Part XXXIV: From the Fury
As noted last time, Leo departed Constantinople with his wife, son, the Excubitores, three thousand of the Tagmata, and hundreds of court officials in early 857. His first destination as the city of Thessalonika, where he stayed for a few days before traveling on to Athens, where he played the part of tourist rather than ruler. Gleefully taking part in every delight the city had to offer Leo spent two weeks in the city before taking a ship across the Aegean to Ephesus. For the next six months the Imperial party crisscrossed Anatolia, stopping anywhere the Emperor fancied.
Baths and hot springs were visited with relish, and any city with an active tzykion team were encouraged to let the Emperor watch the teams play. Local officials fell over themselves in these matters, as the Emperor generously funded public works in cities that particularly pleased him. This usually meant new churches and sport fields. These latter were particularly prized, as the resulting complexes also often included new baths, which had begun to be a rarity due to the hardships the Empire had faced since the five hundreds.
As 858 began Leo crossed the Cilician Gates into Syria, and the process repeated across the Eastern themes of the Empire. From Syria Leo went north to Armenia, and his officials officially turned the old kingdoms of Caucuses into the themes of Lazika, Iberia, and Albania. The restrictions placed on them by Andronikos were lifted, and defensive armies were organized.
From there Leo did something no Emperor had done before, he toured the Tigris and Euphrates region. Other Emperors had been this way before of course, most notably Trajan in his short-lived conquest, but Leo now went in peace. In mid-858 he boarded ships at Charax and sailed south, around the Arabian Peninsula. The Emperor briefly stopped at the port of Jeddah, where he was hosted by the king of the Hejaz, and renewed the treaty of friendship between Rome and Medina. The fleet continued north, and it is here sadly that the Empress Maria died. The most commonly reported story is that she ate some bad food while at sea, and died of food poisoning as squadron sailed toward Egypt.
However she died, it was a blow to her husband who, while never particularly faithful, had still loved his wife dearly and took the blow hard. When we examine the rest of his trip its clear that Leo’s heart had gone out of the expedition. After the fleet crossed back into Roman territory and sailed into the Pharos Canal the Emperor arranged for his wife to be buried in Alexandria, and for his own burial site to be there as well.
The Alexandrians tried to put a happy face on the Emperor’s visit, but everyone knew it was for naught. Still, Leo did approve some new construction in Egypt as well, but as I said his heart had gone out of the trip by this point.
The party sailed for Carthage at the beginning of 859, and it was here that Maria’s death really seems to have had an impact. Because while there was some new construction approved, the Emperor refused requests to make repairs and improvements to the African irrigations systems, which had begun to deteriorate over the centuries. This unfortunate decision is one of the biggest criticisms that can be leveled at Leo. Imperial neglect in the coming years under Leo’s successors would exacerbate the process, until it was very nearly too late. When the court in Constantinople did realize just how bad the problem was it would cost an incredible amount of treasure to restore Africa’s irrigation. If Leo had agreed to the project when it was suggested here the cost would have been a fraction of the final effort’s cost, and likely would have resulted in greater results.
For now though, Africa would continue its slow decline as one of the major revenue generators of the Empire. The Emperor continued on into Italy next, meeting with the pope in mid-859. The pontiff’s rights in Campania were once again confirmed by the Emperor, and the two parted amicably. Though, the pope’s attempt to get more funding for construction in Rome to restore the city to its former magnificence were firmly refused. Rome was old news, and while it held huge symbolic value, the real centers of Italy now were the trading cities. Ravenna, Syracuse, Neapolis, and the Venice, greatest of them all.
It would be a long time before Rome was once again one of the preeminent cities on the peninsula.
The Emperor lingered in Italy however, and did authorize the normal public works in major cities, as well as purchasing some land near Syracuse which he seemingly had some intention to build a summer vacation home for himself when life in Constantinople grew too dreary. He would not live to act on those dreams however. The purchase is important though, because it will eventually become the home of the Caesarii branch of the Thalassan family, and they will be quite key to our narrative in four hundred years.
After wintering in Capua the Emperor boarded a ship in Tarentum and crossed the Adriatic to Epirus, where he turned north and toured Dacia and Moesia before winding south again, and arriving in Constantinople near mid-860. He found a city in shock. Six days before the Emperor’s return a host of warriors had sailed out of the Black Sea and attacked the suburbs of the capital, stealing treasure and destroying much of the area. They had eventually been driven off by the Tagmata and Constaninople garrison, but most had gotten away.
These of course were the Notos Varangians, or as we will be calling them, the Rus. We aren’t certain of the origins of the groups we call the Rus, but it is thought that they originated near Sviani, and began excursions out from their homes much like the Danes and the Normans, but going East instead of West. In the early 800s these Varangians conquered the northern Slavic city of Novgorod and formed an early Rus state. Over the coming decades most of the Slavic tribes north of the Khazars were reduced to tributaries of the Rus.
That said, this small group of Varangians were assimilated quickly, and by 850 there was little difference between them and the Slavs they ruled. The developing group were both raiders and traders, and they first turned on their southern neighbor, the Khazars.
By now the Khazars were in their terminal decline, and were unable to hold against ongoing attacks by the Pechenegs, the Magyars, and now the Rus. Over the course of the 840s and 850s the Khazars were completely driven out of the area north of the Black Sea, with the Magyars taking the Western regions, the Pechenegs the East, and the Rus the north. By 855 the Khazars had been driven south of the Tamais and Bolga Rivers.
The new divisions of Khazar territory were not peaceful by any means, and we will deal with the resulting wars between the three replacement groups at a later date. For now however our primary point of concern is the result of all of this in the Roman Empire. Which was significant alarm by Roman officials. Multiple courtiers, including the Domestic of the Scholae pressed for an intervention, hoping to deploy Roman soldiers along the Tamais River to resecure it for the Khazars as a means of protecting Roman trade.
But Leo refused. He had no interest in abandoning his pampered life for a military command in the distant north. That’s what the histories tell us directly anyway. In reality, looking at the Emperor’s largely responsible fiscal policies even as he indulged himself a different idea emerges. Frankly, a campaign north of the Caucuses would have been long, expensive, and hard. Really long, expensive, and hard. Just fighting the Bulgars in Moesia and Dacia had taken decades and cost tens of millions of nomismata. Deploying an army further north would bankrupt the Empire.
In this Leo was correct. He then however reversed this policy by also embargoing trade with the three victorious groups and still favoring the declining Khazars. Now the Pechenegs and Magyars didn’t care, but the Rus certainly did. The Rus were part of the extended trade network that stretched away north, which once had been monopolized by the Khazars. And now the Rus wanted those trade ties left intact. In 860 then they gathered a large armada of boats and thousands of men and sailed south.
This voyage was not easy. At many points along the river it became impassable to the Rus’s boats, and they were forced to haul the ships overland before continuing, fighting off attacks from both the Magyars and the Pechenegs as they went. But they persisted, and in June arrived at the Black Sea. From there the ships moved across the Sea, and attacked Constantinople. The attack was a complete and utter shock. No threat had ever come from beyond the Black Sea, and the city was woefully underprepared. Where they locals could they retreated behind the safety of the Theodosian Walls, but many didn’t make it. The suburbs of the city were looted and burned, with hundreds of captives taken.
The depleted tagmata and Imperial fleet were completely unprepared, and both were defeated in a short battle. Word was sent across the Hellespont to Asian tagmata, which raced to the capital, but was delayed as the beaten Imperial fleet was unable to organize their transfer. After an entire day of delay however the five thousand men from Asia crossed with their horses, and now joined by two thousand Pontic troops who had arrived as well. Joining with the city garrison, and with what coordination existed with the European tagmata, now besieged in their own camp, there was a sally and the Rus were beaten soundly. Taking their plunder with them the Rus got onto their boats and returned from whence they had come, leaving a battered city behind them.
The impact of the 860 raid on Constantinople is hard to grapple with. The last time Constantinople itself had truly been attacked was four hundred years ago, and that had been under the seemingly unstoppable Atilla. Some now wondered what the Emperors had done to so offend God that he would allow pagans to threaten the queen of cities. These rumours would die out however as no significant further raids on the capital would come. The message was clear, and Leo’s son would open trade with the Rus fully.
For now however, the uppity barbarians needed to be taught a lesson. Leo’s court arranged for gold to be sent north to the Pechenegs to attack the Rus, and make the Basileus’s displeasure abundantly clear. The Pechenegs, more than happy to attack the Rus anyway, took the gold and did follow through, enthusiastically.
Leo himself however would not live to see much of this. In 861 his life of hard drinking, gluttony, and other vices caught up to him. He died of heart failure in March.
He was 46 years old, and had been Emperor for 21 years.
Leo was…not a bad Emperor exactly, but its hard to really call him good either. He accomplished little in his life, and doesn’t seem to have aspired to much at all. He is one of the most forgotten Emperor’s in Roman history certainly, People who know the history of the Empire will know he exists certainly, but that is only because there was a Leo VI who followed the great Manuel.
His building projects were often completed under the reign of his son, who gets the credit even though his father initiated them. His spreading of sports is equally lost by many today, who again credit his successors. He was a mediocre man who had the good fortune of living in times that were forgiving of mediocre men. At the very least, he did nothing in his reign that damns him, and that is something considering some of his Imperial brethren.
His reign will however mark the real beginning of Thalassan, and this Roman, decline, which will last until John III grows tired of his cousin’s incompetence and overthrows him, beginning the Thalassan Restoration which will culminate in John’s son, but alas for the Romans of the coming century, for they would never see it.
