Chapter XXIX: The Rising Storm

Nicephorus, in proud trust in his own mission from on high, and conscious of his own rectitude and devotion to the cause of God's realm on earth, would brook no interference with his will from his ministers, his people, or the priests. He yielded only to the venerated abbot of Mount Athos, his own beloved friend and confessor, Athanasius, in the matter of the empress, Theophano. He abstained from carrying out his purpose to remove her from the city and place her in honorary restraint. And his submission to the saintly hermit was not a little aided by some lingering, if unconscious, touches of tenderness for the woman whom he once had loved so passionately, and so humbly, so blindly, so devoutly had adored. He was again striving every nerve to reorganize a vast expedition for a third Asian campaign, wherein he was finally to crush the dynasty of Chamdas and secure the Syrian gates of Lebanon so as to open the way of triumph to the Holy Land itself.

The enormous cost of these levies of men, drawn from all parts of the empire--from the coast of Italy, across Greece and Asia, as far as the sources of the Euphrates--of the countless stores, arms, and equipments they required, strained to the utmost the finances of the state. Nicephorus knew nothing of fiscal resources and of ways and means. He despised all uses of money unless it were treated as the sinews of war. He left to his ministers the duty of devising the methods of taxation. All that he insisted on was the perpetual replenishment of his war-chests--_rem quocunque modo, rem_. He ordered the exchequer to exact the taxes to the most rigid point. He allowed bishoprics, abbeys, and eleemosynary foundations to remain vacant, while the revenues were collected by the state. He withheld the customary doles to the senators and high officers of the empire, in the name of public economy and the needs of the war against the infidel. Leo, his brother, and Sisinnios, the prefect, were loudly accused of regrating corn during time of scarcity. And, worse than all, they obtained from the ignorance of the emperor a decree to coin a new _nomisma_, or gold bezant, which was said to be alloyed as to one-fourth with baser metal, and was henceforth known as a _tetrateron_, a "quarter-piece."

The popular discontent grew day by day, fanned by disappointed nobles, voluble demagogues, and fanatical monks. All day long angry crowds gathered in the streets, markets, and courts of the churches. They were roughly handled by the city police or savagely dispersed by the foreign guardsmen. The great Armenian soldier himself, his whole soul aflame with the thought of the holy war, despised equally the effeminate nobility, the noisy mob, and the lazy monks. But his martial eye perceived the defenceless condition of the Sacred Palace, and he saw the necessity of securing the seat of government. Accordingly, he undertook a vast defensive work--a wall with towers, battlements, and gates which cut off the city from the palace. It was something like the later rampart we see to-day that stretches from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmora, and separates the old Seraglio and its dependencies from the rest of Stamboul. And, not content with this vast domestic defence, Nicephorus proceeded to enlarge and fortify the palace of Boucoleon on the edge of the port, which henceforth became the imperial abode and "keep," as the Normans would have named it. It was the real "Bastile."

Crowds would gather round the works, as thousands of laborers, imported mainly from the Thessalonican Theme and the Greek islands, toiled over the long lines of masonry. Here a voluble street orator, one Simeon, a cobbler by trade, got a number of loafers to listen to his eloquence. "What is to become of us, my friends, if everything in Rome is to be sacrificed to paying soldiers and building fortresses? We used to believe this city, with its walls, was safe enough against all enemies east or west, barbarians or infidels, whether they came in ships or over the mountains of Thrace. Are we the barbarians or the infidels against whom the Basilei must be protected by walls and towers? I can remember, my lads, the days of Constantine, the good, dear old man, who hated war and gave us lovely shows, and then young Romanus, with his free hand and kind smile, whom somebody made an end of, they do tell me. Will fighting in Syria bring us bread or make trade brisk? In old days, the court took care to sell us poor folks corn at a cheap rate in bad times; but now it doubles the price, while the poll-tax keeps it company at the same rate. And nobody gets work but these blacklegs of Hellenes or the leather-sellers on the Strymon, where they make the troopers' boots." But here a detachment of Macedonian spearmen, marching to relieve the guard, broke in upon the crowd, roughly forcing their way with the flat of their swords and many a broken head, as they dashed the citizens aside with their round bucklers. Amid shrieks, yells, and curses, the terrified mob took to their heels.

The next day it was Easter Eve, and the city was filled with crowds which poured in from all the country round to attend the celebrations of Holy Week, and the myriad churches, chapels, and chantries rang night and day with "Kyrie eleison," litanies, and wild sermons, interspersed with hardly veiled attacks on the imperial government and even person. In the great court-yard of the Stoudion monastery, an eloquent brother, Elias, was holding forth to an excited crowd:

"You have heard, my brethren, how they are about to confiscate the lands and properties dedicated of old by the pious to the Prince of Peace and to the uses of his poorest servants in order to devote them to war. They pretend that it is a holy war, a crusade against the Hagarene, to rescue our brethren from the False Prophet. Was the war against our Christian neighbors, the Bulgars, a holy war? Was the war with the Catholic princes of Italy and the German Cæsar a crusade for the faith? Are there not false prophets--ay, and cruel tyrants--among the rulers of a Christian state? It is a strange way to drive out the unbelievers to make a dead set at our Mother Church and seize its poor alms whereby it supports the servants of Christ and keeps alive the starving and needy children of God. We have to feed them, we have to live ourselves, we humble brothers of the destitute and the sick. Do my brethren here in these cold cells--do I?--look like one who is pampered with good things and clothed in rich garments? No, my brothers, we are the Lazarus of whom our Blessed Lord spake; and the rich man of His proverb lords it behind those golden gates. Verily, I tell them that we, the poor and the humble, will be in the bosom of Father Abraham above, and thence we shall see those who have robbed us cast into hell, being in torment amid the flames, crying to the Lord to allay their pains."

The crowd broke up with great excitement and gathered in knots at the street corners and markets. At one group, a farmer, who had come in from a neighboring village, was pouring out his griefs to sympathizing citizens. "A company of savage fellows from Mount Rhodope, professing to be new levies for the Macedonian shieldmen, had plundered his homestead, killed his goats, carried off his best horse, robbed his chest, and outraged his daughters." "Had he brought his plaint to the city magistrates?" "He had, and the sergeant of the company got five big ruffians to swear it was false." "The civil courts can do nothing in the way of justice on a soldier!" another cried. "In my case," said another in the crowd, "I had my plaint laid before a member of the emperor's own staff. All that I got for reply was that the holy war had in fact begun, and the autocrator could listen to nothing but to military crimes." "Oh, as to that," whined a shrunken and tattered fellow in the crowd, "I know that he can be pitiless enough. I was charged with being asleep on sentry-go, and got my nose slit, as you see, my masters, and four dozen rods broken on my bare back. I was a ruined man from that day, and have had to beg in the streets ever since. Even the monks will not take me with these scars, for I served in the Bulgar war, and am cut off from the sacraments of the Church. Masters, I tell you, the Basileus is drunk with war, mad with war. To smash the Prophet, he is ready to sacrifice the people of Christ wholesale."

All this time frequent conferences were being held within the palace itself, in the apartments of the Basilissa, with her connivance, and even in her presence from time to time, which constituted a sort of palace opposition to the imperial policy and decrees. The patriarch would often attend. Two magistroi, and three other patricians, and the abbot of the Stoudion, joined the conclave. Day after day the patriarch would denounce the informal, schismatic, and uncanonical synod wherein the Basileus had obtained the right to choose for bishoprics and abbeys those who were presented to his choice by the Church. It was the eternal quarrel of the "investitures," between Church and sovereign, which so often and so long shook the west. "This man of war, this unlearned and unregenerate soldier," Polyeuctus would argue, "can thus put into the sees throughout the empire creatures of his own; and if we refuse to present churchmen whom he favors, he can keep the holy office vacant while his fisc absorbs the revenues to lavish them on the troops."

The fanatical abbot of the Stoudion now broke in. "He has even dared to tamper with the dues that are levied by our holy abbey according to ancient constitutions of the pious sovereigns who succeeded the sacrilegious race of Iconoclasts. His officers even ventured to impound the tribute of oil that belongs of right to the monks of Mount Athos."

"Father Athanasius," interposed Theophano, "will bring him to reason there. He is the one man in Church or in State to whom my lord and master will listen."

"There is still one woman to whom he gives way," fawned the patrician Theodore.

"No longer," she replied, hotly, and added, with an air of resignation, "He has designs upon my liberty--perhaps upon my life."

"Defend yourself, madam," said Theodore; "your life, your full freedom of action, is now the most precious thing left in Rome. Appeal to the army, to its gallant leaders, to the senate, and the nobles of our land."

"Our prerogatives are being torn from us day by day," groaned the magistros Marianos; "the donations which our bounteous sovereigns from old time distributed to the nobles at the holy festivals have been withheld by absurd pretexts of economy. Not that we need or value such trifles of the royal favor. But the public withholding of them has been a slur on our honor, and has fatally diminished our influence with the government and our authority with the people."

"A chief must be found who is able to resist this oppression," said the patriarch.

"Say, rather," said the abbot, "one who is able to replace the oppressor."

Marianos and the patricians smiled with a complacent and important air.

"Remember," said Theophano, with decision, "nothing can be done but by a soldier. No man can stem the oppression that desolates this empire if he has not the voice of the army. None could wean them from devotion to Nicephorus but a hero, a beloved chief, one who has led them to victory in a hundred fights."

"Her Majesty speaks truly and wisely," said the crafty abbot, as the conference closed. Nor did magistroi or patricians venture to say her nay.

On Ascension Day, from early dawn, the streets were crowded with citizens and country-folk hurrying to witness the processions to the fanes and take part in the ceremonies of the festival. At the Neorion port on the Golden Horn near the Strategion, where a body of new recruits had been exercising, a riot broke out between them and the sailors of the merchant ships. These wild fellows from the Armenian highlands looked upon the capital as a conquered city, and had begun to plunder the wine, fruit, and meats that were in course of unloading on the quay. The dealers, their men, and the seamen defended their property. Arms were drawn, and a furious mob assailed the troopers with every missile within reach. For an hour the whole quarter rang with cries of battle and the din of the riot. The soldiers at last, outnumbered and surrounded, fought their way back to their quarters, leaving many dead and dying on the ground. Nor was order restored until the prefect arrived with a strong guard and vainly tried to pacify the crowds of citizens who called for punishment of the aggressors, carrying in procession the corpses of their comrades and intending to bear them to the very gate of the palace.

Week by week the irritation of the city had been increasing, which Nicephorus, if he noticed it at all, treated with quiet disdain. On that very Day of Ascension he made the official visit of ceremony to the venerated church of Mary, outside the northern rampart, known then and now as Pege, or the Holy Well. Leo, our young student, and his friend, Joannes, "the geometer," had been called out to the riot and now attended the train of the Basileus. It was towards sunset when the imperial cortège returned over the crowded route of many miles, and at last passed into the narrow streets, at that moment thronged with citizens making holiday.

"Do you see how those market fellows under the portico of Theodosius there scowl at the Basileus?" said Leo, to his friend. "He would not be safe among them without the guard."

"Hear that yell of rage from the roof of the baker's house on the left," said Joannes.

"Nicephorus seems the only man in the street who does not notice it. He rides on with his eyes bent down like a man in a reverie," said Leo.

"After the bloody street-fight we saw this morning, it would be strange if the mob were not in a savage mood," said Joannes. "Ah! there is a dense crowd in the forum of Constantine beyond. There seems to be some one on the steps of the column haranguing the people."

"I see," said Leo; "it is that mad monk from the Stoudion, Brother Elias. He has been preaching against the Basileus again. We shall have a pretty row in five minutes, as sure as my name is Leo."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when yells, mingled with curses and missiles, filled the air. The guard in front of the procession roughly forced a path through the crowd, thrusting back the people with blows and the hoofs of their horses. The immense mob, furious with indignation, pressed on the riders with outcries and menaces. "Assassin, tyrant, usurper," were the names shouted forth. Stones, garbage, and mud were flung at the imperial party as the guard closed in a ring round the Basileus.

"By St. Andrew, this is too much!" cried Leo; "the pitcher only just missed his head," as from the third story of a tenement-house a virago, with horrid curses, hurled a heavy stone-ware jug at the sovereign below. And from the same window, at that moment, a girl, in a loose dress and dishevelled hair, hurled a brass pan down on the emperor as he rode beneath their house.

"Break into that door!" shouted the captain of police to his men; "seize the old hag and her girl. I know them well. It is a doss-house for the worst kind of begging monk. And the women are as bad as the monks."

"See how Nicephorus there sits his horse and does not even look round him!" said Leo. "He rides on as calm and unconcerned in the hurly-burly as if he were St. George in an ikon. What coolness and nerve the man has! He seems to see their missiles as little as he hears their curses. He looks as steady and undisturbed as if he were the bronze statue of Justinian on his horse."

"And that stone jug might easily have smashed him," said Joannes. "It just grazed the plume; they might have killed him as they did Apambas in the revolution."

The guard closed in round their emperor, who rode on quietly, without a word and without moving a muscle, amid execrations and volleys of mud. And night at last dispersed the mob.

The next day the prefect of the city waited on the Basileus to take his orders as to the punishments to be awarded to the riotous quarter and the fate of the prisoners arrested by the police.

"Let them go," said Nicephorus, "and leave the citizens alone. No bones are broken, and I care nothing for their shouts. The times are hard. We may have been too close-fisted with the corn, and my Armenians are a rough lot. But, at such a crisis in the holy war, I dare not be too hard on my brothers in arms who are giving their lives for Christ. If we can smash the False Prophet forever, the city mobs will begin to cheer me again as of old."

The prefect was forced to abstain from any harsh treatment of the quarter. But he kept some of the worst of his prisoners in jail. And as for the two women whose missiles had wounded some of the police, and whom he knew to keep a thieves' den, Leo saw them publicly burned in the circus of St. Mamas--a low, suburban arena--as a warning to all rioters.

Before leaving the capital for the front, Nicephorus was urged to give a show of chariot-races in the Hippodrome with more than usual magnificence. His council regarded it as a mode of pacifying the public discontent. Seated high in the cathisma, the royal gallery, surrounded by the empress, her sons, and the court, in full gala trim, Nicephorus submitted with the best grace he could command to the tedious exhibitions of the arena. Before the games were over he thought it well to give the Byzantine public a sight of the new levies from Macedonia, whom he was about to lead into Syria. So he ordered two "bands," or regiments, of foot-soldiers to advance into the arena, just cleared of the horse-races, and to be paraded in sections. For a time the citizens on their benches watched with amusement the unwonted spectacle of military evolutions in their Hippodrome. Warming with the sight of his men in splendid battle array, Nicephorus now sent orders to charge in a mimic fight, with levelled lances and the familiar war-cries of their tribes. As the companies charged till the lances actually crashed upon the bucklers and the vast Hippodrome rang with the shouts and clash of arms, panic seized the spectators. The cry was raised that the Basileus had ordered a general massacre, as in the dreadful sedition of the "Nika" of old. With shrill yells the crowds rose from their benches, poured down the gangways in mad confusion, and choked the doorways and passages. Shrieks rose far and near, as the terrified crowd trampled each other to death or were crushed by the weight of those behind them in the agonies of fright. Before anything could be done to stem the torrent, before the emperor, in his lofty gallery, quite understood what was happening under his eyes, a ghastly mass of mangled bodies and bloody limbs, jammed inextricably together, filled the corridors and gateways of the circus, which an hour before had been a festive scene of beauty and enjoyment.

The Basileus arose from his throne as soon as he comprehended the cause of the disaster, and, in a voice which overpowered the shrieks below, gave the word to the troops to halt and stand at attention. Every sword and every lance was held motionless, as the men stood like statues in their ranks. The emperor resumed his seat in order to recall the people from their panic and imitate his own repose.

It was too late. All the afternoon the ambulances and the surgeons with their staff toiled at removing from the quivering mass the dying and the dead. Nicephorus, having given all necessary orders, slowly and sadly went back to his cabinet, feeling that some curse had fallen on his head, if it were not that God had purposed to end his reign in ruin and blood.

And for long years the people of Byzantium bitterly mourned over the death and mutilation of those dear to them, which they placed to the indifference of their sovereign, but which really was due to their own folly, cowardice, and panic terror.