacks, which the lord warden repelled at every point, the emperor retired in disgust and flung himself into the arms of the wily bishop, whom he sent on a new embassy to Byzantium.

It was a lowering day of June, 968, when the learned and eminent Bishop of Cremona found himself at the Golden Gate of the fortifications of Constantinople, as the ambassador plenipotentiary of the Augustus, crowned of God, the Emperor Otto. The suite of his eminence consisted of secretaries, chamberlains, and attendants, and a select band of men-at-arms, gigantic swashbucklers from Pomerania, "bravos" in reality, who were familiarly known as the "lions." The party were mounted on their own horses, and ceremoniously challenged the guard to open the Golden Gate to the representative of his Imperial Majesty. But no gate was opened. The sky was now overcast and the rain descended in torrents, but it did not cool the wrath of the pompous bishop and his people. Hour after hour they waited in the storm, in spite of all their appeals and demands, the bishop pouring out Ciceronian philippics at the barbarism of his hosts, and his officials importuning the stolid guard of the gate with remonstrances that were neither understood nor answered.

Late in the afternoon the silentiary Symmachos arrived, with a military escort; the gates were opened, but, with positive asseverations that no foreign person could be suffered to ride through the streets of the "city guarded by God," the bishop and his party were forced to dismount, and were taken on foot through gaping crowds and muddy and unsavory lanes to their lodging in a remote corner of the city near Blachernæ. The residence assigned to the mission was an empty palace of marble, which the irate bishop discovered to be cheerless, dilapidated, and comfortless, letting in rain and open to the wind. The wrath of the courtly prelate, his disappointment and vexation, could not be publicly expressed; but he vented his spleen in the turgid Ciceronian epithets scattered throughout the flowery despatch which he now addressed to his "August and invincible emperors of the Romans, the Ottos, and the most glorious and august Empress Adelheida--" a record which, with all its exaggeration, pomposity, and caricature, is one of the most precious documents of the Middle Ages.

Two days of delay passed in which the bishop fumed and inveighed against "the Greeks" and all their tribe, pouring anathemas on the building, the food, the wine, and the accommodation; on Michael, the Sicilian, who was appointed their caterer and "steward of the palace." His eminence now found that he was practically a prisoner, and guarded by uncouth Russian sentinels who neither understood his language nor suffered his attendants to pass or communicate outside. At last he received an official summons from Leo, the brother of Nicephorus, and curopalates, who desired to regulate the ceremonial of the reception by the Basileus. Again the portly prelate had to wade through mud and rain on foot; he arrived breathless and in a bad temper, and bustled into the chamber of the royal palace, proud of his mastery of the Greek language, and bearing the missive that contained his credentials from his sovereign. Luitprand began a speech that he had prepared in Demosthenic style, wherein he called himself the envoy of "the august Basileus of the Romans." But here Leo peremptorily interrupted him, and said, "There is but one august Basileus of the Romans on God's earth, and he resides in this sacred palace. Your master, we understand, is king of several tribes of the west, and we could not recognize his envoy under any other style."

"But my lord, who of old was crowned king both in Germany and in Italy, was lately anointed Imperator Augustus, which in your tongue is Basileus, by the holy father himself, in the Church of the Apostle Peter in Rome, and that with the assent of the prelates, barons, and people of Rome. Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine had no more solemn investiture of that holy and sublime office."

"What! do you venture to call that a legitimate consecration which was attempted by the infamous traitor, John XII.?" asked Leo, bluntly. "We heard that your king deposed the apostate priest who officiated at his coronation and crucified the populace which shouted at his installation."

"My lord the emperor has indeed had occasion to purge the prelacy and the mob of the Eternal City, and there can be no better proof of his imperial authority and his unquestioned title to rule," said the bishop, stoutly.

"The pretension to assume the title of emperor of the Romans was an attack on the prerogative of the imperial successor of Constantine the Great," said Leo, positively. "And you, my lord, cannot be admitted to an audience if you persist in claiming for your master the title of Basileus."

"But _Basileus_ is Greek for king--is it not?" the bishop rejoined.

"No," said Leo; "the Greek word for _king_ is ρηχ."

"That is Latin--rex--not Greek," cried out the learned and pertinacious bishop.

"It seems that you have come here, my lord bishop, to quarrel and to insult us, and not to make peace," said Leo, determined to close the interview.

Seeing no chance of pressing his point, the prelate advanced to hand his diploma to the curopalates, in order to be laid before the emperor himself; but Leo, with an air of sovereign disdain, declined to handle the missive, which he waved to the grand interpreter to take into his charge. He abruptly closed the interview, and the silentiary conducted the disconcerted envoy to his own abode, muttering his indignation, with tags from Cicero, Virgil, and the Bible.

"The tall man thinks himself a master of the ceremonies," said the bishop to his secretaries, "but he is a broken reed, like Pharaoh of Egypt, as the prophet says, whereon, if a man lean, it will pierce his hand."

The very next day was Whitsunday; the bishop received the summons to attend the audience of the emperor at seven o'clock in the morning. At six he began his weary tramp on foot from the northern end of the city, and after some delay was ushered into the magnificent Hall of the Nineteen Couches. There Nicephorus, in state robes (which the irritable bishop declares were old and ill-fitting), sat on the throne of Solomon, with the golden lions on the steps, the young Basilei sitting on stools behind his left hand. The ambassador of Otto, remembering the courtly magnificence of Constantine, had expected a royal welcome. His wrath was great when Nicephorus, with a stern look, and not rising from his throne, motioned to the envoy to approach the foot of the dais and prostrate himself. The Basileus, deeply resenting as an insult the claim of the German king to usurp his title, and boiling with indignation at the outrage of Otto's treacherous attack on the Italian provinces, began in this fierce tone:

"It would have been our right--indeed, our pleasure--could we have been able to receive your embassy with the amity and the magnificence this court shows to all friendly powers. The disloyal conduct of your master has made that impossible. He has taken up a hostile attitude and has invaded our city of Rome, which he claims as his own. He has put to death our friend, King Berengar, and his son Adelbert, in defiance of law and of right. He has slain many of our Roman subjects by the sword or by the halter; he has put out the eyes of others, and driven some into exile. He has attacked cities of our empire with fire and sword, and seeks by force to annex them to his kingdom. And now, when he finds himself baffled in his treacherous attempts, he affects to be a peaceful friend, and he sends you--you, the counsellor and the contriver of these misdeeds--to come to our court to act as spy rather than ambassador."

The stout bishop, full of pride in his sovereign, the great Otto, and in the Holy Catholic Church, of both of which he was now the mouth-piece, was not the man to be cowed by such a fierce diatribe from the "Basileus of the Greeks"; and he boldly retorted in kind, though much of the Ciceronian rhetoric he poured into his famous despatch was spoken in Italian, aside to his secretary, or was polished at leisure in his closet at home.

"When my master invaded the city of Rome it was not as a usurper nor as a tyrant, but to deliver the city from a tyrant, or rather from a gang of tyrants. Rome was in the hands of debauchees--nay, of harlots. Surely your mightiness slumbered--or rather your predecessors in title. If they were in fact, and not only in name, Roman emperors, would they have left Rome a prey to abandoned women? This court has never hesitated to depose, to oppress the holy fathers in times gone by, till they have been without means to carry on their office. As to Prince Adelbert, he insulted your predecessors on the throne; he despoiled the Church of the Holy Apostles. My lord came down across the Alps and drove out the traitors and the criminals, doing justice on rebels, as the Roman emperors of old ordained. As to Berengar and his son Adelbert, they first made themselves liege-men of my own lord, and received from him the golden sceptre of the kingdom of Italy. Then they turned traitors and rebelled against him. They were driven out--but they are not dead. Your majesty is wont to treat rebellion in very much such fashion, I trow."

"The champion of Adelbert tells us a very different tale," interposed Nicephorus.

"Let that be decided by single combat in arms," broke out the bishop, warmly. "Any one of my men-at-arms shall to-morrow, if you give us the lists, prove him on his body to be a false traitor."

"Enough," said Nicephorus, sternly. "Assume that Adelbert turned traitor. Now answer me this: Why did your master break into our land with fire and sword? We were on friendly terms, and were contemplating a perpetual alliance and union by marriage."

"We hold, sire," said Luitprand, proudly, "that the lands claimed as Byzantine themes are part of the Italian kingdom--Italian by race, custom, and tongue. They were held of old by Lombard chiefs, and Louis, the Frank sovereign, recovered them from the Saracens. It was only by arrangement they passed to the rulers of this realm. But now my lord and master has sent me to effect a settlement of all these disputed questions by an alliance of the Princess Theophano with his own son Otto, on the terms as to her dowry which I am commissioned to propose."

"We have heard enough of this, and must adjourn the audience," said the emperor, abruptly. "It is past eight o'clock, and the procession of this holy festival of Pentecost is about to be formed." And Nicephorus rose and had himself arrayed in solemn state.

The bishop was duly escorted into the tribune of the choir singers, and relieved his spleen by writing for his imperial sovereigns a grotesque account of the ceremony. On his return he found things rather less acrimonious at court.

Nicephorus had now been advised by Leo, Basil the chancellor, and other councillors, that it would be unwise to reject altogether the overtures of the mighty emperor in the west; and Basil and the party of the empress ardently desired the proposed alliance. This Nicephorus and his brother could not brook to accept, but they were persuaded to play with the ambassador of the Ottos, at least while the great campaign in the east was hardly at an end. Accordingly, Leo was instructed to invite the bishop to the imperial banquet, and there Nicephorus treated him, not so much with haughty contempt as with the rough humor of the camp. The bishop, to his disgust, found himself placed low at the royal table, and surfeited with the unknown dishes--the oil, the caviare, and sauces of the banquet. His spleen broke forth in Ciceronian epithets about the food and the resinous wine, nor was he conciliated by the rough banter of the emperor himself. The bishop was heckled as to the extent of the German armies and territories, and he at once opened a high-flown harangue on the dominions of his master and the prowess of his soldiers.

"Nonsense!" cried Nicephorus, with a loud laugh, for he was resolved to flout and mock the Latin phrase-monger; "they tell me the cavalry are but poor horsemen, and the footmen are so overweighted with corselets, helmets, long swords, and big shields that they have no mobility in action. And they eat and drink too much, making a god of their bellies, though perhaps their drink gives them pot courage, and they can do nothing when rations are short." And Nicephorus, proud of his Cossack troopers and his lithe, mounted bowmen, laughed aloud as he had done round many a camp-fire.

"Then mark this, my lord bishop," Nicephorus went on, returning to his angry tone: "Your master has no fleet. Sea power is ours. We make war by sea as well as by land. We have two arms with which to strike. You have but one. If we go to war with your master we shall destroy his seaboard cities, and reduce to ashes all that we can reach by any waterway. Did we not drive him back from Bari? He came there in force--with his wife and his son, with his Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians, and Italians. All of them together failed to capture one petty town. Do you think they could withstand us, whose armies are as numberless as the stars in heaven or the waves of the sea?"

The indignant bishop tried to speak, but Nicephorus waved him to his seat. "You are not Romans at all; you are Lombards," he shouted.

But this was more than the Italian could endure. Nicephorus raised his hand to bid him be silent, but he broke forth: "Romulus, who killed his brother, and who was born in adultery, gave his name to the Romans. Then he opened an asylum to which homicides, debtors, slaves, and felons resorted, and so he named the mongrel crew his Romans. That was the origin of those whom you call the 'masters of the world!' We, Lombards, Saxons, Swabians, Franks, Lorrainers, Bavarians, and Burgundians call a man a 'Roman' when we want to give him an opprobrious name. We mean by Roman whatever is most mean, cowardly, greedy, effeminate, mendacious, and vicious. As to whether we know how to fight on foot or on horse, the next war will prove."

This insolent philippic of the wrathful bishop was blurted out in incoherent passion amid the derisive murmurs of the courtiers. Nicephorus did not listen to his sallies, and abruptly rose from the table, ordering the officials to carry the ambassador back to his lodging. For days the miserable prelate lay there practically in prison, neglected, and ill, he declares, from the poisonous wine and the pickled sturgeon he had received. His piteous appeal to the curopalates only gained him an interview with the prime-minister, Basil, the secretary of state, and the prefect, who told him that the only terms on which the Sacred Palace could consent to giving a Basilian princess born-in-the-purple to a Teuton prince would be the cession of Ravenna, Rome, and the Italian duchies to their lawful sovereign. King Otto might have peace if he resigned Rome and all imperial pretensions.

The diplomacy of Byzantium--the great original of which that of the Sublime Porte and of Holy Russia have been but feeble imitations--was employed to play with the wordy prelate, while detaining him practically as a hostage or a prisoner. He received a series of affronts and rebuffs. He was left whole days without supplies; he was made to give precedence to "barbarian envoys from Bulgaria, unkempt creatures in uncouth dress," he said. Once he was so rude that he was sent to dine at the inn, where Nicephorus in mockery sent him from his own table "a dish of kid stewed in pickled fish sauce, garlic, and spices." After months of endless negotiations, Luitprand had a final audience with Nicephorus, to whom he was forced to prostrate himself beneath the imperial feet. "Take back our last word to your king," said the Basileus; "let him cease to usurp our style and infest our provinces, and then come back to us and bring us a favorable answer."

When the great Saxon emperor learned how his embassy had been treated, and received the vermilion and golden-sealed epistle of Nicephorus, composed in the same disdainful tone, he again invaded Apulia and assaulted its towns and castles. The Byzantines had been preparing for the encounter all through the time of the bishop's visit. Basil Digenes was in command of the forces, and he flew from one stronghold to another, providing its defences and animating the troops. Otto made no real way beyond laying waste the Greek themes and plundering the unwalled towns. At last the fevers of plains and the vigorous defence of the castles wore out the strength of his German veterans. The emperor withdrew to the north, leaving the Count Pandulph of the Iron Head to carry on the campaign at the head of his Lombard and Italian force. The count gained some successes and laid siege to Bovinum in the Samnite Mountains. Basil Digenes threw himself into the fort and commanded a sortie upon the count's own camp. There the Iron Head met the lord warden in single combat, and a tremendous duel ensued. The count was dismounted and the scimitar of Basil clove his helmet at the very instant that the huge mace of Pandulph crashed into the brain of the warden. The gigantic Lord of Capua was taken prisoner, desperately wounded, then bound in chains and shipped off to Byzantium, in the same vessel that carried back the lifeless body of his antagonist. Nicephorus mourned his friend, comrade, and right arm, for whom he was wont to say ten victories over the Teuton usurper and his allies would be but a poor compensation. In the legends, romances, and ballads of Byzantine glory, the memory of Basil Digenes long remained as the type of chivalry and knighthood. And the Princess Agatha hid her sorrow for her betrothed in a convent. And so, after all her adventures, her hopes, and her struggles, she did at last become the Bride of Christ.