‘That is no country for old men. The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees

-Those dying generations- at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.’

- William Butler Yeats (‘Sailing To Byzantium’)

(Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, recently)

The author of this tale returned yet again to one of his favourite places in the whole of the world, namely the Hagia Sophia, meaning ‘Holy Wisdom’, in Istanbul, the city known until 1930 as Constantinople and previously in antiquity as Byzantium. The Roman Emperor Constantine I, who had been baptised a Christian on his deathbed, had formally dedicated this city as his new capital exactly 1,600 years before its modern renaming by the Turks.

Ten thousand workers amazingly constructed the huge Hagia Sophia in just 5 years 10 months between 532 and 537 during the reign of Justinian I. This great Emperor was to embellish Constantinople with many splendid buildings, partly to glorify his capital and himself and partly as a job creation exercise.

At the time, there was a vast number of unemployed in Constantinople, most of whom were immigrants drawn to try to seek fame and fortune in the Imperial capital. One of the major characters in this story was once just such an adventurous pauper, albeit in a different century.

The magnificent 1½ millennia-old Hagia Sophia was once the most sacred Christian basilica in the Byzantine Empire. However, the superb cathedral became a mosque after the Turkish conquest in 1453 and is now a museum.

The author of this tale could recall in his mind virtually every external and internal feature of the Hagia Sophia in intimate detail. However, he had currently wanted to return specifically to appraise again the magnificent mosaic in the lunette above the central, or ‘Imperial’, doorway of the nine leading from the vestibule into the main body of the building.

The mosaic depicts one of the greatest of the Byzantine Emperors, in an act of prostration before Jesus Christ. He had been so modest during his reign that he had tried to refrain from glorifying himself in art or architecture. Consequently, the general citizenry, who had loved him and, along with posterity, had genuine cause to be grateful to him, had insisted on the portrayal being commissioned to commemorate him after his death.

After again viewing the ancient mosaic, the author of this tale returned to his hotel and laptop computer in order to write a brief history of this great Emperor, which he herewith reproduces.

Chapter β – Holy Voice

‘Hoc vince!’ or in Greek ‘τούτω υίκα!’

(‘By this, conquer!’)

- emblem seen, at least in Constantine I’s mind, above a blazing cross in the sky before his momentous victory in the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, which set him on the way to becoming the then Roman Empire’s sole Emperor, and eventually the first Christian one too

(Church of St. Diomed, near the Golden Gate, western Constantinople, 1,180 years prior to the author’s return visit to the Hagia Sophia, summer 826)

The Abbot of the monastery to which was attached the church of St. Diomed in western Constantinople, close to the Golden Gate, the entrance into the city used for formal state occasions, was sound asleep on a Sunday night. However, the devout cleric was then suddenly awoken by a mysterious voice, which commanded him to go and open the outside door to allow the Byzantine Emperor to be admitted.

The pious Abbot immediately obeyed but, finding just a poor and dirty 14 year-old vagabond boy in rags huddled asleep on the porch floor, he returned to his bed. However, a second eerie summons came, which then produced the same result.

As the Abbot subsequently again attempted to go back to sleep, his ribs suddenly began to hurt, as if he had been punched. The strange voice, more commanding than ever, then ordered “Rise, and bring in the boy who lies before the door. He is the Emperor!”

Not wanting to argue with the apparent voice of God, the Abbot complied. The cleric subsequently discovered that the boy was a young illiterate Armenian peasant, who was to speak Greek all of his life only with a strong foreign accent.

The boy had arrived in Constantinople at dusk on this very Sunday. Like many other people from Armenia, his own family had been resettled by the Byzantines to colonise Thrace [roughly modern Bulgaria].

Unfortunately, also like many other Armenians in their circumstances, the boy and his family had subsequently been taken as prisoners in war by the army of the ferocious Bulgar Khan, Krum. They had later been transferred as subservient servile people beyond the River Danube to an area then called ‘Macedonia’.

This area, which does not equate to the modern regions of the same name, was where the boy, to whom the Abbot did not confess his hearing of voices, had spent most of his early childhood. As many others had done from all over the known world for centuries, he had then left for Constantinople in order to try to earn his fame and fortune.

The boy and his future offspring were, as a consequence of his recent background, later to be incorrectly described as being of Macedonian and not Armenian origin. He was also to succeed beyond his wildest dreams in his aim of earning fame and fortune.

The Abbot arranged for the impoverished and very dishevelled, filthy and hungry boy to be fed, washed and redressed in decent garb by his monks. During this process, the cleric noted that his young guest was, despite his youth and the undoubted privations of his early life and strenuously long journey to Constantinople, very strong and muscular.

The boy, whose name was Boris, additionally fatefully claimed to be very good with horses, and so he proved to be.

Chapter γ – The Mese

‘[Hagia Sophia’s vast dome seems not to be upheld by masonry] but rather to cover space as though it were suspended from the sky by a golden chain.’

- Procopius (Prefect of Constantinople at the time of the construction of the Hagia Sophia in the 6th century)

(Residence of Theophilitzes, Imperial District, Constantinople, a few days later)

The Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the Turkish conquest in 1453, was the direct successor of that of the Romans. However, Greek had quickly replaced Latin as the lingua franca, which is a main reason why the latter is no longer the language of a nation.

Constantine I established a new capital, subsequently renamed after him, for three main reasons. First, Rome was becoming increasingly insecure against the hostile attentions of migrating barbarian tribes from the north of Europe and Asia. Second, the location of Byzantium meant that the city was closer to the richer and therefore more important eastern provinces, as well as to the Empire’s interminable main enemy in the region, the Persians. Third, the metropolis occupied an immensely strong defensive position.

The renamed Constantinople was sited on a triangular promontory jutting out from the western side of the narrow Bosphorus, the strait that, with the adjacent Propontis [modern Sea of Marmara] immediately to the south and the even more southerly Hellespont [modern Dardanelles], separated Europe from Asia. A deepwater inlet to the north of the city, named the Golden Horn because of its shape and the sparklingly colourful effect of sunlight on the water at certain times of the day, also provided a magnificent natural sheltered harbour, offering particularly fine mooring.

Constantinople’s natural defences were boosted by artificial ones. Constantine I’s own walls, which buttressed the city’s vulnerable westerly landward side, were later supplemented by even more formidable fortifications, built on the orders of another of his great successors, Theodosius II.

A massive chain drawn across the harbour mouth was also eventually installed to protect the Golden Horn. Sea defences were additionally to be substantially supported by the invention of ‘Greek fire’, which could be used in battle like a flame-thrower and usually set enemy fleets devastatingly alight. The Byzantines naturally kept the formula of this very successful naphtha-based weapon top-secret, especially as such protection kept Constantinople safe from sack for almost a millennium.

As befitted an Imperial capital of over a million inhabitants, Constantinople was a very cosmopolitan city. Greeks were, of course, now predominant. However, the jumbled quarters occupied by the ordinary people also teemed with foreign immigrants and traders, including Italians, Germans, Bulgars, Russians, Vikings, Anatolians, Syrians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Ethiopians and Nubians.

Constantinople, was, coincidentally like Rome, built on seven hills. This rocky backbone to the promontory caused much of the city to rest on terraces, connected by networks of staircases and steep narrow streets.

Constantinople’s main thoroughfare was called the ‘Mese’, which was about 8 kilometres [5 miles] long and bisected the city. The western end terminated at the Golden Gate, set in Theodosius II’s immense walls, from where a great road, always busy with travellers, merchants and soldiers and called the ‘Via Egnatia’, or ‘Western Way’, led via Thessalonia [modern Thessaloniki, Greece] to the Adriatic.

Western Constantinople was largely inhabited by the poor, whose housing mainly consisted of tall and decrepit tenement blocks, five or so storeys high, crammed full of tenants. Within this plebeian urban slum sprawl, tradesmen tended to group together, forming districts devoted to particular occupations, where the relevant retail and work shops proliferated. For example, there were specific areas for merchants of particular kinds, bakers, butchers, glassmakers, potters, metalworkers, armourers and tailors.

As Constantinople was a major centre of maritime commerce, the most crowded plebeian districts were along and near the extensive waterfronts, which fringed the city on three sides. The various anchorages on the Golden Horn and Propontis were generally a forest of masts, being full of boats of many sizes and nationalities.

As well as the sailors, many local people were employed in other maritime occupations, such as stevedores, porters, boat-builders, carpenters, caulkers and sailmakers. Fishing was also a major industry, as the bounty of the sea formed part of the staple diet of the poor, generally supplementing only bread, fruit and vegetables because decent meat was usually a luxury that only the more prosperous could afford.

Nevertheless, the likes of cows, pigs and sheep frequently streamed along the narrow streets on their way to market and then the butchers’ shops, invariably leaving their steaming and stinking manure behind. Ox-drawn wagons hauling heavy loads were also common, as were asses for personal transport. Horse-riding tended to be the preserve of the rich, who liked to display themselves mounted on splendid steeds, decked with elaborate harnesses and saddles and escorted by liveried servants armed with cudgels to beat a path through the usual pedestrian melee. However, splendidly painted and gilded carriages, pulled by teams of mules, carried the noblest, occasionally crushing a careless passer-by under the wheels.

Columns of manacled prisoners of war would occasionally traverse the busy streets on their way to the slave market. The Byzantine Christian God might preach the equality of all men but the leaders of His Church on Earth were happy to condone such lucrative and convenient social inequity.

The main plebeian streets, from which led many dark and dangerous alleys, abounded with small shabby shops, cheap eating places and inns, which never appeared to shut, as well as public entertainers like acrobats, jugglers, clowns and owners of performing animals, such as monkeys and bears. There were also many theatres of various sizes and respectability, where mime was always liked. Rather hypocritically for a city obsessed by Christianity, as was exemplified by the abundance of magnificent churches and monasteries and the seriousness afforded theological debate, real or simulated sex acts were especially popular in the most disreputable playhouses.

Pimps, or ‘pornoboskoi’, also proliferated. They sought custom for the many brothels, which catered for all tastes and openly traded amidst the other businesses. Meanwhile, speakers would stand at street corners, either interesting or annoying passers-by by pontificating on such licentiousness or other social, political or religious issues.

The busy and crowded westerly part of the Mese was no exception to possessing shabby shops and even less respectable establishments, as the thoroughfare progressed easterly from the Golden Gate through the plebeian Psamathia district and then crossed what now remained of Constantine I’s original city walls. However, as Basil, who had entered Constantinople via the ceremonial entrance, now discovered, whilst being directed by the Abbot along the avenue through the Forum of Emperor Arcadius and the cattle-market, the surrounds gradually became much smarter, simultaneous to the cobbles underfoot giving way to marble.

By now, the Mese had encountered the Forums of the Amastrianum and of Theodosius, which was dominated by a colossal triumphal arch, before reaching that of Constantine I. The latter was overlooked by the Senate building and possessed a magnificent statue of the first Christian Emperor atop a tall porphyry column. This square was the hub of Byzantine commerce.

The Mese and other nearby streets and squares were now interspersed with splendid statues and lined with ornate two-storey arcades accommodating the shops and stalls of retailers of luxury goods for the rich. East of the Forum of Constantine I was the particular sector devoted to prosperous goldsmiths and jewellers. Moneychangers also plied their trade there, seated behind tables piled high with bags of coins.

A 600-pace walk through this last part of the Mese subsequently brought Basil and the escorting Abbot to the Imperial District, which was sited at the easterly tip of the promontory on which Constantinople was built. Here were situated the main, or ‘Sacred’, palace, whose complex of buildings and gardens descended on terraces to the sea, and the adjacent hippodrome, based on Rome’s Circus Maximus and linked to the Emperor’s principal residence by galleries and staircases. The fashionable public baths of Zeuxippos were nearby but dominating the whole setting was the towering dome of Hagia Sophia.

In front of the Hagia Sophia was the Augustaeon, which was a resplendent forum, whose shady colonnades were a favourite meeting place for Byzantine high society. This square was surrounded by many shops retailing books and perfumes, thereby also making the place a heaven for both intellectuals and gossips, plus quieter observers of the comings and goings to the Imperial court.

As well as the Imperial family, and their closest courtiers and vast numbers of servants, housed in the Emperor’s palace, the immediate environs of the Augustaeon were also home to other immensely rich members of the Byzantine elite, who preferred life in the city to that on their vast country estates. The area abounded with their palatial seaside residences too.

Amongst these magnificent residences was that of a wealthy young aristocrat, Theophilitzes, who was a distant relative of the current Byzantine Emperor, or ‘Basileus’, Theophilus, who had been the son of Michael II [*]. The Abbot now secured Basil, who had almost been psychologically overwhelmed by the increasingly splendid scenes as he progressed along the Mese, a job as one of the nobleman’s grooms.

In parting return for all the assistance that the Abbot had kindly provided, the cleric wisely asked nothing more of Basil than “Please consider me henceforward, child, to be your friend and brother!”

Chapter δ – Imperial Eunuchs

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, nearly 16 years later, 20th January 842)

‘Quoniam vestro sancto imperatori spadonibus nil pretiosius esse cognovi, hos studui pauculos sibi verecunde transmittere, plures, Deo propitio, transmissurus!’

(‘Since I know of nothing more valued by your holy Emperor than eunuchs, I have taken pains humbly to send these few to him and, God willing, I will send more!’)

- Theobald, Duke of Spoleto in Italy, explaining in a letter his cruel jest of returning ransomed Byzantine prisoners of war to their general in castrated form

Theophilus died suddenly of dysentery at the age of only 38 on the 20th of January 842. As his heir, Michael III, was then only 2 years of age, the late Emperor’s widow, Theodora, became regent. The dowager Empress’ principal assistant was the ambitious but highly capable ‘Logothete of the Course’, Theoctistus.

Logothetes were Imperial tax-collectors, amongst whom the person appointed to the position ‘of the Course’ was the most senior, being effectively the Chancellor in charge of the Byzantine state’s finances. Theoctistus was also an unusual combination of patrician and eunuch.

Eunuchs were numerous in Byzantine society and were particularly popular with Emperors, as confirmed by Zonaras, the 12th century chronicler, who wrote [III.250] ‘Romaioi peri tous ektomias eptoeemenoi aei [the Byzantines were always passionately excited for castrati]’. According to the rather uncharacteristic words of a Basileus, who will play a significant part in the next story of this occasional series and who actually on the whole greatly liked and appreciated his gelded servants, they “swarmed around the Sacred Palace like flies around a cow-shed in the summer”.

Eunuchs were popular not just as male servants who could be trusted to serve pretty women and children without experiencing sexual temptations and to be more proficiently concentrated on their duties for the same reason. To Emperors, who often faced dangerous rivals for the throne, they manifested another key attitude, namely loyalty, and therefore the most talented or otherwise notable of their number occupied many of the most important administrative and military posts.

Eunuchs occupying important Imperial positions were commonly very loyal because they generally owed their appointments to the patronage of the Emperor, whose demise could therefore also entail their own. They also could usually harbour no familial ambition to establish personal dynasties, although sporadically they might seek to aid a brother or other relative.

As a consequence of the popularity of appointing eunuchs to important and therefore lucrative posts, and despite castration being technically illegal under ancient Roman law, which was still followed and which caused most to be imported, many parents, who produced several sons, arranged for the youngest to be gelded in infancy. As Theoctistus exemplified, such practices extended even to the most exalted patrician families.

Consequently, as this occasional series of tales will testify, eunuchs represented some of the most significant people of the Byzantine era. Many were good and great, whilst others were sadly bad and loathsome. However, this author believes that a number of their stories are sufficiently interesting to be worth retelling, regardless of the personal merit of the individuals concerned.

Chapter ε – Imperial Intrigues

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, over 13 years later, 20th November 855)

‘He who has tasted of the fountain of living water, what else can he desire? What kingdoms? What powers? Perceiving how miserable even in this world is the condition of kings, how mutable the Imperial state, how short the span of this life, what slavery sovereigns themselves endure, seeing that they live not according to their own will but by the will of others.’

- St. Ambrose (‘Epistles’, xxix.18)

By his early 20s, Michael III was to become a seasoned and courageous military campaigner. However, he also lacked interest and commitment in more mundane Imperial affairs, being content instead to enjoy his pleasures whilst others took on the responsibility of actually governing his Empire. He was encouraged in this lazy attitude to duty by his domineering mother, who was keen to retain her rein on power.

Nevertheless, the end of the supremacy of Theodora and Theoctistis came over 13 years after their original ascendancy. A palace coup occurred on the 20th of November 855.

The coup was led, with Michael III’s connivance, by the Empress’ own brother, Bardas, and eunuch High Chamberlain, or ‘Parakoimomenos’, Damianus, who was in charge of the Imperial civil service. The latter’s Greek title literally meant ‘one who sleeps nearby’ because, for protection, Emperors generally never slept alone. A trusted official would usually share their bolted bedchamber, although by this era the duty had actually befallen more junior courtiers of identified absolute loyalty.

Bardas and Damianus had both been particularly jealous of and wanted to usurp Theoctistis’ grip on power. They used the maturing 15 year-old Michael III’s increasing interest in beautiful young specimens of the opposite sex in order to provoke the necessary action.

Theodora had angered the rapidly maturing Michael III after he had taken, at just 15 years of age, a mistress in the highly alluring shape of young Eudocia Ingerina. The dowager Empress had adamantly refused to allow her son to marry this particularly beautiful half-Viking girl, who, besides being tainted by foreign barbarian blood, she believed also showed her insufficient respect.

Theodora had instead compelled Michael III to marry another similarly named but substantially plainer and boringly religiously devout girl of more correct noble Byzantine heritage, who was also properly deferential towards the dowager Empress, Eudocia Decapolitana. However, her son not only displayed no interest in this unattractive wife whatsoever but also deeply resented having her foisted on him by his mother. The young Emperor therefore became highly susceptible to conspiratorial overtures from Bardas and Damianus.

Bardas and Damianus suggested to Michael III that he would never be able to exert his authority, even in personal matters, as long as Theodora and Theoctistis remained so powerful. They also suggested that, if he did ever attempt to assert himself without help, the dowager Empress and her Chancellor surely would not hesitate to depose him.

The result was the brutal murder in the palace coup of the able Theoctistis and the banishment from power of Theodora, who shortly afterwards died whilst intensely hating both her son and brother. Nevertheless, the Empire did not suffer too much because Bardas proved to be even more capable than the deceased Chancellor as an Imperial administrator. Michael III’s uncle also showed that he was as good at dominating his nephew as the Emperor’s mother had been.

Michael III continued to concentrate on his pleasures, especially drinking and debauchery, which eventually earned him the unfortunate suffix to his name of ‘the Sot’. Nicknames for Emperors were common amongst the people, and this example proves that they were not always flattering.

Another unflattering example is that of one of the many Emperor Constantines, the fifth by that name, who reigned for over thirty years in the previous century. As a baby, he experienced an unfortunate accident at the baptismal font and was thereafter commonly known as ‘Copronymus’, or ‘the Pisser’.

One of Michael III’s other overwhelming passions was for horses, and this was to prove to be rather fateful both for the Emperor and his uncle.

Chapter ζ – The Groom

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 2 years later, autumn 857)

‘I have got rid of the fox but in his place I have put a lion who will end by devouring us all.’

- Bardas, after the dismissal from his post of the High Chamberlain Damianus

On a sunny autumn day in 857, 17 year-old Michael III was in one of his favourite haunts, namely the stables of the Imperial palace, where he was gifted a magnificent-looking horse. However, the steed unfortunately proved uncontrollable either by him or anyone else until one of the Emperor’s patrician cronies, a distant relative named Theophilitzes, suggested that his own groom should be allowed to try.

Consequently, Basil, now 45 years old but still rippling impressively with muscles, was summoned from Theophilitzes’ own residence. The so-called Macedonian then took hold of the horse’s bridle with one hand and stroked the beast’s ear with the other, whilst gently whispering. The steed immediately became quiescent and co-operative.

Michael III was so impressed that he immediately fatefully requisitioned Basil into his own service.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, almost 3 years later, summer 860)

Michael III’s ugly habits came to incorporate going with his cronies on uproariously drunken revels around the streets of Constantinople whilst attired in obscene fancy dress. Basil, now much more a close drinking chum than minor servant to the Emperor, was naturally a regular member of these riotous parties, often using his splendid strength to overcome with violence any objections from the city’s citizenry to their loud and dissolute behaviour.

Basil even took part in occasional wrestling contests in order to impress the Emperor. On this occasion, inside one of the palace’s gymnasia, he fought an undefeated and much younger and bigger giant Bulgar.

Despite being much smaller and older than his huge opponent, 48 year-old Basil somehow actually managed to pick up and hurl the Bulgar to highly ignominious and injurious defeat.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, almost 5 years later, spring 865)

As a consequence of Basil’s increasingly close relationship with young Michael III, the advancement of this rough illiterate foreign peasant within the Imperial court was rapid. On the eventual deposition of Damianus from his position as High Chamberlain, the eunuch having unwisely argued tempestuously with Bardas, the Emperor even promoted his uncouth and uneducated older crony to replace the Parakoimomenos.

Custom had generally dictated that the Imperial High Chamberlain was always a eunuch. The elevation of the genitally whole Basil was therefore almost unprecedented. However, the now 25 year-old Emperor’s esteem for him emanated more from the personal arrangements that the new appointee was prepared to accept in return for his advancement than for his likely abilities as Parakoimomenos.

Basil compliantly agreed to divorce his own wife, Maria, who had borne him a beloved son, Constantine, and instead marry Michael III’s first love, Eudocia Ingerina. This manoeuvre enabled the Emperor, who had banished his own unwanted spouse from the Imperial court long before, to accommodate his mistress in his palace without scandal and thereby have ready access to her.

Basil did not make any attempt to consummate his new marriage. He instead co-operatively allowed his young Imperial master the privilege, whilst Michael III compensated his favourite by encouraging him to enjoy a temporary affair with one of his older matronly but sex-hungry sisters, Thecla, whom he had recently freed from exile in entirely unsuitable monastic seclusion.

(Church of St. Mary Chalcoprateia [i.e. ‘in the copper market’], Constantinople, 1 year later, Lady Day, 25th March 866)

As Basil became more and more ingratiated with Michael III, hostile rivalry developed between the new High Chamberlain and Bardas, who by now had been appointed ‘Caesar’. This promotion indicated that the Emperor’s uncle was also officially the childless Basileus’ heir.

Basil’s own ambitions had not been sated. He now realised that there were only two major obstacles between him and his successful usurpation of the throne, namely Bardas and the Emperor himself, whose inebriated and dissolute life was beginning seriously to affect his health. The Basileus was giving the impression to observers that, even though he was only in his mid 20s, he would not live much longer.

Basil therefore quietly began to poison Michael III’s mind about Bardas, just as the latter had once done so successfully in respect of Theodora and Theoctistis. The High Chamberlain persuaded the Emperor that his uncle not only secretly despised his nephew but also wanted to depose him and that the only answer to this threat was to strike first.

The easily malleable Michael III accepted Basil’s arguments. Plots were therefore hatched to eliminate Bardas. However, news of some of these schemes reached the ears of the Caesar, to whom the bulk of the army was very loyal because of the many great and lucrative victories to which he had by now led them.

Bardas confronted both Michael III and Basil with allegations about their plotting and, after denying any conspiracy whilst fearful of the army’s attitude, the Emperor and his High Chamberlain agreed to sign a declaration swearing their innocence. They did so in the revered church of St. Mary Chalcoprateia, or ‘in the copper market’, on Lady Day, 866.

This church was so called because it was built on a site once occupied by a synagogue used by Jewish coppersmiths. It was so revered because it shared with another the responsibility of accommodating the alleged robe of the Virgin Mary.

The relevant declaration was signed using the supposed blood of Jesus Christ, a tiny and decreasing quantity of which was kept amongst the sacred relics in the Hagia Sophia basilica. The illiterate Basil was naturally forced to substitute his name with a cross.

Bardas believed such a sacred written oath and so subsequently soon set out alongside Michael III on a military expedition to retake for the Empire and Christianity the island of Crete, which had recently been reoccupied by Arab Muslim infidels.

(Mouth of the River Meander, near Miletus, Anatolia, Byzantine Empire, 1month later, 21st April 866)

The Byzantine army marched south across western Anatolia to the mouth of the River Meander, where the Imperial fleet lay at anchor. By the time of arrival, Bardas was worried by fresh reports about plots against him by Michael III and Boris but nevertheless went to a meeting in the Emperor’s pavilion tent to discuss the morning military report.

Bardas sat next to Michael III and, after the report had been read, suggested the army’s immediate embarkation onto the fleet. He then noticed Boris making a discreet signal.

Bardas’ hand immediately reached for his sword but his action was too late. The still physically very powerful Basil struck him to the ground and other plotters rushed to finish off the prone Caesar, whilst the stunned Michael III watched in silence. The Emperor had known that an attempt on his uncle’s life would be made sometime but he had not expected the assassination now.

Nevertheless, Michael III, with his usual meek compliance, wrote to the Patriarch of Constantinople at Boris’ insistence. The Emperor advised the senior cleric of the Eastern Roman Church for subsequent public announcement that Bardas had been summarily executed for planning high treason, which was a false fait accompli also reluctantly accepted by the army.

The Cretan expedition was later quickly abandoned before the campaign had properly begun and Michael III returned to Constantinople. On the following Whit Sunday in Hagia Sophia, Basil, after being dressed in Imperial regalia by senior court eunuchs, became co-Emperor. He was crowned with the Imperial diadem, which had been handed for the purpose to the Patriarch by the existing sole Basileus.

Basil’s transformation from peasant immigrant Imperial stable-hand to Emperor had taken just 9 years.

Chapter η – Imperial Murder

‘It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but fornication, not possessions but greed, not reputation but vainglory. And if this is so, there is nothing evil in creatures except misuse, which stems from the mind's negligence in its natural cultivation.’

- Maximus the Confessor, allegedly heretic 7th century monk, whose tongue and right hand were cut off on the orders of Byzantine Emperor Constans II for alleged blasphemy and refusing to recant

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 5 months later, 19th September 866)

The strange state of relationships within the Imperial court now produced a healthy baby boy, born to Eudocia Ingerina. The child was christened Leo.

To avoid scandal, Leo was fraudulently acknowledged as his own son by Basil.

(Imperial palace, St. Mamas, near Constantinople, 1 year later, 24th September 867)

During the year after Leo’s birth, Michael III increasingly became more of an embarrassment. His drunken dissipation was now frequently stimulating him into depredating and desecrating churches and perpetrating senseless acts of cruelty on people.

Michael III’s major preoccupation was also chariot racing and he therefore outrageously spent much time with charioteers, who were generally considered to be amongst the lowest of Byzantine society and on whom he showered expensive gifts. His co-Emperor therefore decided to take appropriate action for the sake of the honour of the state and the office of Basileus.

On the 24th of September 867, Basil had dined with his nominal wife, Eudocia Ingerina, and Michael III before leaving his co-Emperor to become as usual completely inebriated. However, he subsequently returned with other conspirators to his fellow Basileus’ bedchamber.

The usurpation of Emperors by ambitious rivals was so common that the people accepted such coups as being virtually constitutional. After all, surely God’s will had caused the change of government.

Of the ultimate total of 109 Byzantine Emperors over 1,058 years, 65 were dethroned and many of these were assassinated. However, such regicide became increasingly unpopular, not least amongst the plotters, because of the attitude of the Church. The Christian religion was exceedingly important in the state, and many usurpers’ own consciences.

In fact, theological controversies often subsumed normal political and military affairs in significance and violence. So many people also either retired or gifted property to untaxed and unproductive monasteries, as a consequence of which much fertile countryside became fallow, that some Emperors had to take drastic action to reverse the trend. They naturally earned the ire of Christian vested interests in the process.

The leaders of the Church generally ignored the many horrors endemic in contemporary society, not least the plight of the poor and of the victims in the regular wars, preferring to argue theology or protect their own interests. However, they did usually exhibit public abhorrence at the assassination of an Emperor. After all, the former wearer of the Imperial diadem was supposedly previously the contemporary manifestation of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the Christian elders, led by the Patriarch of Constantinople, often required successful usurpers to demonstrate some form of penance for their deeds before they were forgiven.

Either because of the Church’s public abhorrence or their own Christian values, successful usurpers therefore did not always seek to murder their predecessors. Some alternatively merely sought to have their defeated rivals compulsorily tonsured, that is forcibly entered into a monastery or priesthood, which made them ineligible for life to be Emperor.

Given the custom that Emperors were supposed to be physically perfect, another alternative was to have defeated rivals deformed by having their noses split or even hands or feet cut off. However, after Justinian II Rhinotmetus [*], whose nickname refers to his facial disfigurement on his original usurpation, regained his throne early in the 8th century whilst displaying a golden proboscis, other options were chosen. Blinding by red-hot irons became the preferred method of disqualification until Leo V [*] introduced castration for his adversary’s young sons, which was to be re-enacted on his own male offspring when he too was deposed.

Unsuccessful usurpers were usually treated far less compassionately than those successfully deposed but not assassinated. After all, they had attempted to dethrone the reincarnated Jesus Christ, whose status had been confirmed because God’s will had ensured his survival.

Typical revenge would involve initial torture in order to obtain the names of all of the accomplices of the unsuccessful usurper. This invariably excruciating experience might be followed by several days naked, and without food or water but with his head restrained by a heavy iron collar, in a public pillory, where crowds would beat him severely and might even break his teeth with hammers.

The victim might then be tied onto an old camel or donkey, which was sick with diarrhoea, in such a way that his head was so placed under the animal’s tail to allow falling excrement to fall onto his face. However, whilst being paraded in this manner through the streets on the way to a forum or the hippodrome for final execution, someone might wash this muck away with a pail of boiling water.

In a forum or the hippodrome, the unsuccessful usurper would be comprehensively whipped with lashes beaded with lead. Some combination of hands, feet, nose and ears would subsequently be sliced away, and his hair would be burnt and eyes gouged out with a red-hot poker. He might then be led again round the square or amphitheatre on a camel or donkey before finally being nullified and either beheaded or disembowelled.

Because of his rough foreign peasant background, Basil decided that he could not be considerate towards Michael III. He believed that the opposition to the usurpation of the throne by a person of such lineage might be too big for him to consolidate his power if his predecessor was allowed to live.

As explained previously, for protection Emperors never slept in their bedchambers alone. However, the defence offered by the official charged on this night with sharing Michael III’s sleeping accommodation, one of his old drinking companions by the name of Basiliscianus, was quickly overcome by a serious sword wound.

The setting for what happened next was incongruously heavenly. The ceiling of the Emperor’s bedchamber was painted in the form of the night sky, with golden constellations surrounding a shining green cross. A peacock proudly displayed its red plumage in the centre of the mosaic floor.

In the corners of the bedchamber, framed in green marble, were four eagles, the Imperial bird, with outstretched wings. In mosaic, flowerbeds were depicted along the bottom of each wall, further up one of which Michael III in ceremonial regalia was similarly portrayed against a background of gold. He was holding a Bible in one hand and making the sign of the cross with the other.

One of the conspirators, John Chaldos, now approached the still drunkenly comatose real Michael III. However, his courage failed him and, instead of killing the Emperor, all that he could manage to do before fleeing was to cut off the Basileus’ hands.

Basil’s cousin, Asylaion, therefore stepped forward to complete the bloody assassination of 27 year-old Michael III, whose mutilated corpse was left immediately underneath his mosaic wall portrait.

Chapter θ – The Macedonian

‘Ruling as we do over our Empire, which God has entrusted to us by His divine authority, we know both the triumphs of war and the adornments of peace. We bear up the framework of the State, and we so lift up our hearts in contemplation of the support given to us by the Lord Omnipotent that we put not our trust in our own arms, nor in those of our soldiers, nor in our leaders in war, nor in our own skill. Rather do we rest our hopes in the providence of the Supreme Trinity, from whence proceeded the elements of the whole universe and their disposition throughout the world.’

- Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (introduction to his ‘Digest’)

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 4 years later, 19th of September 871)

Emperor Basil I, the ‘Macedonian’, was receiving another formal visit from a fabulously wealthy widowed noblewoman named Danielis, who was from Patras at the north-west of the Peloponnese Peninsula of Greece, on the Gulf of Corinth. She owned vast stretches of land in the area, as well as a flourishing carpet and textile business.

Being a good judge of character and ambition, Danielis had first befriended Basil when he had just been a servant of Michael III. She was helped in doing so not only through her undoubted charms but also by her munificent gifts, which included property and land.

As Danielis had astutely anticipated, her generosity had helped fund Basil to the throne. She rather fancied having a beholden Emperor as a close friend.

Danielis had, as usual, travelled in great pomp to visit Constantinople, with her caravan easily equating to that of many monarchs in size and splendour. Amongst the marvellous valuable gifts she planned to offer Basil on this occasion were 300 young and beautiful slaves.

One of the more exotic of these human gifts, who will be a hero of the next story in this occasional series, was offered, amongst about 100 others of similar type, because Danielis “knew that there was always room for them in the Imperial palace!” In return for her latest magnificent munificence, the grateful Emperor now awarded her the title of ‘Basilomitor’, meaning his honorary mother.

Meanwhile, young Leo was celebrating his 5th birthday with a new playmate of the same age named Eudocius, who was his first cousin, the son of his mother’s brother. The two boys therefore looked very similar, sharing some Viking blood and the fair blue-eyed features common to that race.

Leo and Eudocius were fatefully also to become inseparably close lifelong friends.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 8 years later, September 879)

By early autumn of 879, Basil could look back at a 12-year reign alone of outstanding political, legislative, religious, military and architectural successes. By now, of course, the mosaic portrayal on one wall of the Imperial bedchamber, which is still extant, depicted the new Emperor.

Basil was portrayed with his still beautiful wife, Eudocia Ingerina, and their sons and daughters, including Leo. Each held a Bible in one hand, whilst making the sign of the cross with the other.

The rough illiterate immigrant Armenian peasant, who had usurped the throne through two vile murders, had actually proved himself to be the best Emperor for over three centuries, since the time of Justinian I, who had also been of humble background. However, unlike that Basileus, the present one also had progeny, who could inherit his throne.

Basil had long since rid himself of Thecla. On discovering that she was having an affair with a courtier, John Neatocomites, the Emperor had confiscated most of their property and banished both from the palace.

John Neatocomites was tonsured and sent for life to a distant monastery. Thecla went to her sole remaining house at Blachernae, which was a suburb of Constantinople. She died in sick destitution there a few years later, whilst Basil now devoted himself to his Empress, or ‘Basilissa’, Eudocia Ingerina, whom he had only bedded for the first time after he had assassinated Michael III.

Basil flourished until personal disaster struck. The strong and handsome Constantine, his oldest son by his first wife, Maria, was the Emperor’s favourite child by far, being probably the only person that the man ever truly loved.

As a boy, Constantine had once gone bravely into battle alongside his father on a snow-white horse whilst wearing golden armour, and he had also showed much promise in other fields, suggesting that he might someday become as great an Emperor. However, he now died tragically young.

Basil’s second wife, Eudocia Ingerina, had by now officially borne him three other sons, namely Leo, Alexander and Stephen. However, the oldest of these children was actually secretly the offspring of the murdered Michael III, which was one of the reasons why the current Emperor disliked the boy.

Basil’s aversion towards Leo was shared by the new Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, who had returned to his supreme ecclesiastical post two years previously after a period of deposition, exile and then tutoring of the Emperor’s children. As he had once done before, he had again succeeded Ignatius [*], now deceased.

Photius’ attitude towards Leo did not really result from any personality defects on the part of the child, although he did sometimes prove to be a bit quick tempered and, annoyingly to adults, obstinately strong-willed in marked contrast to his real father. The boy was also taking too keenly and inappropriately, from the celibate Patriarch’s viewpoint, an early interest in the female form.

During the period when he had been entrusted with educating Basil’s children, Photius had become by virtue of his position aware of Leo’s true parentage. He felt obliged to keep the secret out of grateful indebtedness to the Emperor because of his reappointment as Patriarch. However, he did not believe that he was similarly obligated to allow without his opposition what he considered to be a wanton bastard, wickedly conceived out of wedlock, from eventually becoming the next Basileus.

Photius considered that he was duty-bound to do everything he could to prevent Leo’s eventual succession to the throne, short of betraying the boy’s true parentage. The Patriarch decided to concentrate his efforts on a whispering campaign, designed to make Basil’s dislike of the young bastard even deeper, so leading to his ultimate destruction.

The scheming Photius was helped by the fact that Basil, who would never recover from the trauma of the early death of his beloved Constantine, was already beginning to resent the fact that Leo, who was not actually of his blood, was now next in line for the Imperial throne.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 3 years later, September 882)

Most adult Byzantine males liked to sport beards, not only because of accepted fashion but also to distinguish them from the many eunuchs in contemporary society. However, Leo, who had inherited his mother’s beautiful fair and light Viking features, had to his personal embarrassment not yet developed any facial hair whatsoever despite now attaining his 16th birthday.

Eudocius, whose handsome appearance remained similar and whose relationship with his best friend had always remained, sadly for him, platonic, did not particularly mind this situation. Of course, he disliked the embarrassment caused to Leo. However, he also preferred the gorgeous face of his fellow 16 year-old, on which he considered the sensuous sparkling blue eyes to be gems adorning a human form of unparalleled magnificence, remaining without a hirsute covering.

Eudocius was also depriving himself of a beard by now shaving regularly and so leaving his own chin hairless, which was virtually unprecedented for a maturing Byzantine male who had not been castrated. He justified his lack of observance of custom and fashion by telling his best friend that he would not sport a beard until he did.

Meanwhile, Eudocius sadly realised that he no longer had a chance of fulfilling a furtive dream. Ever since he had passed through puberty, he had fancied Leo tremendously and secretly longed to love him not only emotionally, as he did, but also physically. However, his best friend had never demonstrated reciprocal interest and now presumably never would in future because girls instead besotted him.

As Eudocius well knew, because Leo never kept secrets from him, his friend had already enjoyed a few quiet relationships with pretty girls. He was now particularly attracted to one named Zoe Zautsina.

Unfortunately, Basil was now proposing for dynastic reasons to marry Leo off to a much plainer and uninteresting young girl named Theophano.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, a few months later, early 883)

“Arrest my son, Leo,” the enraged Basil instructed some of his very loyal personal Farghanese bodyguards, who were originally Turkish slaves imported from beyond the River Oxus in Asia. They were given their title because so many emanated from the town of Farghana.

Basil was currently living in the so-called Carian wing of the Imperial palace, which was his normal winter quarters. The thick richly adorned marble walls protected him and his family from the cold sea winds that could blow down the Bosphorus from distant Russia.

Byzantine Emperors possessed many palaces of immense luxury throughout the Empire, with several in Constantinople alone. The principal ‘Sacred’ one was actually an enormous seaside complex of large and ornate residences, interspersed with fabulous gardens containing magnificent pavilions, pergolas, ponds, fountains and marble palaestras.

The main buildings possessed huge banquet and concert halls, audience chambers, numerous chapels and even churches, all full of religious artworks and relics, in addition to the opulent living quarters. The whole complex was serviced by up to 20,000 servants, many of whom were themselves resident alongside the Imperial family and their big retinue of advisers and other state officials.

The palaces also possessed more sinister amenities. As Leo was now to discover because he had never before ventured into such places, well-equipped dungeons and torture chambers were considered essential for accommodating and entertaining those who seriously displeased the Emperor of the day.

“And take him to the palace dungeons,” Basil added, ominously for Leo’s welfare, “where you are to strip him and suspend him from the ceiling. Report to me when it’s been done because I’ll then flog the wicked boy myself!”

Leo’s angry and jealous new wife, Theophano, had complained to Basil that her young husband had refused to refrain from continuing to have liaisons with Zoe Zautsina, whom the furious Emperor now had banished from both his court and capital. He later additionally had the girl married off to a nonentity named Theodore Gutzuniates.

Basil, whose dislike of Leo had now been considerably strengthened by his continued deep mourning for the lost Constantine and Photius’ continued maliciously slanderous whisperings, was determined to punish the boy harshly for his philandering. After all, the Emperor untruthfully justified to himself, being actually instead intent on just wanting hurtfully to persecute the young bastard, such flirtations might undermine his authority by sabotaging his dynastic plans.

Given that Basil had not only retained his physical vigour but had also substantially increased his antipathy towards Leo, the boy’s imminent flogging threatened to be very severe. This supposition was supported by the fact that the Emperor proposed to show no mercy to his official oldest son.

After being advised that Leo was ready for his flogging, Basil’s eager rush to the palace dungeons in order to perpetrate the deed was temporarily halted at the top of the stone stairwell that led to the dark dank cellars where the amenity was located. A pleading and struggling Eudocius was there, being energetically restrained by guards.

Eudocius had not been with Leo when his best friend was arrested but had rushed to the palace dungeon to try to rescue him when he heard the awful news. The boy was unsure what he planned to do once he reached there to achieve his aim but believed that he had to attempt something and hoped that God would give him inspiration. However, the first obstacle, namely passing the guards who now had him under their firm control, had so far proved insurmountable.

On seeing Basil arrive, Eudocius, still in the firm grip of the guards, began to address his desperate entreaties to the Emperor. However, the Basileus’ cruel intent could not be deflected and he instead ordered the Farghanese to take the pleading boy away and flog him somewhere else for his impertinence.

When Basil finally arrived in that part of the palace dungeons where the terrified Leo awaited him, the Emperor discovered that the boy was naked and suspended from the ceiling as he had requested. The arresting guards had also considerately gagged the 16 year-old to mute his expected useless pleas and agonised screams.

In Basil’s early life, especially when indulging in some of Michael III’s notorious drunken orgies, he had sampled both beautiful young male as well as female forms. Despite the proscriptions of the austere Church, homosexual practices, many with pretty boy geldings as the passive partners, were commonly indulged in the Byzantine Empire, with, as will be revealed later in this occasional series of stories, important eunuchs often acting as their pimps.

Basil could therefore appreciate an attractive young male when he saw one and he now generously confirmed that Leo’s form, virtually devoid of hair apart from that atop his sublime head and a little golden pubic patch, could indeed be considered tempting to a pederast. However, the Emperor quickly moved his mind from contemplating such naughty thoughts.

Ever since becoming the sole wearer of the Imperial diadem, Basil had tried to lead an exemplary life. He wanted to prove himself to be a good and worthy Byzantine Emperor despite his foreign peasant background, illiteracy, accented speech and the bloody manner in which he had secured the throne. This attitude encompassed his sex-life, and he now felt very guilty and remorseful about his earlier indulgences, especially the homosexual elements.

Basil’s philosophy had also been strongly affected by the death of Constantine, after which he had become deeply depressed and increasingly withdrawn and religious. The only person who could now really control and influence the Emperor was Photius, leader of a homophobic Church that condemned sexual excesses. The Patriarch cleverly supported his sway over the Basileus by arranging elaborate masses in memory of the dead son, as well as even eventually canonising him.

Basil therefore quickly forgot the momentary realisation that Leo was indeed very handsome in order instead to damage the boy’s serene beauty severely. Whilst readying himself to do so, the Emperor noticed that the suspended nude form before him was noticeably shivering. However, he was unsure whether such bodily quaking was caused by fear or by the draughty winter chill pervading the dungeons, or a mixture of both.

Basil began his task of chastisement by choosing a whip from the selection on offer within the dungeon. The scourge he picked was relatively short, which he believed would aid control and accuracy, but thickly and heavily pleated, which he realised would cause great hurt.

Basil then advised Leo that he expected the boy to learn from his flogging that he must never again abuse the Emperor’s authority and must remain loyal to his new young wife, Theophano. He subsequently proceeded without further ado to whip the boy with all of his ability and strength, reinforced by his accumulated acute sense of intense hatred towards the 16 year-old.

Leo could not help but react to the excruciating feel of the lash, as many blows rained pitilessly on his back before venturing further downwards to his buttocks and the rear of his legs, with copious tears flowing from his sensuous blue eyes. Meanwhile, as the guards who had originally fixed him in his degrading place in the dungeon had envisaged, the boy’s attempts to beg for mercy were, along with his involuntary initial efforts to shriek in agony in reaction to each blow, muted by the effective gag.

Many of Basil’s vicious strikes intersected earlier blows, causing cutting to Leo’s flesh. More such damage eventually created a sanguine haze to pervade the now swaying boy’s rear, as tiny blood-drops rose into the air in reaction each new hit. However, the sounds eventually emitted from the 16 year-old’s rosy lips finally became barely audible.

Leo was not unconscious. The boy’s greatly anguished mind had instead entered a strange state of virtually silent delirium. The acute pains searing through his previously lovely body in reaction to each fresh strike somehow now appeared to relate to a different dimension in which his mental functions were not present.

Consequently, Leo did not at first notice that Basil had eventually stopped whipping him. The Emperor had then thrown his scourge to the floor and left in order to go to pray again for absolution in a palace chapel.

Leo was never to know Basil’s real reason for stopping, without which the still furiously embittered Emperor would undoubtedly have continued for much longer. The Basileus had only finished because he had wielded his whip so viciously on so many occasions that the hand in which he had held the rough handle of the scourge had not only become very tired and sore but also was shedding his own blood.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, later same day)

Eudocius had been luckier than Leo. The Farghanese guards, who had been charged with flogging this boy, had fortunately been reluctant to whip the Empress’ nephew too harshly without further direction from Basil, which was not forthcoming.

Having had his own much less serious wounds treated, the redressed Eudocius therefore quickly rushed to Leo’s quarters to help supervise the recovery and repair of his best friend. The boy’s own very attractive face subsequently turned deathly pale on seeing the dreadful damage inflicted on his fellow 16 year-old by Basil.

Nevertheless, Eudocius was determined that he would somehow help return Leo to his previous physical perfection. Consequently, by using the authority of the compliant Empress, who was equally appalled at what had been perpetrated on her oldest son by her husband, he summoned to the boy’s aid some of the best palace physicians, who were all invariably eunuchs.

Eudocius subsequently moved into Leo’s chambers in order to be constantly present to supervise his best friend’s treatment and recuperation, and otherwise be of whatever practical assistance and emotional comfort he could. The boy remained there for three months but his efforts proved worthwhile.

Leo later emerged from his palace chambers miraculously fully repaired, at least physically.

Chapter ι – Imperial Justice

‘Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to everyone his due.’

- Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (‘Institutes’, I.i.1)

(Propontis [modern Sea of Marmara], 1 year later, early 884)

“Not merely were they deluded into illegalities but, if there be any summit of error, to this they have raised themselves….Who has ever heard such claims, bursting from the mouths of even the most abandoned, up to now? What tortuous serpent has belched his poison into their hearts?”

Rather ironically, the above words were those of Photius, in a letter of summer 867 to other leaders of the Eastern Christian Church, which referred to opponents in a theological dispute. The Patriarch’s eloquence, of course, proved rather hypocritical, given his later malicious slandering of young Leo.

Photius had during the past year maliciously maintained his constant slanderous whispering campaign against Leo, eventually suggesting to Basil that the boy might be treacherously conspiring to seize the throne. Consequently, the ageing Emperor, who was more susceptible than ever to the Patriarch’s persuasion, ordered the arrest and imprisonment without trial of the now 17 year-old.

Leo naturally and truthfully pleaded his innocence, asking for evidence of his supposed perfidy. However, his entreaties and request were ignored.

Eudocius also again protested and pleaded for his best friend but to no avail. Basil instead threw him in prison too, alongside Leo.

The chosen place of incarceration was not one used for common criminals and was actually not a gaol. Secure accommodation in one of the monasteries on one of the little islets comprising the Princes’ Islands in the Propontis was instead selected, as had happened many times previously for such important prisoners.

The Princes’ Islands were actually so named because of the number of important eponymous youngsters who had been detained there at one time or other. The particular islet selected on this occasion was Proti, which was the nearest to Constantinople.

As Leo and Eudocius sailed from Constantinople towards Proti, they looked back at the Imperial capital’s beautiful skyline. They both wondered if they would ever again view the magnificent undulating sight of splendid domes rising above a gentle gleaming sea of pinkish slate and brick roofs.

(Proti Monastery, Proti Island, Propontis [modern Kinali in the Sea of Marmara], 3 months later, spring 884)

Given the exalted status of the two young prisoners, the local Abbot and his monks wisely took care to look after them very well within his Imperial remit. After all, Basil could change his attitude towards Leo, who was very popular amongst the people, and the boy might then still become the next Emperor.

Leo and Eudocius were therefore afforded two large decently furnished and clean rooms, freely adjoining each other, as well as good rations and plenty of books on which to spend some of their time. Their doors were also unlocked regularly so that they could go to chapel to worship and exercise by strolling around the islet under supervision.

Theophono had dutifully demanded to share Leo’s imprisonment, along with her new young daughter by him, Eudocia. However, she and her child were not allowed into the exclusively male monastery and so were provided with alternative accommodation on the islet, which her husband would equally loyally occasionally visit with Eudocius during their escorted walks.

Now that spring had arrived, the weather was frequently warm and sunny, with the surrounding Propontis often calm and dazzlingly blue. At such times, Eudocius could not help but happily secretly compare the colour of the waves to his beloved Leo’s sparkling eyes.

Nevertheless, despite such moments and the relative pleasantness of their incarceration, the boys lived in fear. They appreciated that the next order from Basil in respect of Leo could be to execute, blind or castrate him in order to eliminate him from the Imperial succession.

Such atrocities against Imperial princes and even Emperors had occurred at this very monastery previously. The boys were therefore always very wary of visitors.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, same time)

In fact, Basil had dismissed the idea of having Leo killed because of his increasingly pious devotion to Christianity. However, in furious reaction to another wickedly untrue suggestion from Photius that the boy was somehow still plotting against the Emperor from the confines of his island monastic prison, the Basileus decided to take other drastic action.

“Blind the boy!” Basil commanded of his chief Farghanese bodyguard in respect of Leo.

(Proti Monastery, Proti Island, Propontis [modern Kinali in the Sea of Marmara], same time)

Both Leo and Eudocius possessed many worthy attributes. They were charmingly considerate, kind and generous, and also blessed with formidable intellectual powers, already proving to be excellent scholars.

Leo especially loved reading books, particularly in the pleasant intellectual company of his best friend, Eudocius. His 3-month incarceration in the prison had therefore not been too unpleasant.

Of course, Leo was not currently aware that his ability to continue to have the pleasure of reading his books was seriously threatened by a poker now apparently destined to burn his lovely blue eyes out of their sockets.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, same time)

Basil’s chief Farghanese bodyguard had collected the necessary poker and a military escort and was about to leave the Imperial palace when he was unexpectedly suddenly recalled into the presence of the Emperor, who had now relocated to the so-called Pearl wing of the Imperial palace. This part of his main residence, which looked out onto elevated gardens on two sides, represented his usual summer quarters.

In readiness for an audience, Basil was enthroned in a large ornate chamber under a golden vault supported by four tall columns, with mosaic hunting scenes decorating the panelled ceilings. The Emperor was also resplendently attired.

Over a type of alb, Basil wore a richly decorated and coloured garment that was stiff like a cope and as long as a chasuble. On his head was his golden bejewelled diadem, surmounted by a cross. Dangling from all of his clothing, even his crown, were strings of precious stones and diamond rivieres.

All Emperors changed their attire constantly in order to face the next highly orchestrated part of their day, which was inevitably full of ritual. They invariably did so behind a white veil held by eunuchs.

Photius was standing next to the sitting Basil. The Patriarch’s face was exhibiting a particularly satisfied smirk.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Basil advised his chief bodyguard. “In response to a wise suggestion from the Patriarch,” the Emperor added, “I’ve decided that such a seemingly evilly lecherous boy like Leo, whom I suspect still secretly lusts after Zoe Zautsina, should not be blinded but instead be castrated!”

(Proti Monastery, Proti Island, Propontis [modern Kinali in the Sea of Marmara], next day)

“Even if we were birds, we could not hope to escape!” So declared Nicephorus I [*], just before being killed after he and his army had been fatally ambushed in a gorge by Bulgars led by their Khan, Krum, who later had the Byzantine Emperor’s decapitated skull converted into a drinking cup. Leo and Eudocius now felt themselves to be in a similarly unfavourable situation.

Basil’s chief Farghanese bodyguard was not a quiet man. His loud voice could therefore be heard at a great distance.

“I have orders from the Basileus,” the chief bodyguard thundered in explanation to the monastery’s Abbot, “that the deed must be perpetrated on Leo immediately.” “These professional people here,” the Farghanese sinisterly added, “will actually carry out the duty, as they are better qualified than me and my men for the task!”

The chief bodyguard was referring to a professional castrater and his team of two, who were always kept very busy in Constantinople and whom he had collected to geld Leo. The Farghanese would happily have blinded the boy but turning him into a eunuch without further damaging or even killing him needed more expertise.

The frightened Leo and Eudocius, who had been reading books in the former’s room, overheard the chief bodyguard’s words because they had been spoken in a cloister below their opened second-floor window. The boys also immediately astutely appreciated in horror what the comments approximately meant, although they were unsure whether blinding or castration represented the expertise of the professionals.

Despite his terror, Leo, displaying remarkable bravery given the appalling prospect that he now faced, immediately turned to Eudocius and forcefully told him “You mustn’t see this. So go to your own room. Let me face this alone!”

“Alright!” Eudocius replied with unusual compliance, having reluctantly accepted that there was no prospect of escape and whilst picking up a book.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, same time)

Basil had ignored desperate pleas from his wife and a few brave courtiers to spare Leo and he instead again retreated alone to a palace chapel to pray once more for absolution. However, a dreadful feeling that he had done wrong now overwhelmed the Emperor’s mind.

A mysterious voice began to speak to Basil, in a similar manner to which the Abbot of the monastery to which was attached the church of St. Diomed in western Constantinople, close to the Golden Gate, had been fatefully addressed 56 years previously. However, on this occasion, God appeared to be conveying a message to an Emperor that his supposed oldest son should not be harmed.

Basil initially desperately attempted to ignore the voice in his head. However, he eventually succumbed to the constant message.

Rushing from the chapel, Basil ordered attendant guards to proceed to the islet of Proti to stop the proposed castration of Leo.

(Proti Monastery, Proti Island, [modern Kinali in the Sea of Marmara], same time)

Reluctantly led to Leo’s locked room by the monastery’s Abbot, who had no stomach to watch the popular boy being gelded, the castrater and his team of two other men were then soon left alone with the tremulous 17 year-old. The chief bodyguard and his military escort had also decided to miss the impending action but not out of abhorrence.

The Farghanese were hungry and tired after their overnight voyage to the islet. Happy in the knowledge that their Emperor’s orders were now being carried out by professionals, they had therefore ordered the monks to feed them and provide them with somewhere to sleep in preference to watching young Leo lose his balls.

“What do you propose to do to me?” the clearly frightened Leo asked of the arriving chief castrater and his men. The boy had noticed that they possessed a poker amongst their tools and he therefore could still not be sure whether blinding or gelding was to be his imminent fate.

“I’ve received orders from your father, our illustrious Basileus, Sir,” the chief castrater answered, “to geld you.” In response, Leo actually sighed quietly in relief. Given the choice between losing his eyes or balls, he preferred the latter.

“I shall not resist,” Leo subsequently courageously advised the men, “but shall instead be fully co-operative. What do you want me to do?”

“First, please remove your clothes, Sir,” replied the surprised chief castrater, who had rarely encountered such brave co-operation. He and his men usually had to drag desperately struggling victims to their fate.

Leo immediately obeyed the instruction of the man, who was therefore rapidly rewarded by the sight of the smooth nude body of a beautiful fair-haired, blue-eyed prince, with unusually beardless chin, standing in front of him. The large sturdy wooden table in the cell, at which two 17 year-olds had recently been reading in relative contentment, was then swiftly cleared and the latest young victim of the chief castrater’s gelding knife, which had seen much use over the years, was invited to climb on top.

After Leo had compliantly spreadeagled himself face-up on top of the wooden surface as instructed, the chief castrater informed the boy “I must bind you tightly in place, Sir. Involuntary movements in reaction to the castration process might otherwise cause accidental damage, perhaps even unfortunate severance of your penis.”

“I understand,” Leo commented. The boy then compliantly allowed the firm bindings to be applied.

As Leo subsequently felt himself becoming increasingly helpless within his new tight restraints, and so incapable of avoiding his fate, his pleasantly proportioned cock rather embarrassingly began to grow and rise. However, none of the men present appeared to notice. The reaction was too common for them to bother uttering a remark or exhibiting a smirk. They were, after all, very busy competent professionals.

After firmly fixing the remarkably bravely compliant Leo resolutely to the table, the chief castrater withdrew his gelding knife from his leather scabbard and tested the brutal sharpness of the blade in front of the watching boy, who despite his ostensible courage was also still clearly very fearful. The man was constantly honing the weapon when off duty, whilst thinking about the recent cruel deeds perpetrated with the implement, and so already knew that the tool was ready for the imminent task but his examination at such moments had become rather sadistically habitual.

The chief castrater loved his trade, which he had conducted for many years. His inherent sadism made him thoroughly enjoy depriving males of their balls, especially those of his younger, prettier and more important victims. Consequently, gelding the very handsome youthful Leo, erstwhile heir to the throne, represented a career highlight.

After ordering one of his assistants to find a fire to heat the cauterising poker, the chief castrater placed a small pottery dish between Leo’s firmly secured splayed legs. The man then gave the boy a tough piece of leather to place between his teeth to avoid damaging his young lips and tongue during the imminent castration process.

After happily observing Leo’s pristinely white teeth accept the leather chew in line with his instructions, the chief castrater then began to concentrate on the young balls that he wanted to extract and return as souvenirs of his craftsmanship to the Imperial palace. He started to do so by gently feeling the boy’s nicely proportioned rotund scrotum, which was unusually hairless for a 17 year-old. In fact, the only really noticeable localised hirsute covering was the small golden pubic patch just above the endangered genitals.

The chief castrater gently squeezed Leo’s scrotum, in order to confirm the location, shape and size of the condemned balls. The man then smiled at the petrified but still brave boy and suggested “The process shouldn’t take very long, Sir, or be too painful.” He neglected to add that the final cauterisation of the resultant wound would, however, be undoubtedly excruciating.

By now, Leo’s cock was incongruously embarrassingly rigid, pointing up towards his cute navel at an angle of about 45° to his lower belly. This humiliatingly strange, to the boy, phenomenon was maintained after the chief castrater now bound the base of his next young victim’s genitals very tightly with cord in order to restrict the flow of blood to the sexual organs.

The chief castrater next again gently checked the whereabouts of Leo’s balls within their current fleshy scrotal covering, which the cord had caused to become even more rotundly taut, before introducing the cool razor-sharp tip of his gelding knife to the scene. Leo felt the cold blade pressing against the upper middle of his sac and his already nervous heavy breathing intensified, as was exemplified by the increased and more rapid undulations displayed by his lithe smooth stomach.

Aided by the fact that Leo’s uplifted erection had nicely exposed the boy’s unprotected scrotum to view, the chief castrater now carefully began his excision, whilst gently gripping the unruly young penis. The man sliced neatly downwards to pierce the juvenile sac immediately below.

With such expert precision and speed that Leo had not immediately realised that the deed had been completed, the chief castrater then gently opened the created aperture with his fingers, reached inside with his knife and with one snip severed one of the spermatic cords within. The boy only realised that he was now a half-eunuch after the man’s digits subsequently carefully followed his withdrawn knife into the opened scrotum to extract the first severed testicle.

The chief castrater then happily exhibited the extracted little off-white orb to Leo’s appalled eyes before placing the testicle in the small pottery dish placed, deliberately for the purpose, between the boy’s splayed legs. Soon afterwards, conformation that the 17 year-old had been fully gelded was also similarly visually presented and manually stored.

Leo, however, did not pay much notice to the second of his severed testicles, and not only because, despite his intent to be courageous, his eyes were now full of tears, mainly as a result of the shame rather than pain of being converted into a eunuch. The brave boy’s lack of visual attention was instead caused by his entry into one final ecstatic orgasm, which encouraged his erection energetically to spurt ejaculate onto his belly, chest and up as far as his pretty face.

For Leo, once he had recovered from his unexpected, but not unusual for other victims in such circumstances, climax, this shameful ultimate heralding of his conversion into a eunuch was one final humiliation too much. The boy began to sob uncontrollably.

Consequently, perhaps thankfully for Leo’s pride, the subsequent quick and expert but excruciating cauterising of his genital wound by a red-hot poker then induced the boy to lose consciousness.

Chapter κ – Imperial Aftermath

‘“My Lord, I am astonished that a soldier with your reputation, once he has the men in his power, should amuse himself by making war on women……..Could you commit a crueller act of war than to deprive us of children? When you make eunuchs of our men you mutilate us. I did not complain when you took our animals and goods……..[My husband] has eyes, a nose, hands and feet. Those are things you can take from him if you think he deserves it but leave him what belongs to me!”’

- a Byzantine wife successfully pleading with Theobald, Duke of Spoleto in Italy, after he had taken an enemy fortress and proposed as usual to castrate the captured garrison

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, next day)

Basil entered into a long furious rage after being presented with the clear evidence that his original command to castrate Leo had been fulfilled because the countermanding order had arrived too late. The Emperor had thrown the small pottery bowl, containing the relevant two testicles, to the floor and ranted and raved at everyone for an hour or so before eventually again retiring alone to a palace chapel, this time to seek God’s forgiveness.

(Proti Monastery, Proti Island, Propontis [modern Kinali in the Sea of Marmara], same time)

Leo had awoken on the previous day to find himself on the bed in Eudocius’ room. The boy was fully clothed and the only soreness that he felt was to his head and not to his groin.

Astutely realising what Eudocius had done to him and why, and despite his head wound, Leo had rushed from the bed, opened the closed door leading to the adjoining room and then almost fainted himself. On the table in his own chamber was his now untied best friend, who was still unconscious and naked, apart from the bandaging applied to his freshly gelded genitals.

The heavy book used by Eudocius to render his princely best friend unconscious had still been on the floor. After confirming his fellow 17 year-old’s relative welfare, Leo had picked up the weighty tome.

Now, a day later, whilst Eudocius was sleeping to aid his recovery, having been given a sedative to aid recuperation by the monks, Leo, who was sitting next to the bed in which his best friend was slumbering, was reading the book. The author of the weighty tome had been the previous Patriarch of Constantinople, Ignatius [*].

Ignatius had been born with the name of Nicetas. He had been one of the three sons of the assassinated Emperor Michael I to be castrated on this very island in 813 on the orders of the usurper Basileus, Leo V. His youngest brother had tragically died because of the gelding process inflicted on him and had been buried with his murdered father.

Young Leo, who by now was aware of the cancellation of the Imperial command to castrate him, could not help but consider the use of this particular book by Eudocius, to save him at least temporarily from a similar fate to that suffered by the author of the tome 71 years earlier, to be highly ironic.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, same time)

When Basil heard in the palace chapel the amazing fresh news about Eudocius’ sacrifice, the Emperor looked up at the splendid altar and declared “Let God’s will be done!”

Basil then ordered the immediate release from imprisonment of both Leo and Eudocius and their return to the palace, where his supposed oldest son was to be restored to his rightful position.

Chapter λ – Imperial Successions

‘I doubt whether any other family has ever been so much favoured by God as [that of the Macedonians] has been, which is strange when one considers the criminal manner of its coming to power and how it was born of murder and bloodshed. And yet the plant took root, and sent out such mighty shoots, each bearing Imperial fruit, that no other can be compared with it for beauty and splendour.’

- Michael Psellus, an 11th century Byzantine scholastic chronicler, in his ‘Chronograhia’

(Imperial country palace, Apamea, over 2 years later, 29th August 886)

Basil died in a hunting accident that occurred near to his country palace at Apamea on the 29th of August 886. Despite some more and now desperate false slanderous assertions from Photius about Leo and his suitability to succeed, uttered in order to try to affect the succession to the Patriarch’s own advantage and so save his own skin, the 20 year-old then ascended the Byzantine throne.

Given so many personal difficulties during his early years, not least after his experience on Proti because Basil could easily have again changed his mind about him, Leo’s character could have been badly damaged. The fact that the personal disposition of the new young Emperor had, like that of Eudocius, remained charmingly considerate, kind and generous, and also blessed with formidable intellectual and scholastic powers, was therefore highly meritorious.

Such personal attributes on the part of Leo and Eudocius were also to serve the Byzantine Empire exceedingly well.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, 19 years later, September 905)

After Leo’s accession, he had quickly appointed at only 15 years of age his youngest brother, Stephen, to be the Patriarch of Constantinople in order to ensure smooth relationships between Church and State. He had done so after compelling Photius to abdicate and rather mercifully, given the cleric’s earlier harmful poisonous slanders, to go in exile to a remote monastery. Meanwhile, the new Emperor’s other sibling, Alexander, had been content to concentrate on matters of personal pleasure rather than Imperial governance.

During Basil’s later lifetime, Leo had tried his best to maintain at least a semblance of a cordial and loyal relationship with Theophano. He had never loved the girl but she had given him a daughter, Eudocia, who sadly subsequently died very young.

Theophano then became increasingly more religiously devout and eventually even forsook the matrimonial bed for a rough mat in the corner of their most intimate chamber, from which she regularly rose throughout each night to pray. To the undoubted relief of the new and still lustful Emperor, who was consequently forced to obtain his sexual pleasures elsewhere, she eventually retired to a convent, where she too sadly died young, being not yet 30.

The opportunity then arose for the widower Leo to make legal his renewed relationship with Zoe Zautsina. Controversially, particularly in the view of the Church, after her later sad early demise too, two further wives followed because the Emperor was now desperate to have a son.

Leo’s sickly but able youngest brother, Stephen, had also died young. Consequently, Leo faced the horrible prospect of being succeeded only by Alexander, who was proving to be as drunken and debauched a sot as Michael III had been. The Emperor was therefore desperate to have a son to avert this possibility, which could prove disastrous for the Empire.

Leo’s third wife, Eudocia Baiana, had actually achieved the desired feat but had not survived the childbirth. The baby son tragically died within a few days too.

Leo’s fourth, and according to the Church of the time, essentially illegitimate wife, the beautiful Zoe Carbonopsina, whose suffix nickname meant ‘with eyes as black as coal’, finally succeeded in September 905 where her three predecessors had failed. Young Constantine was quickly nicknamed ‘Porphyrogentius’.

Young Constantine had been given his nickname because he had been ‘born in the purple’, in other words he was the son of a reigning Emperor, who was therefore supposedly naturally destined to succeed his father as Basileus. Unfortunately, this sobriquet subsequently quickly appeared to be mistaken as far as the latter destiny was concerned.

Constantine proved to be a pretty but very frail child, whom a lot of people presumed would die even younger than his similarly sickly uncle, Stephen.

(Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, 6 years later, 29th August 911)

Aided by his personal intimate counsellor, the eunuch Eudocius, Leo VI was to prove to be, during his reign of over a quarter of a century, like his predecessor, Basil, one of the best Byzantine Emperors in terms of presiding over his domains. He ruled conscientiously and wisely, with his most important and enduring achievements being internal, particularly the codification of law, reorganisation of provincial administration and restructuring of the armed forces.

These key reforms proved essential for the Byzantine Empire’s future development and survival over many more centuries. However, perhaps because of Eudocius’ experience and his own near subjection to castration, Leo also legislated on a superficially much less significant issue, which was nevertheless of great importance to him. The Emperor introduced laws compensating illegally gelded eunuchs, as well as appointing many competent examples of such people to the highest offices of state.

The Emperor eventually became so noted for his ruling philosophic intelligence and sagacity that his people were to award him, when he was still in his 20s, a much more honourable suffix to his name than his real father, Michael III, ‘the Sot’, had earned. The retention of Leo’s balls through Eudocius’ brave sacrifice of his own testes was also to prove significant for posterity, but how this was to come about will be told in the next story in this occasional series.

On this day in Hagia Sophia, the elite of Constantinople were celebrating the 25th anniversary of Leo VI’s ascent to the throne, and giving thanks to God for gifting them such a great Emperor. All Christian services within the basilica were invariably of amazing magnificence but, on this occasion, the ceremony was of particular resplendence.

The entire court, splendidly attired in full Imperial regalia, congregated inside the Hagia Sophia before a curtain embroidered with half a million precious pearls, which veiled a huge golden altar inlaid with expensive gems. Thousands of candles illuminated the setting, whilst smoke rose from many incense burners.

Musicians dressed in scarlet accompanied hundreds of male choristers, with the Hagia Sophia’s massive curved dome above giving extraordinary resonance to the chants and singing. Meanwhile, the copious colourful surrounding mosaics shimmered in the candlelight.

Amidst the long and splendid ceremonial, Eudocius, who was standing close to the now 44 year-old Leo, could not help but glance at his similarly aged best friend. The Emperor now sported a beard of fair hair and his face looked pale and tired, for he could not be dissuaded by anyone from overworking, although evidence of the immense beauty that had once been present was still visible.

Leo selflessly devoted virtually all of his overlong waking hours to Imperial duty. However, the concerned Eudocius appreciated that the evident paleness and tiredness on the Emperor’s face were not just due to overwork.

Leo’s own concerns also extended to the survival of his sickly only son, Constantine, who was now almost 6 years old, and the appalling possibility that the Emperor’s inebriate younger brother, Alexander, might instead someday inherit the throne. The Basileus therefore regularly prayed to God to give his child good health and himself sufficient life left to see his offspring grow into manhood and safely succeed him.

Unfortunately, God was not to grant part of Leo’s prayer.

(Imperial palace, Constantinople, almost 8½ months later, 11th May 912)

Leo VI died naturally on the 11th of May 912 after being struck by a not normally deadly illness. Exhaustion and worry had fatally weakened the still relatively young Emperor, whose premature demise was universally mourned by the grieving but grateful citizenry of the Byzantine Empire.

Leo VI’s wanton brother, 41 year-old Alexander, succeeded as Emperor because Constantine was considered by general consensus to be much too young and sickly to do so and the idea of a regency had been rejected. The new Basileus then quickly began to plot his infant nephew’s castration so that the boy would never be a threat to his own position.

(Monastery of St. Lazaros, Constantinople, 1 week later, 18th May 912)

Having been tearfully present at the death of Leo VI one week previously, Eudocius, who at his own request had modestly never occupied any formal positions of state but who had nevertheless been the Emperor’s closest and most valued adviser, left the Imperial palace and court to become an Abbot. His appointment to the monastery of St. Lazaros in Constantinople had been the late Basileus’ final gift to his lifelong best friend.

Eudocius had actually earlier quickly realised that he was not too bothered about becoming a eunuch because his new standing offered compensations. For example, the unrequited torment of his previously desperate sexual yearnings, which had always centred round his desire for Leo, had ended.

As a eunuch, Eudocius had also been able to concentrate on achieving and retaining a status whereby there was no reason that he could not be almost constantly at his beloved’s waking side, albeit very discretely and almost invisibly. He additionally sagely revelled, genuinely without personal hubris, in recognising that, by being in such a fortunate situation, his wise advice was helping to make Leo a truly great Emperor.

Eudocius was, of course, immensely distraught about Leo’s relatively early death at the age of only 45. However, he was comforted by the fact that his best friend’s achievements had been considerable, although he could not help contemplating what wonders might have been attained if God had allowed the Emperor to live a lot longer.

Eudocius was naturally concerned that the new Emperor Alexander might destroy Leo’s legacy. He also worried about his late best friend’s only son, Constantine, whose fate was now at the mercy of his uncle.

Eudocius had originally hoped to be allowed to delay becoming an Abbot in order instead to serve young Constantine Porphyrogentius, perhaps as the boy’s tutor, so that he could keep a furtive protective watch on him. However, Alexander had rather worryingly dismissed the idea of such an appointment, instead quickly despatching the eunuch to take up his monastic position.

Given Alexander’s nefarious plans for young Constantine, the new Emperor did not want the boy to have any protectors. Especially unwelcome were people who had been closely allied to the previous Basileus.

Leo VI had actually established the monastery of St. Lazaros in honour of the sagacious Eudocius, the real nature of whose love towards him, in addition to his vital contribution to his rule of the Empire, he had privately come fully and happily to perceive, understand and accept. The religious retreat was exclusively reserved for monks who were eunuchs.

Eudocius considered the creation in his honour of the pleasant monastery for people like him to be another reason why his late best friend truly deserved the affectionate sobriquet given to him in his 20s by his people. He also now expected to spend his final days peacefully in contemplative solitude within the holy retreat. However, God had other ideas.

As the next story in this occasional series will relate, Eudocius had one final key task to perform for Leo. Significantly helped by another eunuch, of a type termed ‘carzimasia’, the successful fulfilment of this duty was to be of immense importance for the Byzantine Empire and posterity.

Chapter μ – Imperial Wisdom

(Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, today)

‘It is not nature but the malice of human beings that deprive the ektomiai [forcibly castrated eunuchs] of the joys of paternity.’

- Byzantine Emperor Leo VI

The magnificent mosaic, still extant in the lunette above the central, or ‘Imperial’, doorway of the nine leading from the vestibule into the main body of Hagia Sophia, does not, of course, depict Basil I, the so-called ‘Macedonian’, prostrating himself before Jesus Christ. The posthumous portrayal is instead of his very popular and great successor.

The posthumous mosaic, commissioned in response to popular demand, depicts Leo VI Sophōtatos, or Leo the Most Wise.

Τελος

(THE END

of

‘BYZANTINES ά : SOPHŌTATOS’

by Pueros)

(The next story in this occasional series will be entitled ‘Byzantines β : Carzimasia’)