ii. The Revolt of the Dalassenoi
The first hurtle that the Phokas regime faced was the basilissa herself.
After Bourtzes and the city’s garrison had quelled the burgeoning riots from the night of the coup, dispersed any groups demanding the restoration of the House of Makedon and restored order in the merchant quarters that had been afflicted by looting, Bardas made his first public appearance as emperor. He appeared in the Augustaion, accompanied by Theodora, the Varangians and a number of bureaucrats and noblemen who had made common cause with the usurper, and was met with a tepid response by the people of the capital. Many believed that the Makedonians could still be restored, and so were hesitant to appear too welcoming of the usurper. Bardas and Theodora were crowned in the Hagia Sophia in a much more public but not especially opulent ceremony, and their vows were confirmed in an equally public ceremony before the Imperial couple retired to the Boukoleon to begin the business of governance.
As soon as they were out of the public eye, and more importantly out of view of Bardas’ retainers, Theodora’s placid demeanor dropped. She was slightly upset about the whole ‘murdering her father and forcing him to marry her’ thing, and wanted Bardas to know that he didn’t have all of the cards. Theodora was an imperial princess and had spent her life in the capital, and despite her austere and pious nature was no stranger to court politics. As a Makedonian, she still held the loyalty of most of the capital’s residents, and if she suggested that she was in danger they would rise up and at worst burn much of the city, at best putting Bardas and the traitors’ heads on pikes above the Golden Gate. Bardas dismissed this--after all, mobs aren’t exactly equal to Imperial guard regiments--until Theodora reminded him that the hetaira weren’t as mercenary as the Varangians and had many members that were still loyal to the Makedonians. Of course, this power could be used to buoy the new Phokas dynasty, for the right price. Theodora demanded three things; firstly, a position as co-ruler in fact as well as name, complete control over the hetaira and its recruitment, and control over church matters. It was a steep price, but given the precarious state of his regime Bardas accepted rather than testing her willingness to go through with her threats.
The next step for the Phokas regime was to start distributing offices. Constantine VIII had been the opposite of a diligent steward, and so a surprising number of minor offices and titles sat empty. The most important offices, however, were full of loyalists and yes-men, and so needed to be thoroughly cleaned out for the sake of both the empire and the new emperor. The first stage of this was awarding the conspirators with a number of offices both large and small as rewards for their support during the conspiracy and hereafter. Bardas was also savvy enough to recognize that the number of empty offices gave him a powerful tool, in that he could essentially chain the prospects of office holders to his regime’s success: if the Makedonians or some other dynasty managed to overthrow him, then the men who had served under him would be thrown to the wayside at best and executed at worst.
Mikhael and Samouel Bourtzes were appointed as protoaskretis (overseer of the notaries) and epi ton deeson (petitioner-in-chief), respectively, which were effective sinecures. Theognostos Bourtzes was appointed as kleisourarch of the Gates of Trajan, a position which allowed him to command an army fairly close to the capital without appearing overly threatening to the nobility, or at least that was what Bardas hoped. Nikolaos, the eunuch domestikos ton skholon, happened to be a long-time personal enemy of Bardas, and after he was stuffed into a sack and hurled into the Bosphorus the emperor summoned Basil Boioannes, the Katepano of Italy, to the capital to take the office. In essence, Bardas sought to appoint Boioannes, who was one of the best living generals in the empire, as his second-in-command, an unmistakably powerful gesture that tied the katepano to the new regime; fortunately for everyone involved, Boioannes accepted the offer and promised to come to the capital once the katabatic winds in the Adriatic died down the next year. Finally, Bardas appointed Constantine Monomachos as his logothetes tou genikou, or general treasurer, for the interim period.
While things were going well for the new regime in the capital, there were still a number of difficulties facing Bardas. The first issue was Zoe, Constantine’s other surviving daughter. She and Theodora had shared the same quarters in the women’s section of the palace complex, but during the havoc of the night of the coup she had somehow disappeared. The aging princess, while never the smartest, was no idiot and had recognized that dozens of armed men swarming across the palace was probably a bad sign and had stuffed herself inside a chest in a closet in an isolated wing of the women’s quarters. When things quieted down, she emerged from her bolthole and slipped out a side door, fleeing down the city’s waterfront to the Harbor of Julian, where she found a garrison commander known to be fanatically loyal to the House of Makedon and convinced him that she was who she said she was. The commander had roused his men and commandeered a fishing boat in the harbor, after which they disappeared into the Marmara. By the time word of this reached Bardas and Theodora, they had been gone for nearly a day and despite the best efforts of the Imperial fleet, they were in the wind. Bardas ordered pickets to be sent to the straits to watch for Zoe, then turned his attention to more pressing issues.
Namely, the themes. As they had planned, Constantine Diogenes had struck for Bardas once word of the successful coup reached him, delivering Thessalonika, Strymon and thematic Bulgaria into the camp of the usurper. However, many of the other governors were standoffish in general towards the regime, either unsure of its viability and not wanting to throw their lot in with a failing cause or ardently loyal to the House of Makedon. Bardas was left to try and coax the governors into supporting him with whatever means were available to him; threats, bribes of court titles, bribes of land, bribes of money, soft power influence from the church and more….covert influences. One of the most important douxes to be won over to the Phokas camp was Eustathios Daphnomeles, the Doux of Dyrrakhion and one-time right-hand of Basil II. What exactly Bardas had on Daphnomeles is unknown, but given the gravity of the situation--Daphnomeles could likely have dethroned Bardas by himself--suggestions have ranged from homosexuality to bestiality to secret Muslimness. With Boioannes, Daphnomeles and Diogenes all backing Bardas the rest of the Balkan themes swiftly fell in line. The governorship of the Optimatoi was thankfully vacant, so Bardas was free to appoint Komnenos as its governor, and the governor of the Opsikion, Gregorios Taronites, was fairly friendly to Bardas, having once served together in the east. The maritime themes of Samos and Kibyrrhaiot also struck for the capital.
However, beyond the Aegean littoral, things were quite different, to say the very least. The Anatolian interior was both the heartland of the theme system and the strongest bastion of loyalty to the House of Makedon; even if the strategoi of these themes supported Bardas, they faced imprisonment or death if they did anything beyond declaring neutrality. In particular, the heavily militarized frontier duxates of Khaldea and Mesopotamia were ardently opposed to the ascendancy of Bardas. It is possible that these distances might have been reconciled had things continued as they had in 1026 but alas, they would not.
In February 1027, after a harrowing winter crossing of the Mediterranean, Zoe and her loyalists landed in Tarsos. The theme was commanded by Constantine Dalassenos, one of Constantine VIII’s most loyal followers and a man known for his financial skill, skill as a cavalry commander and his fierce loyalty to the House of Makedon. Upon making landfall, Zoe is rushed to the thematic capital at Antioch, where she offers Dalassenos the emperorship if he will take up arms in her defense and drive the usurping Bardas from the capital. After thinking it over for about three seconds, Dalassenos eagerly agrees, and in a flurry of letters and ink dispatches riders to the themes whose governors he believes would be willing to support he and Zoe’s march on the capital. After they return with more ‘yes’ answers than not, Zoe and Constantine are proclaimed as Zoe and Constantine IX, respectively, in Antioch on 24 March 1027.
The coalition of strategoi and kleisourarchs that rallied to Zoe and Constantine was impressive and an immense threat to Bardas’ position on the throne. Constantine was not only the strategos of Antiocheia but also the Doux of Antioch, which meant that he was the strategos of the neighboring themes of Cilicia and Doliche. In addition to the lands which he controlled personally, he was also able to rally his brother, Theophylaktos Dalassenos, the governor of Kharsianon and the Anatolikon. The strategoi of Seleukia and Kappadokia, both minor players in this drama, rally to him as well. The Doux of Mesopotamia, Grigor Magistros, also joins the rebel force, as does the Doux of Khaldea, Mikhael Gabras, and an unknown commander of the Armeniakon. All in all, most of the eastern empire is up in arms against Bardas, including most of the eastern field armies and the lion’s share of the Anatolian themata. On numbers alone, Constantine and Zoe held a slight edge over Bardas, and this advantage was shored up by the superior morale of their troops.
When word of this reached Constantinople, the people of the city nearly rioted. Only the intervention of Theodora, who bade them to cease and asked them to stand against this false claim by her sister. This succeeded in quieting them, but the attitude of the emperor and his generals remained equally dark. The advantages which Constantine and Zoe held were as obvious as they were daunting, and many of the strategoi loyal to Bardas began to seriously reconsider this. However, there was one advantage that Bardas and the capital still held: sea power. None of the naval themes had defected, and even the fleets stationed in rebel territory had fled for ports still loyal to the capital. In a region with such a long coastline, this was a crucial boon.
That spring, the two hosts mustered for battle. The exact size of Constantine and Zoe’s army is unknown, and the contemporary description of it as numbering 85,000 strong is almost certainly hyperbolic propaganda written later on. The new usurper left behind sizable forces to guard the frontier, not wanting to lose any part of the empire that was soon to be his to opportunistic foreigners, but he did hire some 10,000 Armenian mercenaries, making the exact size of his host difficult to determine. It probably numbered around 45,000 strong, or was only able to deploy that many in one place. Bardas’ host, by contrast, has far more concrete numbers; 10,000 tagmata, 10,000 Italians, and 20,000 themata from across the Balkans and western Anatolia.
Having completed their muster, the rebels were the first to move. Constantine marched westward from Kilikia in early May, where he had established his base of command, passing through the Cilician Gates onto the Anatolian Plateau, where he began the difficult process of linking up with the other rebel forces scattered across the region. The plateau was beginning to heat up, showing its nature as a true desert, and Constantine didn’t wish to tarry in the desert during the height of summer. As such, after completing the linking-up process by the end of May, he decided to sacrifice sustainability for speed and set out westwards across the center of the region.
This was a fatal mistake. Given his naval dominance and the shaky nature of his support in Anatolia, Constantine had assumed that Bardas would abandon Anatolia and use his fleet and the Bosphorus as a line of defense. He was not entirely wrong, but Bardas and Boioannes had concluded that the Straits ought to be used only as a last line of defense, given the capital’s position at their narrows and the possibility of a night crossing. However, they would not be abandoning their naval capacity; in addition to raids and probing attacks to keep the rebels weak and divided, the Italian corps would get some more practice in seaborn assaults.
In mid-June, as Constantine’s army tramped across the heart of the desert, 5,000 veterans from the Italian front landed on the banks of the Saros River in Kilikia at dawn, rapidly organizing and marching on nearby Tarsos with great speed. The understrength and undisciplined defenders of the city were taken completely off-guard, and they surrendered without a fight. The isolated nature of Cyprus (being surrounded by water and all) had allowed Bardas’ buildup to remain undetected until he struck, and on landing +3 loyalist soldiers reach the Cilician Gates, seizing their fortifications after a brief struggle and cutting Constantine off from one of his major supply bases.
By the time word of this reaches Constantine, he is left in quite the predicament. He and his army had just crossed the worst part of the desert, but their supplies had been settled at the same moment. He couldn’t fall back on the age-old tradition of pillaging the locals, because the themes he was moving through were either allied to him or nominally neutral, and roughing up the themesmen would just push more fighting men into Bardas’ camp. He decided his best option was to fully decouple from his supply train and force march towards the more fertile coastal regions, where he could hopefully resupply and make ready for battle. He struck a course northwards towards the Paphlagonian hills. Of course, Bardas had no intention of letting him resupply, and was countermarching to intercept the rebel force before it could escape the harsh country. Once again, his naval superiority was crucial to rapid troop movement, as he was able to land most of his 35,000 men at Amastris or Pontoherakleia rather than marching all the way through Bithynia. By the end of June, his forces had joined together once again and was hurriedly moving south.
The two armies would meet north-west of the fortress city of Gangra, which was held by forces loyal to Constantine. Rebel forces were tired and in many cases hungry or thirsty because of their forced march, but Bardas’ men were also quite tired. Constantine still held a slight numerical advantage--40,000 to 35,000--and the lion’s share of the soldiers were footmen, with only a few hundred light horsemen in detached units on either side, with heavy noble cavalry mixed in with the infantry formations. Constantine deployed his men in three equal formations of 11,000, holding back 7,000 men as a reserve, while Bardas’ left and center were 10,000 each, the right being overloaded with 12,000. Bardas faced south, Constantine north. The battlefield was intersected by a broad, slow-flowing stream and was surrounded on both sides by steep hills.
At a signal, Constantine advanced, his men slowly moving up the valley. Bardas rode up and down his line, encouraging his men to take heart and stand strong, for the future of the Empire (and their families’ future) rested on the coming battle. Constantine did not, believing that such a thing was beneath him, and ordered his men against the spear hedge of the loyalists from a fairly safe position in the center of the line, a fact noted by soldiers on both sides. While the loyalists stood strong, the superior experience and discipline of Constantine’s troops made itself apparent and they were slowly driven back, leaving a surprisingly thin layer of corpses as they fell back. Had Constantine been a better commander, he might have noticed this, but he did not. Had he been a better commander, he might also have noticed that the contour of the stream was pushing his left against Bardas’ right and center, but he instead focused on how his right and center were pressing against the enemy’s left. The valley was filled with blood, death and screams, made all the worse by the common tongue of the belligerents. Despite this, the rebel forces pressed on, emboldened by the enemy’s seeming cowardice and thinning ranks.
Then Bardas struck. With the sound of a horn, 3,000 of his best men, veterans of the wars in Bulgaria and intimately familiar with the art of the ambush, sprang from cover in the hills west of the valley and charged down the slope. Carried by the weight of gravity, they slammed into the unprepared rebel left like a bolt from on high. Already in the thick of things, many rebel soldiers threw down their arms and ran like hell, and Bardas ordered his men not to pursue but to carry on the fight. Despite the breadth of the stream, the loyalist soldiers surged across and slammed into the exposed enemy center, quickly forcing them onto the defensive on two fronts. Constantine ordered his reserves forward to try and turn the tide, but by then the narrow valley was choked with fleeing men, and the reserves either fled as well or slowed their advance to try and clear the way. Despairing of victory as his center crumbled, Constantine fled the field, sparking a route amongst his men. Loyalist soldiers followed close behind, shouting orders to throw down their arms and surrender or be killed; most did the former.
Losses from Gangra were fairly light, Bardas losing 4,500 men to Constantine’s 5,000, but the impact was enormous. Constantine’s guards turned on him after the battle, and a week later his head was presented to Bardas on a plate. Most of the other rebelling nobility followed the retainer’s example, surrendering to the emperor in exchange for clemency. Of course, they were stripped of their titles and sent on punishment expeditions to Bulgaria and/or Crimea, but Bardas left most of them alive. The thematic armies which were fought for Constantine or Zoe were forced to pledge their undying loyalty to Bardas and the House of Phokas, but otherwise were barely punished and were allowed to return to their homes; Bardas did not wish to alienate the eastern provinces so soon after the end of the civil war.
The largest black spot on this victory for the Phokai was, of course, Zoe. The imperial princess had remained in Antioch during Constantine’s march on the capital, and as soon as word reached her of the defeat at Gangra she pulled another disappearing act and fled from the eastern capital, disappearing for several months only to pop up again in the Fatimid court in Cairo in 1028, much to the chagrin of Bardas and Theodora. Of course, the Fatimids reduced to extradite her, and so Constantinople was left to glare across the Levantine Sea while Bardas mulled over….other options for dealing with her. Of course, this was no immediate threat given the Fatimids preoccupation with events in Syria, and so Bardas was left to sort through the list of new strategoi and kleisourai for the formerly rebel provinces and consider a foreign expedition to improve his standing amongst the people of the empire. Perhaps rectify the greatest missed opportunity of Basil’s reign….