Diplomacy gone to seed: a history of Byzantine foreign relations, A.D. 1047-57

International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Jan, 2004 by Paul A. Blaum

The reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus (1042-55) was a watershed in the history of the Middle East. For the Christian nations of the "Orient," particularly Armenia, his reign proved a disastrous turning point, since it was in his time that the Seljuk Turks launched their first massive ghazwa or raid into Byzantine Armenia (1048) and the Byzantine frontier in the East was forever breached. The raid--led by Ibrahim Inal, uterine brother of the sultan Toghrul Beg--was marked by the horrific sack of Arzen or Artze, a huge commercial center near the modern Erzerum, and a short time later by the fierce nocturnal battle near the castle of Kapetrou (Saturday, September 10). Here, a combined Byzantine and Georgian army of 50,000 met the Turks head-on, fought hard, but failed to administer the coup de grace. The nineteenth century British historian George Finlay writes of the holocaust at Arzen: "Never was so great a conflagration witnessed before, and it has only been rivaled by the burning of Moscow. One hundred and forty thousand persons are said to have perished by fire and sword, yet the Turks captured so many prisoners that the slave-markets of Asia were filled with ladies and children from Arzen. The Armenian historians dwell with deep feeling on this terrible calamity, for it commenced a long series of woes which gradually reduced destroyed all the capital accumulated by ages of industry in the mountains of Armenia, and reduced one of the richest and most populous countries in the East to a poor and desolate region." (1) In all places through which he passed, Ibrahim Inal left behind a tableau of stupendous devastation. The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir notes that Ibrahim brought back from Byzantine territory 100,000 captives and a vast booty loaded on the backs of ten thousand camels. Included in his spoil were eighty thousand coats of mail and an infinite number of beasts of burden. In 1051/52, Eustathius Boilas, a Byzantine magnate who emigrated from Cappadocia to the theme of Iberia (the former Taiq, northeast of Erzerum), could still find the land "foul and unmanageable ... inhabited by snakes, scorpions, and wild beasts." (2)

This period can in no way be understood without accounting for the foreign policy--and indeed the character--of Constantine IX Monomachus, sovereign over the Byzantine Empire for thirteen tumultuous years. Fortunately, his reign is well chronicled, three of the Byzantine sources being contemporaries: Michael Psellus, John Scylitzes, and Michael Attaliates. All three men were not only literary, but they were prominent in the world of affairs. Psellus, best known of the three, was a confidante of successive emperors beginning with Constantine IX, under whom he was state secretary and vestarches. Under the Emperor Isaac I Comnenus (1057-59), he would be named proedrus or President of the Senate. Scylitzes, a native of the Thracesian theme in western Asia Minor, first held the rank of protovestarius (keeper of the emperor's private purse), then drungarius of the watch (commander of the garrison troops in Constantinople), and finally curopalates or "lord of the palace." Attaliates, while not an important personage in Constantine IX's time, rose to be judge, vestis, and magistros. Another valuable contemporary source is the Armenian vardapet Aristakes of Lastivert, who witnesses firsthand the initial Turkish invasions of Byzantine Armenia. Within two centuries after Constantine IX, the Byzantine historian John Zonaras, the Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa, the Monophysite chroniclers Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus, and the Muslim Arab historian Ibn al-Athir provided a great deal of supplementary information. From their varied reports, we can draw a composite photo of Constantine IX, the man and emperor.

A blending of these accounts reveals that Constantine IX was pious yet sensuous, easygoing yet calculating in time of adversity, and light-hearted sometimes to the point of frivolity. Despite his excruciating gout, stomach disorders and other ailments, he was almost always kind and generous to others. Michael Psellus writes: 'They do say that he rode very well too and was a very fast runner, supple and light, and absolutely without a rival in the pentathlon, so strong was he and agile and swift of foot." He had come to the throne by accident, having been selected by the sexagenarian "Macedonian" empress Zoe to be her third husband. Constantine IX then ruled as part of a curious triumvirate consisting of himself, Zoe, and he slightly less elderly and quirky sister, Theodora. A third female in the picture was Constantine's cherished mistress, Sclerena. Such an arrangement was not conducive to his being taken seriously by historians, of his own day and later. Yet he was no mediocrity. He was eager to patronize learning and the arts, and he gave considerable attention to charity, such as construction of hospices for the poor and elderly in Constantinople. The Nestorian priest and physician, Ibn Butlan, after visiting Byzantine Antioch in 1049, wrote a friend in Baghdad: "In the town is a Bimaristan (or hospital), where the patriarch himself tends the sick; and every year he causes the lepers to enter the bath, and he washes their hair with his own hands. Likewise the king [Constantine IX] also does this service every year to the poor. The greatest of the lords and patricians vie in obtaining from him permission to wash these poor people, after the like fashion, and serve them." (3) It does not surprise us that Constantine IX, amiable and well favored, found his share of admirers. The contemporary poet Christopher of Mytilene writes of him: