Author: Gretchen Brown

British historian, John Julius Norwich’s three part series on Byzantium is probably the most comprehensive work on the subject that I have ever read. It is easily readable, while being scholarly. This particular review is on the second one, following Byzantium: The Early Centuries and preceding the third which is Byzantium,:The Decline and Fall. This one is called Byzantium: The Apogee and covers the period from 800 CE to 1059 CE. His works are thoroughly researched and are given the very necessary addendum of maps and genealogies, in this case, the line of the Armorian Dynasty, Macedonian Dynasty as well as the Rus and Bulgarian rulers as pertains to his timeline.For fans of George R. R. Martin’s fictional fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, there is much recognizable in the fabric and scope of the middle period of Byzantine history. It is not hard to see King’s Landing in Constantinople in Martin’s fictional world, not to mention the parallels with the various people and cultures surrounding the Byzantine Empire and the then known world.

I found it refreshing that he did not treat the Byzantine Empire in isolation, but recognized, very rightly, that her history must be considered in tandem with her neighbors, namely the Bulgarians to the west, the Rus to the North and the Muslims to the east and south.

Norwich dos not shy from recounting stories that are told by various contemporary historians, even the more gruesome ones. He is neither an apologist for the Byzantine emperors, not a detractor, giving all aspects the the history its due. He begins, interestingly, in Bulgaria, the source of so much dissension for the Macedonian Emperors. Khan Krum was likely just as much a thorn in the side of the Eastern Roman Empire as the Khan Samuil centuries later, if not more so. It was said he made a silver-lined drinking cup from the skull of the Nikephoros I, just as a later Pencheneg king did centuries later of the Rus prince Sviatoslav.

Norwich then delves into iconoclasm and the eventual restoration of the images. Perhaps with the same relish he recounted the gruesome death of Nikephoros I, he also goes into the strikingly dysfunctional family of the Macedonian Dynasty, peppered with the doubt of pahternity and betrayal. Michael I rose to the throne, the son-in-law of the ill-fated donor of the cranial drinking cup. Michael’s successor was neither of imperial blood (indeed the Byzantines seemed fond of having the line taken over by common soldiers, gutsy enough to take the reins of state) nor was he even Greek. Indeed, he was not even Macedonian, but was an illiterate, uneducated an Armenian peasant. This man would be come Basil I, by dint of his association with Michael who unwisely elevated the common peasant ( who may have been only a stable groom) to a position of power. To be honest, as Norwich points out, there is far too much speculation, both on Basil’s ethnic origins and his station in life. These stories may have been crafted by his detractors to cast aspersion on the name of what was to become the Macedonian Dynasty. And let’s not even get started on the unusual marriage arrangements or the menage a quatre they engaged in. There was speculation of who was the father of the baby given birth to by Michael’s mistress, the Norse Eudocia Ingerina. Basil was forced to divorce his own wife and marry Eudocia.  However, the lad was intended to remain “imperial property” which begs the question, who was the father of her son Leo? However the marriage arrangements were to work themselves out, Basil was promoted to junior emperor. When Michael began to favor another courtier, Basil arranged his murder. Basil I was now sole emperor.

Norwich weaves us pictures of murder, corruption and betrayal in the manner of a gifted storyteller, giving us every reason to see the origins of the term “Byzantine politics.” He excels at the story of perhaps this era’s greatest and perhaps most surprising emperor, Basil II, the descendant of Basil I or Michael II, we know not which and perhaps it matters very little. He was sadly underestimated by his generals who fomented a rebellion against him, thinking of him no more than a young, untried pup. He was soon to prove them all wrong. Breaking free of first his step father who served as regent to himself and his brother and co-Emperor, Constantine and then of his great-uncle, he eunuch and Imperial Chamberlain, Basil Lakepenos. deciding to prove himself by marching into Bulgaria. It was ill-advised, his general were inexperienced or perhaps even downright treasonous. His siege of Serdica (now Sofia, Bulgaria) was a disaster. Concerned about the possibility of a coup back home, he made his way back across the mountains, only to stumble into a disastrous ambush, now known as the Battle of Trajan’s Gate. It was a turning point in the reign of the young Emperor. His rule brought the Eastern Roman Empire into a golden age, vast powerful and wealthy. It was not to last. Basil left no heirs and his throne passed to his younger brother who had not the ruling capability of Basil. Constantine VIII left only daughters who in turn had no children. The great Empire which for five decades Basil II had forged, began to crumble, a long slow descent that culminated in 1453 with the conquest of the Ottoman Turks. That is a story that Norwich continues in his third book, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.

Readable, broad in scope, yet infinite in detail and information, John Julius Norwich’s work is a must for any serious researcher as well the the armchair historian.

Get it on Amazon here. It’s on sale right now!

 

 

 

 

Glass is something that we take for granted today. We have glass in windows of our homes and cars, bullet proof glass and mirrors, jars sealed with all manner of food items and also many decorative items as well. In the earlier days of glass, almost every item, no matter how utilitarian, was given at least a pleasing form and sometimes could be very elaborate.

While originally glass was a luxury item, it seems that by the middle Byzantine period, it was relatively cheap and plentiful, with even the middle class easily purchasing glass drink ware and the commonly used shallow oil lamp with a free-floating wick was just as likely to made of glass as clay. In fact, it was so much more efficient for this purpose, they may have eventually phased out clay lamps, The sand along the coast of the Mediterranean was a good source for early glass making and sites both in Constantinople and Emesa (modern Homs, Syria) have been established.

Vases have been recovered from archaeological sites in areas the Empire encompassed. There has been such a plethora of glass from these periods found, that archaeologists have had to revise their earlier assessment that glass was only for the wealthy. The wealthy, however, could probably afford much more of the highly adorned, decorative objects such as vases and goblets, though perhaps even the lower classes might find in their possession an object with threads of different colored glass wound around it and pressed into the surface such as Sigga Úlfsdóttir remembers from her childhood in my still in progress novel, The Bone Goddess

Her fingers now thoroughly numb, she headed back with her meager collection. The faint twinkle of flame served as a beacon to her, as she made her way back to the village, rising up, it seemed, straight from the snow-covered marsh. Every reed was etched in sharp relief by frost, as if it had been made of pure spun glass. It reminded her of a small glass vase her father had brought home when she was very young. It had come from the markets of Constantinople. The vase itself was milky, but it was threaded with strands of blue crystalline glass, blown delicately around its neck and base, like a spiders web. The vase was gone now, she didn’t know where, no doubt shattered into a multitude of fragments. Its memory was reminiscent of a happier time.

Glass was frequently used for windows not only in churches, but also well-off homes and public buildings. It was rolled in sheets for this purpose. It was also cut into pieces known as tesserae and used for mosaics and icons. Sometimes bracelets were made of glass decorated with the silver-staining method that the Byzantines adopted from the Arabs. For color, minerals were to the flux, the silica and sand that was heated in hot iron furnaces. This was especially useful for making glass beads of many different colors.

The Byzantines also recycled their glass! During a period when material for glass became more difficult to find, glass makers relied on cullet or scrap glass to be melted down and used again. An eleventh-century ship was found sunk off the Lycian coast and its main cargo was cullet.

Byzantines glass was used throughout the empire and frequently exported all over the known world. Now please recycle that salsa jar!

 

 

In my last article I talked about indoor games such as shantranj, a precursor to modern chess. While the Byzantines were famous for court intrigue and naturally such a game would have immediate appeal, they also enjoyed more physical games. They too had their place, continuing the legacy of the Western Roman Empire. The gladiatorial games had long since ceased when the Eastern Roman Empire turned to Christianity. The races however, did not die so easily. In the early centuries there were originally four factions backed by various political entities – the Blues, Greens, Whites and Reds, that eventually were condensed down to the Blues and Greens. In any case, the races in the Hippodrome at the beginning of the Empire were very much a political function as much or more so than true entertainment. By the medieval period, much of the political function of the factions had disappeared, yet the races at the Hippodrome in Constantinople were still a venue for the workings of political and religious rivalries within the city. Constantinople was far from the only city to host such a monstrosity, though it is surely the more famous. The Circus of Antioch was a fairly well known one. The famous chariot race in Ben Hur was supposed to have taken place here. We can assume it remained in use to at least the Muslim conquest of Antioch in the seventh century. It is a prominent feature of the Antiochene archaeology and seems a safe guess that its use resumed after the Byzantine reconquest in 969 CE.

The horses race around the track counterclockwise a length of perhaps two to three miles. Such events were used to entertain visiting dignitaries. In The Plague Casket I created a fictional visit to Antioch by the historic Kartovelian prince and Kouropalates, Davit of Tao who came from what is now the republic of Georgia.

Sophia was escorted through passages reserved for the Doux and his family beneath the Murus Tiberii from the paláti to the Doux’s kathisma, a spectator’s box with the best view, overlooking the oval Circus of Antioch. From here, she received a view of Antioch she often did not get to see. Antioch rose around the hippodrome like a decaying, crumbling giant. It had been reduced to dust and rubble by earthquakes and war, only to rise again, indefatigable and unflagging.

The kathisma is a term that carried over to the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religious terminology to indicate a division of the Psalter. It translates to “seat”, but in the case of the Byzantine racing tracks, it literally was a seat, or a spectator box reserved for the aristocracy, whether that was the Emperor and his family or the ruling governor of Doux of a city. It was a place to entertain state visitors in the manner to which they were accustomed and sometimes very lavish proceedings took place here. Between events, spectators could view acrobats, wild animals, dancers and musicians, as Sophia witnesses in The Plague Casket:

She turned her attention back to the acrobats to hide her anger. They twirled and leaped. The female acrobat, lithe and slim and clad only in a scanty chiton leaped on the back of her male companion, wrapping her bare legs around his middle as he balanced on a small block of wood and juggled some leather balls filled with barley. She climbed up his back and soon was standing on his shoulders. Another acrobat produced a wooden hoop as tall as he was and began to spin it rapidly. Leaping to the floor, the girl stepped through the hoop and then, grasping the top with both hands and curling her bare toes over the bottom, began to spin with it. She was poor, no doubt earning only a few copper coins for her performances, perhaps earning more by spreading her legs in the streets. But she had a wide smile on her face and her skin, dusted with mica, shone in the light from the low winter sun. She radiated life and Sophia could not take her eyes off her. For a moment she forgot all about the Kuropalates, about Constantine and the far off windy Caucus mountains. There was only the graceful movements as the girl acrobat moved like water in and out of the hoop. The tune the musicians played on the reedy syrinx was not one familiar to her, but it seemed ethereal, like the dance of the girl herself.

The Hippodrome was also used as a place to punish prisoners and humiliate political rivals, a carryover from Pagan Rome as was the Circus of Antioch and any other major city in the bounds of the Empire.

Andros Kouranos was seated on the donkey, facing the animal’s tail his hands bound before him. His head and beard had been shaved, so she scarcely recognized him. There was something buzzing with flies on his head and it took Sophia a moment to realize that his head was crowned in mockery with coiled animal entrails. The crowd jeered and threw rubbish and excrement. He bowed his head against their missiles. His clothes were coated with filth.

By the twelfth century, races were primarily held at religious occasions such as Easter. The race called chryson hippodromion took place the week after Easter. The races came under heavy criticism from the Church, yet continued to be hugely popular with the public as they had been for centuries. To further infuriate the leaders of the Church, often warring teams would inflicted curses upon one another with lead curse tablets. The charioteers were credited with sorcery and and condemned for the popularity of various athletes with the public who could be unruly in their support of their favored charioteer, fights sometimes breaking out in the stands. The spectators would often indulge in riotous and even lewd and drunken behavior, However, efforts to shut down the races were met with resistance. They were ingrained as it were, in the soul of the people It seems that not much changes with time.

A more genteel sport that to this day continues to be a sport of the elite was tzykanion, a form of polo played by the Byzantine emperors and their nobles. It was played in a stadium called the Tzykanisterion. The sport came to the Byzantines from Sassanid Persia. Anna Komene, Byzantine, princess and historian, daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos mentions an injury due to this sport, in her history, The Alexiad:

One day for the sake of exercise, he [her father, the Emperor] was playing polo with Tatcius, of whom I have often spoken. Tatcius was caused to swerve by his horse and fell against the king, whose kneecap was injured by the wight of the impact and the pain extended right down the leg.

It was played by two mounted teams, using a small leather ball, perhaps the size of a modern baseball. They pursued the ball with netted sticks. The exact rules of the game have not come down to us, but it can be assumed that it was similar to modern polo. The Emperor had his own private Tzykanisterion where he might entertain nobles and visiting dignitaries. The sport became popular in the twelfth century with mercenaries from western Europe. It can be assumed that it was in this way the game was transported to western Europe. It may have also originiated from Persia where it was known as Chovgan.

It could be argued that sport serves a wider function to society as a whole. Perhaps it no longer has a religious function as it has had in many societies in times past as in the Easter celebrations of the Byzantines races in the Hippodrome or the pagan functions of the gladiatorial games of the western Roman Empire. Yet also, the Roman emperors knew that to keep the games going was to keep the empire functioning even when there was not enough bread. Games are, with their rules and systems of play, perhaps a mirror on a smaller scale of how societies work. We work within rules and perhaps games are a way of keeping a handle on those rules. In the end, then as now, most people agree that a good competition is just plain fun.

Let me know your thoughts below!

 

 

There have been several military handbooks written by Byzantine authors, most notably the Strategikon by Emperor Maurice. But Sylogge Tacitorum stands out in my mind, perhaps because it is  a surprisingly easy and even titillating read, divided as it is into short treatises on sundry subjects of interest to any properly educated military man of the time and gives interesting insight on military philosophy. While it is far less well-organized that the Strategikon, it poses some real human interest. It shows the intelligence and organization of the Byzantine army perhaps contrasted more favorably against western Europe of the time.

I will not go into detail surrounding all the literary significance of the piece, nor the so-called Macedonian Renaissance and subsequent literary revival that supposedly spurred on the creation of the Sylogge in the first half of the tenth century, presumably penned by the Emperor Leo VI. The average reader would much rather hear the more scintillating bits from the piece. So here it goes.

The Sylogge is divided into portions with such titles as “How the soldiers are overpowered by the enemy with wine” or “How horses will not neigh.” (That is, how to keep them quiet in times of ambush.) These are interspersed with gems of wisdom concerning the conduct of generals, as it is expected these or the sorts of people who will be reading this in the first place. Generals are advised to be patient and be able to bear hardship as well as the belief that in urgent matters, the general should be the first one to act in person.

A few cunning methods for gaining the upper hand against the enemy have been used since pre-history, including poisoning the water supple, destroying the land (this might include salting the fields to make them unusable for agriculture) and using sea turtle bile to incapacitate the horses.

The  Sylloge Tacticorum gives instruction on how to make enemy equipment spontaneously ignite with the application of a mysterious brew. The recipe called to: “Put equal portions of of native sulphur, rock salt, ashes, cedar-tree, and pyrite stone in a black mortar, when the sun is at its peak. Mix together with black mulberry sap and free-flowing Zakynthian liquid asphalt, each in equal portions. You should grind it until it becomes sooty coloured. Then you should add the smallest amount of quicklime to the asphalt. However, as the sun is at its peak, you ought to pound it with diligence and to protect your face entirely. Then, it should be sealed in a copper vessel, so as for it never to see the rays of the sun. The wagons of the enemy should coated while it is still night. All will be suddenly burned, when the sun shines on them moderately.” (This is not be confused with Greek Fire, though there is a chapter entitled “How the so-called liquid fire may be put out and how it might not burn wood or walls when it is cast upon them”.)

Of course, there is always the age old tactic of poisoning your enemies which seems surprising considering that the Byzantines deemed poison the weapon of women and eunuchs. Nevertheless, instructions were given to poison wine with monkshood, hemlock and boxwood. Then abandon your wine, leaving for your eager opponents to find and  “and drink their fill and thereby endanger themselves.” These instructions were given also that a general may be alert to the danger of their being used upon his own troops by the enemy. One could never be too cautious when drawing water from wells in enemy territory. He cautions his reader that the enemy may endeavor to add plague to bread and send back prisoners of war infected with plague. This was done by placing a toad or viper in a vessel and sealing it till both are dead. Then they are ground up and boiled and the water thereby obtained used to make plague bread. Naturally, those employed to make the bread would also end up dead. It leaves us to wonder if perhaps an elemental step was left out of the procedure and the infusion of viper was meant merely to be the vehicle by which infected buboes were carried into the bread. 

At the same time, the author of the Sylloge Tacticorum admonishes the reader to behave humanely to cities that surrender. This in itself has tactical benefits. The inhabitants of a city, believing themselves to be in danger of brutality once they open their gates, will be all the more inclined to fight with their last breath. A commander’s reputation in warfare, as in everything else, was paramount.

The Sylogge carefully details how ranks of soldiers and cavalry should be arranged, discipline of soldiers, how to build a fort near enemy borders, how to take in traitors and defectors from the other side (while never completely giving them your trust). He advises soldiers to eat many small meals a day rather than twice as was customary so as to avoid fatigue from the sun. Instruction is given to boil water before drinking and to use an infusion of rue and wild marshmallow for digestive health.

The author sprinkles his adages and advice throughout with references to historical military leaders, such as Alexander the Great, Pompey, Dionysius and Themosticles, all names familiar to the Byzantine ear. If it was good enough for Alexander, it was good enough for the reader of the Sylogge!

In short, the Sylogge makes clear that while honorable battle is sought above all, as is fair treatment towards soldiers and humanity towards the enemy and prisoners of war, there is absolutely nothing standing in the way of a Byzantine military leader in the way of cunning and deceit. In fact, the majority of the military manual seems devoted to ways to deceive the enemy, from giving the impression that one has a larger army or horses than in reality to causing suspicion among enemy allies. The rest is divided largely between general tactics and ways to make the camp and military life safer, healthier and more efficient for your soldiers.

The Sylogge Tactitorum is a fascinating read, for the casual historian or one seeking more insight into Byzantine military life.

Adrienne Mayor, the author of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs; Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World, is a classical folklorist who excels at bringing to life to world of ancient toxicology and biological warfare.

As I have noted in my previous post, Tidbits of War -The Sylogge Tacitorum, warfare on the surface was supposed to be honorable, that is engaging in hand-to-hand combat. However, as we shall see from Ms. Mayor’ enticing book on the subject, rarely, if ever, was this employed solely. In fact, then as now, subterfuge, confusion, poisoning and deception were the tactics readily used.

She notes that many of the classical myths have the heroes using poison arrows such as Hercules’ use of the Hydra’s venom which in fact may have been merely been metaphor for commonly used war practices.

Earlier people showed a surprising knowledge of the use of bacteria and poisons. Witness the early English long-bowman who placed his arrows, point first in the ground, knowing full well that the bacteria from the earth thereon, lodged in the flesh of his enemy would reek havoc in the form of a festering infection. Scythian archers went one step further, employing everything from feces to snake venom and toxic plants.  As she describes, the Scythians were far fro the only ones to use these methods. In fact she devotes a significant amount of time to the subject of poisoned projectile devices, which is both illuminating and interesting.  While much of this indicates a an astute knowledge on the part of the ancients regarding how people are affected by bacterium and disease, some of the recipes for military prowess are laughable, if not outright cringe-worthy, such as the Hindu use of ashes of cremated children and bird sperm to allow a soldier to walk hundred of miles without fatigue. Even today, the U.S. Department of Defense has been involved in the research for the reduction of sleep in American soldiers that includes the use of “magical genes in mice ad fruit flies” which is sure to raise a few eyebrows.

If you are not endeavoring to kill your enemy outright with poison arrows, perhaps another tactic is to poison wells, so that even if he attempts to avoid these poisoned waters, at the very least, he will be overcome by dehydration. This is a good tactic to use when retreating into your own land from a larger, more powerful army. Hellebore was used for this in the siege of Kirrha in about 150 CE.  This created such a violent purge, that the men defending Kirrha had to abandon their posts on account of diarrhea.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing points brought up by Ms. Mayor was that of plague caskets. Indeed, I have posited that very idea in my second book of the Varangian Trilogy.  Plague in itself was dreaded by all in the classical and medieval world. Short of merely lobbing the corpses of those who have died of the disease over your enemies castle walls, there were other, more nefarious ways of ensuring that your opponents would spread the disease. Bubonic plague, or Yersinia pestis in itself is not very contagious, yet when it morphs into the more deadly pneumonic plague, which can be spread via droplets in the air, that the trouble really begins. Ms. Mayor posits the theory that there were plague temples, particularly to Apollo (who among other things was a god of plague) where jars or caskets of plague were kept. Plague in this instance, could refer to any sot of pathogen, including smallpox. Smallpox infected blankets were handed out to Native Americans during the British Indian wars of the eighteenth century in the hopes of decimating their tribes. It was largely successful. It was no less a weapon in the Old World. She writes “One can imagine that a garment or some other item contaminated with, say. dried smallpox matter, could have been sealed away from heat, light, and air in a golden casket in the temple of Apollo in Babylon until a time of need. The item could maintain ‘weapons-grade’ virulence for many years.”

Religious places of worship were apparently frequently arsenals. Arabic sources reported that Byzantine churches were used to store naphtha, a major ingredient in the manufacture of Greek Fire.  Ms. Mayor suggests that the Ark of the Covenant, was in fact, a plague casket, sent to bring down the Philistines.  In Babylon, in the temple of Apollo, Roman soldiers burst in and loot, including the plague casket, which perhaps to them looked like an inviting bit of treasure. Soldiers are a perfect vehicle for spreading the plague, given that they march many miles in a day and camp life is ridden with a lack of hygiene and crowded conditions. Spreading contagion, even among your enemy, is always a risky business however, as your own troops and non-combatants may be infected.

The book goes on to describe “poison-maidens” lovely women whose very touch could bring death and poisoned honey, made so because the bees gathered their nectar from the poisonous rhododendron blossoms. This toxic honey proved to be the undoing of the Greek general Xenephon and his hoplites.

She examines the legend of Medea and her flaming cloak given to an Innocent and unsuspecting rival. Classical combatants utilized animals in warfare, from mice intended to spread plague to beehives and venomous scorpions launched over castle walls. War dogs and war elephants were used in open combat.  The Vikings were known to attach incendiaries to sparrows so that when the birds returned at night t their nests in the thatch roofs of the enemy homes, the who town would be set alight. Such a tactic was hardly new to them and was known in the classical world, as noted by Mrs. Mayor.

Speaking of fire, my all time favorite, Greek Fire (also known as liquid fire and Medean Fire) gets plenty of stage time in chapter seven.  Incendiary weapons are as old as time. Greek Fire is something special though. Largely a projectile weapon, it was famous for being very hard to put out and in fact water had little effect. Some said that water only served to fuel rather than quench its flames. It was said to have been brought to the Byzantine Empire by a man named Kallinikos and was supposed to have been kept in sacred trust by his descendants, supposedly a family known as Lampros.  It has a striking similarity to that which Medea used  in her conflagration of her rival Glauce. Another example would be modern napalm.

Altogether, Adrienne Mayor highlights the horror (and our fascination with it) of the many nefarious ways that man has contrived to wage war, bringing in modern examples to compare with the ancient ones. It is a highly readable book, well organized and documented.  I recommend it to anyone interested in expanding their understanding of the ancient world.

Have you read this book? Let me know below what you thought about it.

You can purchase this book here: