Fighting Emperors of Byzantium by John Carr

Author:John Carr [Carr, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military, Biography & Autobiography, Ancient, Medieval, history, Bisac Code 1: HIS002000; HISTORY / Ancient / General
ISBN: 9781473856264
Google: XpOSBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2015-04-30T23:52:39.161747+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Macedonians

Basileios I the Macedonian (867–886) and Leo VI the Wise (886–912)

In the long history of human leadership, time and time again we find a personality who, having given little promise of greatness or nobility in the early years, changes radically after having greatness and nobility thrust upon him. Such a one was Basileios I – conventionally named the Macedonian. It seems that the restless energy which he had previously expended in intrigue, violence and murder channelled itself into higher deeds when his circumstances changed. Like many newly-minted emperors before him, he inherited a state in need of repair in many sectors and tackled them decisively.

In line with the dimensions of his ego, Basileios set his sights on reuniting the Eastern and Western empires. Two centuries of intermittent conflict with the Arabs had convinced him that Christian Europe needed to be a single power again. To achieve this required the consent of the popes of Rome, who were at that time the single most powerful individuals in the West, steering the policy of the Holy Roman Empire. The illiterate Basileios knew little and cared less about doctrinal complexities but saw the advantages of reconciliation with the papacy. Strengthening his hand was the final conversion of the Bulgars to Christianity under Khan Boris (later renamed Michael), and a relaxation (albeit temporary) of tensions in that quarter.

But it had been three centuries since Justinian I’s attempt at unification, and in culture, language and mentality the Eastern and Western empires were as far apart as ever. Holy Roman Emperor Louis II (the German) had been mulling over giving his daughter Hermingarde to Basileios’ son Constantine, but when Niketas Oöryphas led a fleet to Bari to help the Franks besiege the Muslims there, he found the Franks outnumbered and drunk into the bargain. Ill-feeling on both sides mounted until Louis, in a paroxysm of wrath, sent envoys to Constantinople demanding that he be recognized as Imperator Romanum, outranking even the Byzantine emperor! Basileios properly ignored this outrageous claim, while the navy under Oöryphas patrolled the Adriatic Sea and cleared it of Muslim and Slav privateers. Bari itself was brought back into the Christian fold, marking ‘the beginning of the end of the Moslem menace to Italy’.1

Yet Arab fleets were very active in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. An Arab fleet from Crete penetrated into the Sea of Marmara in 881, to be consumed by Greek Fire (one wonders why the Muslim mariners hadn’t learned their hard lesson by now). Oöryphas resumed the naval offensive, pursuing the Arab pirates into the Saronic Gulf near Athens and over the Isthmus of Corinth into the gulf of the same name. After a period of neglect the Byzantine navy was again a rising power, the mistress of the Eastern Mediterranean. It had the services of another capable admiral, a Syrian named Nasr, who chased the pirates from the West Greek islands and Southern Italy.

Basileios himself took the field against the Arabs twice, during a ten-year war from 871 to 882.

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