Byzantine Kaiserkritik

Medieval Academy of America

Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine KaiserkritikAuthor(s): Paul MagdalinoReviewed work(s):Source: Speculum, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 326-346Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2848257 .Accessed: 12/11/2011 14:04

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SPECULUM 58,2 (1983)

Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik

By Paul Magdalino

The History of Niketas Choniates, covering the period of Byzantine history from 1118 to 1206, is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of medieval Greek historiography.1 Not the least masterly of its features is its full and nuanced portrait of the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-80). In itself, the appraisal seems neutral, for the author has both good and bad to say about Manuel and his policies. However, in comparison with the other literary sources for Manuel's reign - the histories of John Kinnamos and William of Tyre, and the numerous prose and verse encomia celebrating the emperor's achievements - Choniates is highly critical. Whether this criticism is as accurate or as fair as most modern scholars, seduced perhaps by Choniates' sophistication, seem to have assumed2 must be disputed elsewhere. My present concern is with the general principles on which Choniates' disapproval is based. These principles are apparent in three passages of his work.

Firstly, in Book I of his section on Manuel, in pointing out that Manuel's early generosity did not last, he observes: "when he came to manhood, he ruled more autocratically (archikoteron), treating his subjects not as free men, but as if they were servants who belonged to him by inheritance."3

Later, in Book IV, after describing how two of the emperor's cousins fell foul of him, Choniates launches into a tirade against the envy of rulers in general, who feel themselves threatened if any of their subjects excel:

This paper was written in 1981, during my tenure of a Humboldt-Stipendium as the guest of Professor Dieter Simon at the Institut fur Rechtsgeschichte of the University of Frankfurt am Main. It was submitted for publication before I could take account of the relevant material in Alexander Kazhdan and Giles Constable, People and Power in Byzantium (Washington, D.C., 1982).

1 Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J. L. Van Dieten (Berlin, 1975). Reference will also be made, in parentheses, to the page numbers of the old edition by I. Bekker (Bonn, 1835). For discussion of Choniates as a writer, see Alexander P. Kazhdan, Kniga i pisatelj v Vizantii (Moscow, 1973), ch. 3; and Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 1 (Munich, 1978), pp. 429-41.

2 E.g., Frederic Chalandon, Les Comnene, 2: Jean II Comnene et Manuel I Comnene (1143-1180) (Paris, 1912), pp. 607-8; Helene Ahrweiler, L'idbologie politique de l'empire byzantin (Paris, 1975), pp. 85-86. However, attention has been drawn to what appear to be cases of deliberate misrepresentation: see Kazhdan, Kniga i pisatelj, pp. 104-5; Charles M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180-1204 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 24.

3 Choniates, p. 60 (79).

326

Byzantine Kaiserkritik 327

So they mostly fight against Providence and take arms against the Divinity, pluck- ing out all good men from the crowd and slaughtering [them] like sacrificial victims, so that they may squander away in peace and have the public finances all to themselves as a paternal inheritance to do with as they please, and treat free men as slaves, and behave towards men who are sometimes worthier to rule than they as if they were hired servants. [They do this] being mistaken in their minds, having lost their reason under the influence of power, and misguidedly forgetting what happened the day before yesterday.4

Finally, introducing the section where he describes Manuel's interference in church affairs, Choniates writes:

It is not enough for most emperors of the Romans simply to rule, and wear gold, and treat common property as their own and free men as slaves, but if they do not

appear wise, godlike in looks, heroic in strength, and full of holy wisdom like Solomon, and divinely inspired dogmatists, and more canonical than the canons - in short, unerring experts in all human and divine affairs - they think they have suffered grievous wrong.5

These passages, especially the last two, are remarkable for two reasons.

Firstly, Manuel is presented not as an exception to the imperial rule, but as a

typical emperor. Secondly, this typical emperor is criticized for making it normal policy to exceed his conventional rights, in that he has failed to

respect the liberty of his subjects and the common or public nature of the state's wealth.

For the modern reader, such utterances have "constitutionalist" overtones, which have not escaped scholarly comment. Hans-Georg Beck, most percep- tively, drew attention to the fact that this is "basic criticism . of a series of

attributes, which the imperial oration took for granted."6 Franz Tinnefeld, after comparing the Kaiserkritik of all Byzantine historians and chroniclers from Procopius to Choniates, felt able to state that "Niketas is the first and indeed the only Byzantine historian who applies such basic criticism to the idea of imperial power. With him . . . Kaiserkritik, hitherto applied only on an individual basis, appears to broaden into Systemkritik; it is the voice of the Byzantine ruling class, seeing its power threatened from the imperial eminence. Granted, the imperial monarchy is not explicitly rejected in principle, but there are perceptible tendencies to limit the absolute position of the emperor in favor of the aristocracy."7

These are not wild remarks, and one might have expected them to have had some follow-up in Byzantine studies over the past decade, especially in

4 Ibid., p. 143 (186-87). 5 Ibid., 209 (274). For the significance of "wearing gold," see below, n. 100. 6 Hans-Georg Beck, "Res Publica Romana: Vom Staatsdenken der Byzantiner," Sitzungs-

berichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse (Munich, 1970), Heft 2, p. 1, n. 10.

7 Franz H. Tinnefeld, Kategorien der Kaiserkritik in der byzantinischen Historiographie von Prokop bis Niketas Choniates (Munich, 1971), pp. 161-62.

328 Byzantine Kaiserkritik

view of Beck's attempts to point to the existence of another side to the familiar, absolutist face of the Byzantine ideological coin.8 It seems, however, that Byzantinists have been reluctant to abandon the notion of an unchal- lenged, unwavering Kaiseridee. It is probably not unreasonable to assume that Herbert Hunger's passing comment in his recently published contribution to the updating of Krumbacher's History of Byzantine Literature will find general acceptance; for him, "We should not expect Niketas to question the value of the political system as such; the criticism remains more or less on the surface."9

Both parts of this statement are in themselves correct, but they do not dispose of the problem. It is possible to believe in a system and yet to disagree fundamentally with the way that system is run. Every political critique of the Middle Ages was based on the premise that the system had to be protected or rescued from abuse. That the criticism expressed by Choniates did not culminate in a Byzantine Magna Carta does not mean that it was superficial by Byzantine standards. The less room that a society allows itself in which to develop, the more striking is any complaint against the current development; in Byzantium, the sheer weight of continuity and tradition, the myopia and pessimism of eschatological thought,10 and, above all, the concentration of political, spiritual, commercial, and cultural life in ConstantinopleT1 made the frame of reference and the range of expecta- tions much narrower than in the contemporary West. Certainly, everything seen in the "distorting mirror" of Byzantine literature must be treated with caution, but the solution is not to ignore everything that smacks of commonplace, as if the imitation of ancient models and the use of cliche were proof that an author has nothing to say.12 Topoi might actually serve to underline the importance of what was said, by giving it the stamp of universal truth and finding a place for it in the hierarchy of political, religious, and literary orthodoxy. We are most likely to be deceived by the distorting mirror if we take its apparent banality too much at face value. This banality

8 Hans-Georg Beck, "Senat und Volk von Konstantinopel: Probleme der byzantinischen

Verfassungsgeschichte," Sitzungsberichte (as above, n. 6) (1966), Heft 6, repr. in the author's Ideen und Realitdten in Byzanz (London, 1972); "Res Publica Romana"; and Das byzantinische Jahrtausend (Munich, 1978), ch. 2.

9 Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:434. 10 See Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (London, 1980), ch. 11, for introduc-

tion and bibliography. "1 The "tadpole model" of Byzantine society has its limitations: see Ihor Sevcenko, "Constan-

tinople Viewed from the Eastern Provinces in the Middle Byzantine Period," Eucharisterion: Essays Presented to Omeljan Pritsak on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Students, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1979-80), 712-47. However, it remains valid for purposes of comparison with less centralized societies, especially in the period after the Turkish occupation of eastern and central Anatolia.

12 Cyril Mango, Byzantine Literature as a Distorting Mirror (Oxford, 1975); Herbert Hunger, "On the Imitation (MIMHIIS) of Antiquity in Byzantine Literature," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23-24 (1969-70), 15-38, repr. in Byzantinische Grundlagenforschung (London, 1973).

Byzantine Kaiserkritik

does not necessarily reflect the complacency and indifference of men who had their minds made up; in it we may perhaps discern the public face of a culture which embraced many doubts and differences of opinion and was

only too aware of the joys and dangers of intellectual excitement, and which therefore sought, for precisely these reasons, to build itself a perfect cosmos with the aid of logos, synthesizing elements that remained contradictory, and

imposing order, certainty, and security through the repetition of ancient

platitudes.13 In any case, Choniates happens to be one of the least platitudinous of

Byzantine writers.14 Attention has been drawn to his "thoroughly unbyzantine attitude to monasticism,"15 and his readiness to voice certain crusader criticisms of Byzantium;16 one might also mention his laudatory description of Frederick Barbarossa in terms reminiscent of those used by Manuel I's encomiasts.17 The "constitutionalism" of this author's Kaiserkritik therefore deserves further attention. What follows is an attempt to set it in the literary and political background of twelfth-century Constantinople.

Tinnefeld is not quite correct in asserting that Choniates is the only Byzantine historian to have applied such thorough criticism. The complaint that the emperor had treated the public resources as his private property is voiced by another twelfth-century historian, John Zonaras, with regard to Alexios I.18 The relevant passages are worth quoting in full. Firstly, relating how Alexios fulfilled the "contract" which he had made with Nikephoros Melissenos at the time of their simultaneous revolt against Nikephoros III Botaneiates in 1081, Zonaras describes how Melissenos was made Caesar and received Thessalonica as his residence, together with large allowances for him and his relatives:

With the imperial or rather one should say the common and public revenues thus dissipated, the imperial treasury - or the common fund - was reduced. And the ruler, lacking money, cut the annual payments attached to the [court] dignities and confiscated the senators' properties.19

13 See George L. Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric, Analecta Blatadon 17 (Thessaloniki, 1973), pp. 119 ff., 147-58.

14 On Choniates as religious and political "skeptic," see Kazhdan, Kniga i pisatelj, pp. 89-96. 15 Choniates, p. 383 (498-99); Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:440. 16 Choniates, pp. 66-67 (88-89); cf. O. Kresten inJahrbuch der isterreichischen Byzantinistik 20

(1971), 324-25. 17 Choniates, p. 416 (545-46); Kazhdan, Kniga i pisatelj, pp. 99-100. 18 References below are to the edition in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae: vols. 1-2

ed. M. Pinder (Bonn, 1841-44); vol. 3 ed. Th. Buttner-Wobst (Bonn, 1897). For other editions, and commentary, see Karl Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (Munich, 1897), pp. 370 ff.; K. Ziegler, article in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 2nd series, 10A:718-32; and Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:416-18.

19 Zonaras 18.21.12-14, 3:732-33. For confiscations under Alexios, see also P. Gautier, "Le dossier d'un haut fonctionnaire d'Alexis Ier Comnene, Manuel Straboromanos," Revue des etudes

byzantines 23 (1965), 183.

329


Later, in his final assessment of Alexios, Zonaras points out that the em-

peror's easygoing and informal manner did not necessarily make him a good ruler:

In addition to these, the qualities proper to a basileus are care for justice, provision for [the welfare of] his subjects, and the preservation of the old customs of the state. But his concern was rather the alteration of the ancient customs of the polity, and changing them was his most urgent task, and he did not treat the state as common or public property, and he considered himself to be not its steward (oikonomos) but its owner (oikodespotes), and he thought of the palace as his own house, and called it that. And he did not allow the members of the senatorial council the honor that was due, nor did he provide for them appropriately, but rather he made it his business to humble them. Nor did he observe the virtue of justice in all things, for the essence of this is distributing to each man according to his worth. But he gave away public money in cartloads to his relatives and certain of his servants, and allotted them fat pensions so that they were able to surround themselves with great wealth and appoint servant staffs more appropriate to kings than to private individuals, and to acquire dwellings, resembling cities in mag- nitude, and in magnificence in no way dissimilar to palaces. To the rest of the wellborn he did not show similar favor.20

Zonaras, even more clearly than Choniates, bases his criticism on an

explicit differentiation between the imperial and the common good. The differentiation is applied not only to Alexios, against whom Zonaras may have had a personal grudge, and to Constantine IX Monomachos,21 the universal scapegoat for the eleventh-century crisis, but also to respectable emperors of the past. Basil II is portrayed as a tyrant who had no respect for the unwritten law of the land.22 The philanthropy of Romanos I could not atone for his sins, because the goods with which the emperor made free

belonged not to him but to the public.23 The author even inclines to the view that Constantine the Great was not to be praised for his magnificence (megaloprepeia), because he must have imposed burdensome taxes in order to

pay for it.24 Most eloquent of all is the passage where Zonaras describes the encaenia of Constantinople on 11 May 330 and comments on the prophecy made at the time by the astrologer Valens that the city would last 696 years:

These have long since run by;25 so one must either suppose that Valens's prophecy was false and his art faulty, or else one must think that he meant those years in

20 Zonaras 18.29.19-25, 3:766-67. 21 Ibid. 17.27.16 ff., 3:646-47 (see below, Appendix). 22 Ibid. 17.8.20-22, 3:561 (see below, Appendix). 23 Ibid. 16.20.2-6, 3:478-79. John Skylitzes expresses similar sentiments with regard to

Michael IV: Synopsis historiarum, ed. J. Thurn (Berlin, 1973), p. 398. 24 Zonaras 13.4.29, 3:25. 25 I.e., in 1026; however, Zonaras does not seem to attach specific importance to this date.


which the customs of the polity were kept up, and the protocol (katastasis)26 and the senate were honored, and the citizens flourished, and there was a "lawful domin- ion"27 and not, in contrast, a tyranny, with the rulers considering the common

property their own and using it for their own enjoyment (and this not always of the

right kind), and granting public revenues to whomsoever they please, and behav-

ing to their subjects not like shepherds, merely shearing off excess wool and

sparingly drinking their milk, but, after the manner of thieves, slaughtering the

sheep and devouring their flesh, or even sucking the marrow from their bones.28

To a greater or lesser extent, Zonaras must have been influenced by his sources. His critical portrait of Justinian seems to owe something to Pro-

copius,29 and his laudatory account of Basil I no doubt derives from the Vita Basilii - a text in which the emperor is praised for having tried to pay for his conspicuous consumption out of domain revenues, rather than from the

proceeds of taxation.30 As we shall see, Zonaras's attitudes are present in works of the early Byzantine period.31 As a historian, he had much in common with his immediate precursors of the late eleventh century, Michael

Psellos, Michael Attaleiates, and John Skylitzes,32 whose works he used and with whom he shared the interests and outlook of an increasingly self- confident professional bourgeoisie.33 His Kaiserkritik, like theirs, was no doubt largely determined by the need to explain the recent decline of the state in terms of the sins or errors of one or more emperors. He followed Psellos in deploring Constantine Monomachos' lack of discrimination in the

awarding of money and titles, "the two things which sustain the Roman

26 The reference is to court ceremonial, and in particular to the strict hierarchy of rank to be observed on ceremonial occasions: cf. the treatise of Philotheos the atriklines, ed. Nicolas

Oikonomides, Les listes de preseance byzantines des IXe et Xe siecles (Paris, 1972), pp. 81-83. 27 " Evvopog rcSxtaacia: a characterization of the monarch which is found in the Epanagoge

and later pieces of Byzantine legislation and which probably goes back to pre-Christian times: I. and P. Zepos,Jus Graeco-Romanum, 8 vols. (Athens, 1931; repr. Aalen, 1962) (hereafter cited as

Zepos), 6:57; 1:321, 389, 619. See also St. Basil, PG 29:345. 28 Zonaras 13.3.5-9, 3:14-15; cf. Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d'une capitale: Constantinople et ses

institutions de 330 a 451 (Paris, 1974), p. 32. 29 Zonaras 14.6.1-9, 3:151-52. See Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, 1:373;

and B. Rubin, Das ZeitalterJustinians (Berlin, 1960), 1:230-31. 30 Theophanes Continuatus, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), p. 337. The emperor of Nicaea John

III Vatatzes (1222-54), also a hero of dynastic hagiography, was celebrated for the same virtue:

George Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, 1.14.23, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1835), pp. 38-39, 68-69; see R. Macrides, "Saints and Sainthood in the Early Palaiologan Period," in The Byzantine Saint, ed. S. Hackel (Birmingham, 1981), p. 69.

31 Below, pp. 341 ff. 32 Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:372-92. 33 The connection between economic and intellectual expansion in eleventh-century Byzan-

tium is now generally accepted: R. Browning, "Enlightenment and Repression in Byzantium in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries," Past and Present 69 (1975), 3-23; Paul Lemerle, Cinq etudes sur le XIe siecle byzantin (Paris, 1977), chs. 4 and 5; and Mango, Byzantium, pp. 142, 246.


hegemony."34 As author of a "monastic chronicle,"35 he would probably have agreed with Attaleiates and Skylitzes that the barbarian invasions were divine punishment, partly for the heterodox beliefs of the peoples of eastern Anatolia, and partly for the unchristian lives of the Orthodox believers to the west of them.36 His complaints of tyranny indicate a line of thinking close to that expressed by Attaleiates: how can the "Romans" of the present age expect to repeat the achievements of their forefathers, who, even in pagan times, never went on campaign without first rooting out injustice at home?37 Now,

their leaders and monarchs do the worst and most hateful and lawless things in the name of the public interest. ... I attribute the catastrophic turn of events among the Romans to divine retribution (nemesis) and the decision of incorruptible judgment.38 For it is said that justice is held in high regard among the gentiles, and that they keep their ancestral laws unsullied, and they continually acclaim every piece of good fortune which flies down to them from the Creator: these are qualities which are common to all men and are required by every religion."39

Zonaras' criticisms of Alexios I's financial policy and family patronage closely echo those which a churchman, the titular patriarch of Antioch John Oxeites, had made to Alexios' face, suggesting that these offenses had brought on the Turkish and Pecheneg attacks of 1091-92.40

However, in noting that Zonaras fits into a traditional Byzantine attitude to historical causation, one should not lose sight of the fact that he, like each one of the historians I have mentioned, chooses to emphasize one particular aspect of the problem. This can be seen in passages where he is evidently reproducing the account of Psellos or Skylitzes, and yet interpolates or

34 Michael Psellos, Chronographia 6.29, ed. E. Renauld, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1967), 1:132; cf. Zonaras 17.21.1-2, 3:616-17.

35 Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:418. 36 Michael Attaleiates, Historia, ed. W. Brunet de Presle and I. Bekker (Bonn, 1853), pp.

96-97; Skylitzes Continuatus, ed. E. Tsolakis (Thessalonica, 1968), pp. 140-41. 37 Attaleiates, pp. 193-97; Tinnefeld, Kategorien der Kaiserkritik, p. 138. 38 I.e., the incorruptible judgment of God is contrasted with the all-too-corrupt justice of the

imperial courts. It is interesting to note that the judicial reforms of the Palaiologan emperors Andronikos II and Andronikos III were occasioned by natural disaster and military defeat; see P. Lemerle, "Le Juge-General des Grecs," Memorial Louis Petit (Bucharest, 1948), pp. 294-95, repr. in Le monde de Byzance: Histoire et institutions (London, 1978).

39 The ancient theme of the uncorrupted barbarian also appears in the legislation of Manuel I, and in the works of those authors who sought to explain the second, and final, collapse of

Byzantine Asia Minor in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: Zepos, 1:399, 405; Ihor Sevcenko, "The Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 15 (1961), 167-86; and Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor (Berkeley, 1971), pp. 408-21. See also Kilian Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren im Weltbild

derByzantiner (Munich, 1955), pp. 115 ff. 40 Ed. P. Gautier, "Diatribes de Jean l'Oxite contre Alexis Ier Comnene," Revue des etudes

byzantines 28 (1970), 5-55, especially pp. 26-35, 41.


corrects to make his meaning clear (see Appendix) - this in spite of the fact that his main aim in writing his world history was to relieve the reader of all the extraneous material with which previous writers had filled their pages.41 In expressing a common concern, Zonaras takes a stand on the "constitutional" issue and does not let it become clouded by other criteria, which would also have been relevant, and in which he undoubtedly believed:

Orthodoxy, Christian morality, the virtues of the ideal ruler, or the inten- tions, competence, and achievements of individual emperors. There is an essential difference in emphasis between his concept of limited monarchy, which stressed the emperor's responsibility to earthly institutions, and that

expressed by his near contemporary Kekaumenos, which begins with the

premise that "the emperor is not subject to the law, but is law," and con- cludes that "the emperor, being a man, is subject to the laws of piety."42

Why did Zonaras go further than his predecessors in criticizing the "tyranny" of the age in which he lived? He may simply have said what they could not afford to say in so many words: writing as a monk, in exile, he no

longer depended on imperial favor.43 But it is also possible that the essential difference lies in the fact that he, like Choniates, wrote with experience of the Comnenian renovatio imperii.

The Comnenian period provides one further piece of evidence for the existence of antiabsolutist sentiments similar to those expressed by Choniates. It occurs in John Kinnamos' account of the fall of Theodore

Styppeiotes (1158-59).44 Styppeiotes was epi tou kanikleiou and "grand vizier" (mesazon) under Manuel I, and stood high in the emperor's favor until he was accused of having organized a conspiracy. According to Kinnamos, he had proclaimed like an oracle that Manuel's life would soon come to an end, and it would then be necessary for the senate to give power not to a young man, but to a venerable elderly figure, "that the affairs of the polity might be administered by him, ruling by the word (logos) as if in a democracy."45 We

41 Zonaras, Prooimion 1.1, 1:4-7. 42 Kekaumenos, NouO0zTIKOv ciS pa3cnta 1, ed. B. Wassiliewsky and V. Jernstedt (St.

Petersburg, 1896; repr. Amsterdam, 1965), p. 93; ed. G. G. Litavrin (Moscow, 1972), p. 274. 43 These facts emerge from his remarks in the preface and at the end of Book IX (1:3-4;

2:297-98). On the dangers of criticizing the reigning emperor, see John Mauropous, Poem 96, ed. P. de Lagarde, Abhandlungen der historisch-philologischen Classe der Koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen (G6ttingen, 1882; repr. Amsterdam, 1979), p. 50, and G. Weiss, "Forschungen zu den noch nicht edierten Schriften des Michael Psellos," Byzan- tina 4 (1972), 39-40 (discusses an unpublished and anonymous text in Cod. Paris. Suppl. 1188).

44Epitome 4.19, ed. A. Meineke (Bonn, 1836), pp. 184-85, trans. Charles M. Brand, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus (New York, 1976). See also the detailed analysis of the episode by 0. Kresten, "Zum Sturz des Theodoros Styppeiotes," Jahrbuch der isterreichischen Byzantinistik 27 (1978), 49-103.

45 67oc £KEIVOU T 1O Xo6y ap%ovTOg (jbg V 6r1ToKpaTia1 T1 1T;g 1oktTliac; jakXov 6toIKOtTo.

Kresten, "Zum Sturz," p. 57, n. 32, points out the inaccuracy of Brand's translation of this sentence, but himself offers no explanation of what is meant by tz Xo6yp. It may mean that the

333


should, of course, be cautious in accepting this information, since Choniates gives quite a different account of Styppeiotes' downfall: according to him, Styppeiotes fell victim to the intrigues of a jealous colleague.46 It is possible that what Kinnamos reports is a charge trumped up in order to bring the minister down. But even if the charge were completely false, it is likely that the accusers would have tried to make it sound realistic, by alleging treason- able sentiments which had some basis in current discontent. Kinnamos men- tions elsewhere that another "conspirator" of Manuel's reign, Alexios Axouch, was accused of having claimed that the emperor wanted to destroy the Greek troops in the army; this is credible in view of other evidence that Manuel had a low opinion of his countrymen.47 In Styppeiotes' case, too, one part of the accusation rings true, for there is some indication that Manuel's youth was held against him.48 This suggests that the other elements of the alleged prophecy corresponded to contemporary criticism of Manuel, and that there was potential support for a plot with aims such as Kinnamos describes: the election of an older (and therefore less bellicose?) emperor, and the establishment of a more broadly based government, in which men of learning would be given a prominent role.

It is unlikely that a real democracy in either the ancient or the modern sense was envisaged: Kinnamos may simply have chosen his words in order to discredit the proposal, for demokratia in the Middle Byzantine period acquired the meaning of "turmoil" or "revolt."49 However, educated Byzan- tines may not have been unreceptive to the ancient idea that the democratic element was a necessary component of the ideal constitution, the "mixed polity," which would combine the rule of one, the rule of the best, and the rule of the many.50 Kinnamos' contemporary Eustathios of Thessalonica

emperor in question was to be bound by the written law; more likely, however, is that logos refers to the consensus of learned opinion, and the cultivation of the arts of peace as opposed to those of war: cf. J. Lefort, "Rhetorique et politique: Trois discours de Jean Mauropous en 1047," Travaux et memoires 6 (1976), 290-92, 299-303.

46 Choniates, pp. 110-13 (145-48); however, in the light of Kresten's study, Kinnamos appears to be the more reliable authority.

47 Kinnamos 6.6, p. 268. Cf. Choniates, pp. 204-5 (267-68); William of Tyre 22.10, Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux 1/2:1079-80.

48 Compare Choniates, p. 219 (284-85), and an encomium written shortly after Manuel's accession to the throne in 1143, where the author is at pains to present the emperor's youth as an advantage: ed. P. Gautier, Michel Italikos: Lettres et discours, Archives de l'Orient Chretien 14 (Paris, 1972), pp. 276-77.

49 Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1883), 1:492; Attaleiates, p. 53. Cf. G. Bratianu, "Empire et democratie a Byzance," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 37 (1937), 87-91; Speros Vryonis, Jr., "Byzantine AHMOKPATIA and the Guilds in the Eleventh Century," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963), 289-314, repr. in Byzantium: Its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World (London, 1976), pp. 305-6; Alan Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976), pp. 305-6.

50 See below, n. 101. On the "mixed constitution" in antiquity, see F. W. Walbank, Commentary on Polybius, 1 (Oxford, 1957), pp. 638-41; and Kurt von Fritz, The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity (New York, 1954).

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describes the Christian order as a "Trinity" of monarchy, aristocracy, and

democracy, in which the demos represented the element of free will.51 What is remarkable is that Eustathios goes beyond the literary reminiscences and

mystical interpretations and introduces a concrete contemporary example. The only people, he says, to have preserved anything like this constitution to the present are the Venetians, with their Doge and consuls (sic). One won- ders why he did not, instead, use the analogy of the emperor, senate, and

people of Constantinople. Did he consider this analogy too obvious to be worth drawing? Or did he mean to imply that the Byzantine polity was less well mixed than it could have been?

At all events, the evidence of Zonaras and Kinnamos is unambiguous. It is

important, not only because it shows that there is more to Choniates' remarks than personal whim, but also because it confirms that the sentiments

they express were in circulation before he wrote them, that is, in the disas- trous aftermath of Manuel's reign. One might reasonably have assumed that he allowed his view of Manuel, and later emperors, to be colored by his dissatisfaction at the course of events since 1180, and that he, like the

eleventh-century historians, was seeking to explain disasters in terms of

imperial "tyranny." The assumption may yet be valid. However, Choniates himself gives the impression that the Byzantines criticized Manuel, and with less restraint than he does, during the emperor's lifetime.52 In view of the evidence just considered, it seems fair to conclude that the sentiments he voices are those of the opposition to the Comnenian emperors. This is indicated both by the case of Styppeiotes and by the text of Zonaras, who criticizes John II as well as Alexios I, and wrote in circumstances which

suggest that he had been suspected of involvement in a conspiracy against one of those emperors.53 Kinnamos is no doubt alluding to Zonaras when he writes, in the preface to his History, that he need not deal with Alexios I, because his reign has been well described "by those historians who have not written with enmity towards him."54

Zonaras also gives us clear indications as to the material basis of hostility to the Comnenian regime. In practical terms, he criticizes Alexios for the

emperor's drastic reforms, which, as both legal and literary sources of the

period show, affected all aspects of public life.55 The way for these reforms

51 PG 136:717. Eustathios thus anticipated by more than two centuries a commonplace of Renaissance humanism: see Felix Gilbert, "The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political 1 hought," Florentine Studies, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (London, 1968), pp. 463-500.

52 Choniates, p. 203 (265). 53 Zonaras, Prooimion 1, 1:3; 18.28.16-29.10, 3:761-64. 54 Kinnamos 1.1, p. 5; the expression is incorrectly translated by Brand. 55 N. G. Svoronos, "L'epibole a l'epoque des Comnenes," Travaux et memoires 3 (1968), 375-95;

Armin Hohlweg, Beitrage zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des ostromischen Reiches unter den Komnenen (Munich, 1965); Michael F. Hendy, Coinage and Money in the Byzantine Empire, 1081-1261

(Washington, D.C., 1968), Section 1; N. Oikonomides, "L'evolution de l'organisation administra-

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had been prepared by earlier eleventh-century emperors, especially the Doukai, and they were on the whole justified by the course of political events.56 As far as Zonaras was concerned, however, they were unpre- cedented and arbitrary innovations, whose main effect was to ruin the "senators"57 and to heap public honors and resources upon a select group of

imperial favorites and relatives, who were thus able to live like emperors. In other words, what is criticized as "unconstitutional" is the new system of rewards and honors introduced by Alexios and developed by John and Manuel.58 As Kazhdan has shown, this system restructured the top of the Byzantine social pyramid by dividing the court aristocracy into two fairly distinct, unequal groups - roughly speaking, a princely "noblesse d'epee" and a senatorialbureaucratic "noblesse de robe."59 The first group, which formed the emperor's inner circle, consisted of members of the extended families of Komnenos and Doukas, distinguished by titles of imperial origin which in a sense allowed their bearers a share in the imperial majesty.60 This group monopolized the senior military commands, and although by no means illiterate, glorified hunting and heroism.61 The most fortunate members of the second group occupied judicial and administrative posts, and were decorated either with those honorific titles which had survived from the tenth-century hierarchy or with others which seem to have been revived

tive de l'empire byzantin (1025-1118)," Travaux et memoires 6 (1976), 125-52; Lemerle, Cinq etudes, pp. 293 ff.; C. Morrisson, "La Logarike: Reforme monetaire et reforme fiscale sous Alexis Ier Comnene," Travaux et memoires 7 (1979), 419-64.

56 The revival of Byzantium as a major power in the twelfth century was due largely to the personal leadership of Alexios, John, and Manuel, but it is also arguable that, in the short term at least, the Comnenian system provided for greater internal cohesion, military efficiency, and even economic prosperity: see Hohlweg, Beitrdge, passim; and M. F. Hendy, "Byzantium, 1081-1204: An Economic Reappraisal," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1970), pp. 31-52.

57 Synkletikoi. Lemerle, Cinq etudes, p. 287, writes, "Etre synkletikos, c'est appartenir a la classe

supirieure de la societe, en raison et en fonction de la place occupee dans la hiirarchie des

dignites." However, Zonaras seems not to have counted military officials as members of the senate: Zonaras 18.28.22; cf. Philotheos atriklines, ed. Oikonomides, p. 109; Psellos, Chrono-

graphia 7.1, ed. Renauld, 2:83. 58 Hohlweg, Beitrdge, pp. 34-40; Oikonomides, "L'6volution," pp. 127-28. 59 A. P. Kazhdan, Sotsialnyi sostav gospodsvujeshchego klassa Vizantii XI-XIIvv. (Moscow, 1974);

French summary by I. Sorlin, Travaux et memoires 6 (1976), 367 ff. 60 I.e., the titles of sebastos (first "alienated" by Constantine Monomachos), caesar, and

sebastokrator (invented by Alexios I for his brother Isaac, the title of caesar having already been

promised to Nikephoros Melissenos): see Anna Comnena, Alexiad 3.4.1, ed. B. Leib, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1967), 1:113-14; Oikonomides, "L'ivolution," pp. 127-28.

61 The tastes of the Comnenian elite are reflected in the "epic" of Digenis Akritas, which in its present form appears to have been produced in twelfth-century Constantinople: see N. Oikonomides, "L' 'epopee' de Digenis et la frontiere orientale de Byzance aux Xe et XIe siecles," Travaux et memoires 7 (1979), 375-98; and E. M. Jeffreys, "The Comnenian Background to the Romans d'Antiquite," Byzantion 50 (1980), 484.


from the early Byzantine period.62 The less fortunate were obliged to seek service in magnate households.63 Among the "noblesse de robe" were not only families which had pursued civil careers for generations, but also others whose orientation before 1081 had been entirely military.

There can be no doubt that all three of our critics represented the "second-class" aristocracy. Zonaras had a civil career, as did other bearers of his name in the twelfth century.64 Styppeiotes belonged to a former military family which in terms of status, if not of wealth, had declined under the Comneni.65 Choniates' case is slightly different, since he was a newcomer to Constantinople, and his career there was a social advance for his family.66 He also admired the noble soldier.67 He was nevertheless a professional bureaucrat, and he married into an established civil family, that of Belis- sareiotes. His complaint that Manuel had favored illiterate foreigners at the expense of learned Greeks shows where his sympathies lay.68

Thus the "constitutionalism" of Zonaras, Styppeiotes, and Choniates may be seen as the stand taken by those who felt cheated under the Comnenian dynastic system and consequently criticized the autocratic and innovatory policies of the emperors responsible. Autocracy and innovation were all the more provocative to those whom they failed to benefit in that they were presented as virtues by those who made it their rhetorical duty to cast the emperor in the best possible light. Thus for the imperial encomiasts and biographers of the Komnenoi, "innovation" meant the "renewal" of the empire,69 and the emperor who strove to be omnicompetent was fulfilling

62 Old titles: curopalates, nobellissimus; revived titles: megalodoxotatos and megalepiphanestatos (derived from Late Roman gloriosissimus and illustrissimus, and not to be found in protocol lists of the tenth and eleventh centuries). The nature of the court hierarchy in the twelfth century is well illustrated by the synodal lists of 1157 and 1166: PG 140:148, 152, 177-80, 236-37, 252-53.

63 Kinnamos 6.8, pp. 275-76; see the remarks of A. P. Kazhdan in Revue des etudes sud-est

europeennes 7 (1969), 469-73, and cf. A. Heisenberg, ed., "Der Epitaphios des Nikolaos Mesarites auf seinen Bruder Johannes," Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen-

schaften, philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse (1922), Heft 5, p. 27. 64 Kazhdan, Sotsialnyi sostav, pp. 135, 192, 206. 65 Kresten, "Zum Sturz," pp. 75-76, 81-84. 66 See J. L. Van Dieten, Niketas Choniates: Erliuterungen zu den Briefen und Reden nebst einer

Biographie (Berlin, 1971), pp. 8 ff. 67 Kazhdan, Kniga i pisatelj, p. 98; Sotsialnyi sostav, pp. 42-46. 68 Choniates, p. 205 (267-68). 69 The theme of "renewal" (anakainisis) recurs throughout the panegyrical literature of Man-

uel's reign; Manuel's exploits and policies are hailed as "novel" (kaina), and one encomiast, "Pseudo-Prodromos," constantly addresses Manuel as "renovator" (kainourgos): ed. S. Bernar- dinello, Theodori Prodromi de Manganis (Padua, 1972), no. 3, 11. 87 ff.; no. 5, 11. 98-99; on the author, see W. Horandner, Jahrbuch der isterreichischen Byzantinistik 24 (1975), 95-106. In two still unpublished orations, Eustathios of Thessalonica develops, a propos Manuel, a theoretical

justification of the principle of innovation: El Escorial, MS Gr. Y-II-10, fols. 169r, 368r.

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his duty to imitate Christ and sacrifice himself for his subjects.70 At any rate, one cannot fail to notice how the criticisms voiced by Zonaras and Choniates contradict, consciously or unconsciously, statements made in encomia and in the histories of Anna Comnena and Kinnamos. Anna praises her father for

having been "an excellent manager in peace and war."71 Zonaras claims that he behaved not as the oikonomos of the state but as its owner (oikodespotes). For Anna, Alexios created new titles because he was an epistemonarches, a master of statecraft, the highest of all sciences, who knew how to innovate (kainoto- mein) and invent (epheurein) in the state's interest;72 for Zonaras, on the other hand, this meddling with the established order was what made Alexios

inadequate as an emperor. Kinnamos states that Manuel legislated in order to free those who had bound themselves to serve the rich and powerful for a menial wage, because he wished to rule free Romans, not slaves,73 and

according to Manuel's encomiasts, his costly wars were fought for the "liberty" of his subjects.74 Yet Choniates' most consistent complaint against Manuel is that he treated free men as slaves.75 He ridiculed the emperors of his day for aspiring to superhuman wisdom and heroism - qualities which the rhetors of Manuel's reign had celebrated as the emperor's native characteristics.

It begins to look as if the criticisms of Zonaras and Choniates were in some sense the arguments used in rhetorical debate between the winners and the losers at the Comnenian court. If so, we must certainly beware of taking their arguments more seriously than they were meant, and of supposing that the losers had anything more radical in mind than a reversal of roles, under an emperor who would surround himself with learned men, reward them handsomely, and take their advice - an emperor like Leo VI, without the marital problems, or Constantine IX, without the prodigality.

It is nevertheless significant for our understanding of the political ideology of the Comnenian period to realize that while the imperial establishment found support in the Eusebian doctrine of the Christlike ruler, the opposition looked beyond this basically Hellenistic complex of ideas to more "classical" notions of the "public" nature of the state and the "liberty" of the

70 Theodore Prodromos, ed. W. Horandner, Historische Gedichte (Vienna, 1974), no. 30, p. 359; Eustathios, ed. W. Regel, Fontes rerum Byzantinarum, 1 (St. Petersburg, 1892), pp. 5-6, 33; Euthymios Malakes, ed. K. Bonis, in Theologia 20 (Athens, 1949), 524-58, especially 543-44, 555-56.

71 Alexiad 14.7.9, ed. Leib, 3:177. 72 Ibid. 3.4, 1:114-15. 73 See above, n. 63; also Eustathios of Thessalonica, Funeral Oration for Manuel I, ed. T. L. F.

Tafel, Eustathii opuscula (Frankfurt am Main, 1832; repr. Amsterdam, 1964), p. 200. 74 Michael the Rhetor, ed. Regel, Fontes, 1:181; Euthymios Malakes, ed. Bonis, p. 550;

Pseudo-Prodromos, ed. Bernardinello, no. 6,1. 252. 75 Above, pp. 326-27. Although contrary, the judgments of Kinnamos and Choniates on this

point may perhaps be seen as reflections of a single phenomenon, namely, the growth of feudal patterns of servitude at all levels of society. See Kazhdan, Sotsialnyi sostav, pp. 237 ff.

338


citizen. It is interesting that such notions should have become topoi of Byzan- tine Kaiserkritik in the twelfth century, after five hundred years in which

emperors had been judged according to their orthodoxy, their morality, and their competence, and in which the state had been governed successfully on the assumption that the emperor as "living law" (empsychos nomos)76 had the

right to regulate the existing order (taxis) through dispensation (oikonomia) as he thought the public interest required.77

Why did twelfth-century critics feel justified in making the very different assumption that contemporary emperors had not merely abused their right of oikonomia, but usurped the right of ownership (despoteia) which did not

belong to them? Was this assumption based on any authority other than that of custom and unwritten tradition? Did the distinction between imperial and public interests have any contemporary validity, except insofar as it belonged to the everyday language of public life, and was embedded in the structure of the state, for example, in the formal acclamation of the emperor by senate and people,78 and in the historic division between domanial and fiscal admin- istration?79

On the one hand, there is some indication that the Byzantines were conscious of having "constitutional rights" of a kind. According to Psellos, the judicially minded emperor Constantine X "used to say concerning those who conspired against him that he would not deprive them of their rank and wealth, but would treat them as servants bought for money rather than as free men. 'For I have not taken away their freedom, but it is the laws which have excluded them from the polity.' "80 When Alexios I made over to his brother, Adrian Komnenos, the rights of the fisc in Kassandra (Chalkidike), where the monastery of the Great Lavra owned property, the monks sought a guarantee that they would not be reduced to the status of dependents (paroikoi).81 Pachymeres records of the thirteenth-century emperor John Vatatzes that he reproved his son Theodore for "wearing gold" while hunting, because the imperial insignia represented the blood of his subjects, and should be worn only for the purpose of impressing foreign ambassadors with the people's wealth. "For the wealth of emperors is held to be the wealth of their subjects, for which reason the latter consider that to submit in

76 The concept is of Hellenistic origin: A. Steinwenter, "NOMOE EMTYXOE: Zur Ge- schichte einer politischen Theorie," Anzeiger der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse 83 (Vienna, 1946), 250-68; Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and

Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1966), 1:245-48. 77 On taxis and oikonomia, see Ahrweiler, L'idBologie politique, pp. 141 ff. 78 Beck, "Senat und Volk," pp. 29-36. 79 Oikonomides, "L'evolution de l'organisation administrative," pp. 140-41. 80 Psellos, Chronographia, ed. Renauld, 2:151. 81 Actes de Lavra, ed. P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, and N. Svoronos, 1 (Paris, 1970), no. 46, p. 250;

F. Dolger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ostromischen Reiches von 565-1453, 2 (Munich, 1925), no. 1118.

339


servitude to others is greatly to be abjured."82 There is in all these cases the implication that "liberty" was to be valued for its own sake, and lay not merely in the fact of legal emancipation, or in the possession of wealth and status, but also in the emperor's recognition of a distinction between that which was due to the state and that which was due to himself or his

representative. The criticisms of Zonaras and Choniates would thus seem to have been based on a traditional conception of the conditional nature of

imperial power. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how this conception could have had

any basis in the written legal tradition. Zonaras, himself a jurist, indeed makes clear that it is disregard of custom to which he objects.83 The Corpus iuris is hardly a blueprint for a constitutional monarchy,84 except to the extent that it documents the historical evolution of Roman legislation, which becomes less and less clear in the successive abridgments and manuals of the Byzantine tradition.85 Byzantine legal commentators of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were more or less aware of the historical origin of fiscal land as ager publicus, and the administrative division between this and the emperor's private domain became of legal significance when parts of either were alienated, but the emperor and the fisc were not distinguished as legal persons.86 Only paragons of imperial virtue seem to have recognized the principle that the ruler should "live off his own."87 Leo VI, who has been described as an "enlightened despot," expressed ideas about the relationship of law to custom and common consent with which Zonaras must have agreed;88 he also stated, "It is permitted to those who have received the oikonomia of worldly affairs from God to administer above the level of the law which governs subjects."89

82 Pachymeres, De Michaele 1.23, ed. Bekker, pp. 68-69. 83 Above, nn. 20, 22, 25. 84 It contains statements to this effect: Digest 1.4.1; Const. Deo auctore §7. See E. Chrysos, "The

Title Baateix6q in Early Byzantine International Relations," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 32 (1978), 64-67.

85 However, the main lines of it were clear to Michael Attaleiates in the 1070s: see his Ponema, ed. Zepos, 7:415-16.

86 Peira 36.2.12, ed. Zepos, 4:142-43, 145; Constantine (H)Armenopoulos, Hexabiblos 1.2.38 schol., ed. G. E. Heimbach (Leipzig, 1851; repr. Aalen, 1969), pp. 44-45: excerpt from the

twelfth-century Ecloga basilicorum (ad Basilica 2.2.15), itself partly derived from Theophilos Antecessor 2.1.40, ed. Zepos, 3:65. I am grateful to Dr. Ludwig Burgmann, who is editing the

Ecloga basilicorum, for these last two references. 87 I.e., Basil I and John III: see above, n. 30. 88 G. Michaelides-Nouaros, "Les idees philosophiques de Leon le Sage sur les limites du

pouvoir legislatif et son attitude envers les coutumes," 'E7tirltlovtK1i 'ElceTllpiS; Tr EXokf; NOItKCOV K1ai OiKOVOIttKOV 'Ec1tiaTncov TO I navlcvarlCxtiou OeaooaoviKrS; (Mvrq6aovvov T. Btiou)Kidou) (Thessalonica, 1960-63), pp. 25-54. The Novels of Leo are edited by P. Noailles and A. Dain, Les Novelles de Leon le Sage: Texte et traduction (Paris, 1944).

89 Novel 109.

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The Byzantine jurist who comes closest to expressing a theory of limited

monarchy is Demetrios Chomatenos, chartophylax and archbishop of Ochrid

(1215-36). In one of his IIovjCtlaa 6td(popa, a reply to an enquiry from the western Greek ruler Theodore Komnenos Doukas, he justifies judicial execution if the ruler orders it for the common good (koinophelos):

For the emperor is the equivalent of God, wielding earthly authority, and just as when God punishes, he punishes for the common good, and not for his private advantage (idiophelos), and in no way transgresses the laws of the gospel of peace which he has established, so the emperor, if he punishes, inasmuch as he is

emperor, punishes for the common good and, so to speak, in imitation of God (theomimetos). 9 But if he avenges himself as a private individual, that is, if he

punishes to indulge his own passion, it is not for the public, and in this he is

breaking the law, as has been said. The same is to be considered in respect of wealth, for the emperor does not have this for his own convenience, but for that of his subjects, and in general every person who is appointed to rule is obliged to

possess wealth not for himself but for those whom he rules, that it may thence flow forth to them or for them as the occasion arises.91

These remarks do show a clear conception of the distinction between the

public and private capacities of the emperor. Yet the distinction is left to the ruler's conscience; the arguments used are those of the "mirror of

princes,"92 and the "laws" which apply are Kekaumenos' "laws of piety."93 Elsewhere, Chomatenos reveals that Byzantine jurists, himself included, found it necessary to qualify the maxim that the emperor was not bound by the laws; however, the interpretation he cites in no way affects the emperor's authority outside matters of judicial procedure.94

If the imperial critics of the twelfth century required written authority, they are more likely to have found it in the traditional Greek philosophical and literary distinction between kingship (basileia) and tyranny, and especially in certain works which had applied these terms to the Christian Roman

Empire: Synesios' De regno,95 and the writings of sixth-century authors who

90 On the emperor as "imitator of God," see Herbert Hunger, Prooimion: Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen der Urkunden (Vienna, 1964), pp. 58-63.

91 No. 110, ed. J. B. Pitra, Analecta sacra et classica spicilegio Solesmensi, 6 (Paris, 1891; repr. 1967), cols. 473-78. A new edition is in preparation by Gunther Prinzing. Chomatenos' works are the subject of an unpublished Ph.D. thesis by Andrew G. Jameson (Harvard, 1957).

92 See P. Hadot, article "Furstenspiegel," in Reallexicon fur Antike und Christentum, 8 (Stuttgart, 1972), cols. 555-631.

93 Above, p. 333, n. 42. cf. Nicholas Kataskepenos, ed. E. Sargologos, La vie de Saint Cyrille le Phileote moine byzantin, Subsidia Hagiographica 39 (Brussels, 1964), p. 229.

94 Chomatenos, ed. Pitra, col. 458. 95 Synesios, nIIpi PaoatXiaq 6, 16-17, ed. N. Terzaghi, Synesii Cyrenensis opuscula (Rome, 1944),

pp. 13-15, 31-42 (= PG 66:1061-64, 1077 ff.); French translation and commentary by C. Lacombrade (Paris, 1951). On the background, see Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2:699 ff.; G. Dagron, "L'empire romain d'Orient au IVe siecle et les traditions politiques de l'Hellenisme," Travaux et memoires 3 (1968), 121-46.


had reacted more or less critically to the autocratic theory and practice of Justinian.96 Procopius provided a model for criticism of the tyrannical, innovating emperor who despised his Greek subjects.97 Evagrios Scholastikos had questioned the value of imperial philanthropy which was paid for at public expense.98 John the Lydian had stated that a basileus should be completely bound by the law, and declared that nothing was more hateful to the Romans than despoteia;99 he had also hinted that the monarchical insignia and the land tax introduced by Diocletian were tyrannical innovations.100 An anonymous author had composed a treatise advocating a mixed constitution,101 and John Philoponos had gone so far as to suggest that monarchical government was not of divine origin.102

Zonaras and Choniates and their like-minded contemporaries may well have drawn their opinions from some of these authors. They may also have been affected by their reading of more ancient texts. If an eleventh-century commentator of Aristotle could apply some of the statements of the Politics to his own times,103 it was certainly not impossible for a twelfth-century historian to have based his criticism of contemporary emperors on his

96 On Byzantine political thought of the sixth century in general, see Ernest Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford, 1957), pp. 54-80; Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2:706-23; P. Henry III, "A Mirror for Justinian: The Ekthesis of Agapetus Diaconus," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 8 (1967), 281-313.

97 Procopius, Anecdota, passim, especially 11.1-2, 24.7, and 30.26, ed. J. Haury, rev. G. Wirth, Opera omnia (Leipzig, 1963), 3:70, 147, 184-85. On Procopius as Kaiserkritiker and his possible influence on twelfth-century historians, see Rubin, ZeitalterJustinians, pp. 197-226, 234-44, esp. 240; and Tinnefeld, Kategorien der Kaiserkritik, pp. 17 ff., 180-93. But cf. Averil Cameron, "Early Byzantine Kaiserkritik: Two Case Histories," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 3 (1977), 1-17, for the view that the importance of Procopius has been overrated.

98 Historia ecclesiastica 4.30, ed. J. Bidez and L. Parmentier (London, 1898; repr. Amsterdam, 1964), pp. 178-79.

99 De magistratibus 1.3.6, ed. R. Wuensch (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 9-10, 12; cf. Procopius, Anecdota 30.26, ed. Haury-Wirth, 3:185.

100 De magistratibus 1.4. Synesios had also criticized the "barbarian" splendor with which the emperors of his day surrounded themselves (De regno 15-17, ed. Terzaghi, pp. 31 ff.; PG 66:1077 ff.). One may note that Zonaras was fully aware of the significance of Diocletian's adoption of gold and jewelled insignia (12.31, 2:617), and that "wearing gold" was one of the imperial characteristics of which Choniates disapproved (above, n. 5).

101 Fiepi lCOkvTIKxtc £7ItirLTR, fragments ed. A. Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, 2 (Rome, 1827), pp. 197-246. See Barker, Social and Political Thought, pp. 63 ff.; Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2:706-7; C. Behr, "A New Fragment of Cicero's De republica," American Journal of Philology 95 (1974), 141-49; Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1: 300-305, who accepts the identification of this piece with that described by Photius, Bibliotheca 37, ed. R. Henry, 1 (Paris, 1959), p. 22. On this question see also the important article by Angelos Fotiou, "Dicaearchus and the Mixed Constitution in Sixth-Century Byzantium," Byzan- tion 51 (1981), 533-47.

102 De opificio mundi, ed. W. Reichardt, Scriptores sacri et profani, i (Leipzig, 1909), p. 263; Dvornik, 2:711-12.

103 Scholia of Michael of Ephesos, ed. O. Immisch at the back of his edition of the Politics (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 313, 315, 324; see Barker, Social and Political Thought, pp. 139-41.


knowledge of Roman history. Zonaras may be a case in point. He had read Plutarch and as much of Dio Cassius as he could obtain,104 and he makes Roman history an integral part of his Weltchronik. In the preface he states his intention to describe the evolution of the Roman constitution.105 At the end of Book IX he expresses regret that he did not have the "ancient histories" to hand in order to narrate the history of Rome under the consuls and dictators, "so passing unwillingly over these topics, I shall recount the affairs of the emperors, but giving a few words of introduction, that it may be clear to readers of my history how the Romans were brought to 'autarchy' from

aristocracy and/or democracy."106 That his knowledge of ancient Roman

history may have influenced his attitude to his own society seems not im-

plausible in view of a passage in his work where he summarizes Skylitzes' account of the revolt of Bardas Skleros against Basil II: relating how the

protovestiarios Leo was sent with full power to negotiate with the rebel, he remarks, "in the Latin tongue one would have called the man a dictator."107

Zonaras' attempt to make the essentials of Roman history more accessible to Byzantine readers corresponds to a wider literary revival of interest in

things Roman which can be discerned in other works of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.108 This Roman antiquarianism may have had some-

thing to do with the revival of "academic" legal studies under Constantine IX; it was also not unconnected, at least in its later stages, with the political need to assert the supremacy and pedigree of the New Rome in the face of the expansion of Latin Europe.109 Indeed, the Byzantine interest in Roman antecedents is perhaps best understood when it is seen as having developed

104 On Zonaras's use of Dio Cassius, see Ziegler, Pauly-Wissowa article, cols. 728-29. 105 Zonaras, Prooimion 4, 1:12-14. 106 Ibid. 9.31, 2:297-98. 107 Ibid. 17.5.24, 3:542; cf. Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, p. 320. 108 Ancient Rome was evidently much in vogue at the court of the Doukas emperors, espe-

cially Michael VII (1071-78). See the preface to Attaleiates' Ponema (ed. Zepos, 7:415-16); Psellos' Synopsis legum with its obsolete Latinisms, ed. G. Weiss, Fontes minores, 2 (Frankfurt, 1977), pp. 147-214; and, above all, the summary of a large section of Dio Cassius by John Xiphilinos, a nephew of the patriarch of that name: Cassii Dionis Cocceiani historiarum Romanarum

quae supersunt, ed. U. P. Boissevain, 3 (Berlin, 1891), pp. 479-709. The letters and Chiliads of

John Tzetzes, who seems to have thought of himself as a latter-day Cato the Younger, are full of Roman embellishments drawn mainly from Dio Cassius. Bogus Roman genealogies also became fashionable in this period: Kazhdan, Sotsialnyi sostav, p. 54.

109 Such assertion is evident in the slightly later world chronicle of Constantine Manasses, which echoes the political propaganda of Manuel I: see E. M. Jeffreys, "The Attitudes of Byzantine Chroniclers Towards Ancient History," Byzantion 49 (1979), 199-238, especially 202-7. Jeffreys notes that Manasses virtually skips the whole of Roman Republican history and

suggests by way of explanation that the institutions of the ancient city state must have been "almost incomprehensible when viewed from the centre of the Byzantine world empire in the twelfth century" (p. 207). This view is difficult to reconcile with Zonaras' evident interest in and

understanding of the Roman constitution. Perhaps more to the point is that Manasses was

writing for patrons who belonged to the imperial family (ibid., 202-3; see the opening lines of the chronicle, and 11. 2546-52).

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parallel, and in reaction to, the far more thorough Roman revival which was

taking place in the West.110 Both revivals were motivated, in different ways, by the need to bolster the imperial monarchy. In Italy, however, on this and later occasions, the quest for the imperial past inevitably came up against the fact that the imperial monarchy had originated in a transfer of power from the people and senate.1l Is it impossible that a similar process took place in

twelfth-century Byzantium, mutatis mutandis, and that the imperial renovatio of official literature was accompanied by an unofficial renovatio more or less senatorial in character?

Naturally, any Roman revival in Byzantium was bound to be emasculated

by Greek distrust of Westerners, and by the disappearance of Latin as a learned language in Constantinople. The twelfth century was also the period when Byzantine intellectuals began to call themselves Hellenes.112 Their Rome was the Rome of Polybius, Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and John the Lydian, not that of Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and Cassiodorus; their democratic and aristocratic traditions were those of the Hellenistic megalopolis;113 their revival was the revival of an earlier renovatio a la grecque, that of Justinian and his

age, itself experienced through the filter of the "Macedonian Renaissance." Within these limits, however, they were capable of identifying with Roman

antiquity. As regards their Western contemporaries, they were perhaps bet- ter aware than is usually assumed that they had not only their religion, but also their laws and institutions in common with the "Italians."114 They were also aware that the social organization of the Latins was superior to their own. Eustathios of Thessalonica could see something to be admired in the constitution of Venice.115 Michael Choniates wrote, "Now . .. one may see Celts, Germans, and Italians making speeches in an orderly manner and

holding assemblies with dignity, but [one sees] the Hellenes, whose education

governs them as far as speech and gait are concerned, all but raving and

making their conventions for common deliberation unruly, and for that reason hateful to men of any sense."116 Theodore Balsamon had to admit that Latin monks adhered to the rules of communal living much more

strictly than their Greek counterparts.17 Each one of these remarks by Byzantines of the late twelfth century is not in itself of great significance. Yet taken together, and added to Niketas Choniates' "unbyzantine" comments,

110 Percy E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (Leipzig, 1929), 1:251-301. 111 Ferdinand Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, book 8, chs. 3 ff., and book

11, chs. 3 ff.; Robert L. Benson, "Political Renovatio: Two Models from Roman Antiquity," Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable

(Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 339-86. 112 Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren, pp. 56 ff. 113 Beck, "Senat und Volk," pp. 22-29. 114

George Acropolites, Opera, ed. A. Heisenberg (Leipzig, 1903; rev. ed. Stuttgart, 1978), 2:64.

115 Above, n. 51. 116 Michael Choniates, ed. Sp. P. Lampros, MtXakL 'AKoltvdcoi to o Xovwtdlto) ta acor6gova

(Athens, 1879-80; repr. Groningen, 1968), 1:183. 117 Theodore Balsamon, Commentary on Canon 48 of the Council of Carthage, PG 138:176.

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they constitute evidence for a serious internal intellectual challenge to the East Roman system, or lack of it, on the eve of the Fourth Crusade. Of course, self-deprecation was in order at a time when it may have seemed that God was rewarding the barbarians for their superior virtue; all the more

significant, therefore, that virtue was seen in terms of public organization, and not simply of private morality and judicial incorruptibility.

Moreover, the challenge does not seem to have been purely academic. The events of 1204 led to the emergence, in the exile to Asia Minor, of an imperial system which corresponded much more closely to the ideal of Zonaras and Choniates (as historian) than to that of the twelfth-century encomiasts. The attempt to resurrect the latter ideal after 1261 was arguably one of the factors which compromised the success of the Palaiologan restora- tion.

Beck has posed the question "... whether beside the imperial ideal in

Byzantium, and in latent competition with it, there were not also theoretical considerations, perhaps in the area of political theory, or law, or also of the

economy, which betray some sort of conception of the state tending towards the imperial ideal yet challenging any attempt to legitimize an imperial L'etat c'est moi, such as is not infrequently projected onto Byzantium from the seventeenth century. The question is relevant, because it seems improbable that in a state which made monarchical absolutism the measure of all political business, and yet which was always violating this ideal by constant revolt, there were not also considerations aimed at justifying revolution, i.e., at

constructing a complex of ideas incompatible with the emperor's claim to absolutism."'18 The evidence discussed in this paper perhaps allows us to answer this question positively. If the "alternative" ideology found expression in literary rather than legal texts, this is no argument against taking it

seriously, for the Justinianic conception of the political order could hardly be challenged from within the Justinianic legal tradition. In any case, written law was only one aspect of authority in Byzantium. Without rhetoric it was a dead letter119 - and the "double-tongued rhetor"120 could always argue the other side of the case. As a holy man of Alexios I's acquaintance remarked, books were for saying all the things that an emperor's friends dared not say to his face.121

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

18 Beck, "Res Publica Romana," p. 12. 119 Psellos, Encomium to John, Metropolitan of Euchaita, ed. K. Sathas, MeaalcovtKl Btlpto0nlKrl 5

(Venice-Paris, 1876; repr. Hildesheim, 1972), p. 149; cf. the Novel of Constantine IX, composed by John Mauropous, establishing the law school at the Mangana (104), ed. Lagarde, no. 187, p. 200; ed. Zepos, 1:625. See Barker, Social and Political Thought, p. 133; Dieter Simon, Rechtsfindung am byzantinischen Reichsgericht (Frankfurt am Main, 1973), passim; Lemerle. Cinq etudes, p. 210.

120 The expression is John Tzetzes': Chiliads 7, 1. 299, ed. P. A. M. Leone (Naples, 1968), p. 267 (Otlopog &a9poTepoyc6aaouv).

121 Nicholas Kataskepenos, Life of Saint Cyril Phileotes 26.2, ed. Sargologos, p. 119; d&irp oi

(piXot gong paottaiXeOv o6 OappoiOat tapaltvev, taiOa £v TOg 3it3Xioit y¥ypatixal.

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APPENDIX

Examples of John Zonaras' Use of Sources

1. BASIL II

Psellos, ed. Renauld, 1:18

6 O palotebf; BacTito; re6a TE a'ka Kaara 7okflv U7LEpoViaV TOV TrnlKO6COV 68pa, Kait o £VVK Evoiat; 1adkov i1 (p6potI TflV apZjv avuzD oocpapoTcpav (d; ar06)g; lteTiOeEo o* T05; 6 Tzect TnpoCoTl0Ei Kai eIEpav adtavTcOv CTUVEtirk(p, axpooScyE/

(oCTREp zT6v CoopcOTrpOV ET7zyXaVev (OV. AToz; yoOv ipXE Kcai Tz&v poueugdazov, acT6; G 8tetqi Kai rx oTpaTxC6ea '* T6 0 noLITIKOtv oV tp6s; to;s 7yEpapCggvoUv v6oou;, akkxa p6; tob; & ayp6(pou; Tq; auTo5 E£(puEC£xTaT6xrq £K9ppVa V%uZf.

2. CONSTANTINE IX

Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, p. 476

MovaCoyTfptov 8i oiKoSopogv 6 paoitLe; cKata a Ex 7y6pevca M6yyava ... & cpEt6S; Tr 8qo$7cfLfa KaTavakicKOv v eV Tat oiKoSopati Xprbtara. ...

3. ISAAC I

Psellos, ed. Renauld, 2:119

T6ov dyp 6avo Paotikcov, a6; Iot 7Tod6KK;t

EicprqTat, TO; pacotLtioi; 0rocyaupoo; E£i; Taxd oiKtcias; a&avkLouvTcov i7;1tOucag, Tat; TE SqgoCyiot; CouvEt(cpopatq; oViK Eis oTxpaTlOTIKx0t CrtVTacE1; &0nCozp1c0pvCV, &aL' Eit; TcotitKd; %aptitaq c ai

kaCTcp6xotlTa [and monasteries] .. . .

Pgv dTa T6v &avacKT6powv &nosoKevoDvT Tactela, txda & TK; rqocTioou; aK&:poT0t ptiaovt Tv vKOIV)v oCTveCTcpopv &poppAq ....

Zonaras, ed. Pinder, 3:561

To) p6vpq yap Kai cTa c viK(cat a&Tcavrcv

KaTxeTCtpOei; 7CEpo7tlKco; tCp6; 7cvTavc; 68etiKVDTo ai OVK EoDvoe£v avct), (pofpEtCoat ' Ep0o6Txo T6 xTCqKcoov, Kai T6 TE CTpaTlcOTlKOV C6 TE TCOkITIKOV Ou

xcp6; T6 KpaTfCTav EOo;, 6 Kai v6piov OOK'ev T0ot vogo0ETau;t TETTClaTcTat,1 SteCa6yev 0£EkEV, akkda xp6; Triv oiKEiav KpiCTlv Kai T6 Okrgcta EavTOO.

Zonaras, 3:646-47

Kai TTlV pgoviv Tilv Tc)v Mayyavov oiKo0oo)v ... v. . EVTrqC TOV0i pao-Lreiovq ) KOlVOV 07)ocravpovi ....

Zonaras, 3:667

Tcov £ xp6O acToi pacyticov, 6cot ol xTa TOv n7op(pupoy7vvqTov E KEYVOV Baoietlov Ti;S pacLteciaq ECx;3prlav, ov KcakL6)

XploaCLTavcov Totv; rqiooiot; Kai KotvoIt xpayyaCotv, aLa ta t £15v Ei; oiKtlFia a&okaCh6aet Kai eit adCTK1rTqpiov KaTacTnaIrao6TvTcov oiKo6o~ag; , ra

CopoOut!voV olt ETuxcv i Two; otcycEp ;po6kovTo, oi paotktKoi o0crCaupoi icKKKcVCoVTo Kcai ax 6Ta oqg6oC a tpuvaveta

XPlg6aTOV Tondavtlov....

1 Cf. Basilica 2.1.41.

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Byzantine Kaiserkritik