Birthday Greetings #55

One of the principal problems with history is that to a great extent you have to rely on historians.  Traditionally (one might even say historically) almost no one has ever written a history from a disinterested desire to inform future generations as to what was going on.  There was usually some axe to grind.  Frequently it was an axe that until recently had been buried in the back of one of the protagonists.  There is a cliché to the effect that "history is written by the winners".  This is largely, although not completely, true.  But its also true that history tends to get written by people who want to be the winners, if not at the time then in posterity.  After all you can be the archangel Gabriel himself but if history records you as a worthless, degenerate whoremonger then that's how you're going to be remembered.  Possibly as a backlash against this it is a tendency amongst modern historians (who are, of course, selfless and impartial seekers after truth) to disregard or, at the very least, heavily reinterpret the works of earlier historians on the grounds that they can't be trusted.  Frequently these reworks lead to modern historians discovering much to their surprise that their own pet theories were correct after all.

With that as a salutary warning; happy birthday to Michael III, Byzantine emperor.  Michael ascended to the throne at the age of two (presumably the steps were shallow). His mother with a collection of relatives and advisers formed a regency council.  Regency councils were very popular as they provided the ideal forum for the type of murderous plotting which seemed to form the basis of a Byzantine emperor's education.  As Michael grew up he grew increasingly fond of his uncle Bardas, a fact which Bardas used to murder or imprison various members of the regency council.  At the age of sixteen Michael decided he didn't need what was left of his regency council (after all, he had uncle Bardas) and got rid of the lot of them.  Technically he now embarked on a period of sole rule.  It would appear that most of the ruling was actually done by Bardas.

According to historians (see paragraph 1)  Michael rapidly became a worthless drunk.  These historians were patronised by the succeeding Macedonian dynasty whose founder murdered Michael and took his throne.  It is fair to say that sympathy for the former emperor wasn't in their job description.  Modern historians have downplayed the entire worthless drunk issue as being part of the typically biased historical reporting.  Which leaves us in the unfortunate position of not being able to explain much about what was going on with Michael.

Whether Michael himself was responsible or not the empire wasn't doing too badly.  There were military victories against the Arabs, educational reforms, rebuilding of ruined cities and such.  There seemed to be a fair bit to do.  Even if we accept that Bardas was responsible for most of it at least Michael didn't stop him and even the pro Macedonian historians admit that drunk or not he led his troops in the field in person.

Another, somewhat double edged, coup was the replacement of Ignatios, the patriarch of Constantinople (and thus effectively head of the Orthodox church) with a guy named Photios.  It is fair to say that Photios wore his religious obligations fairly lightly but he made up for it by being one of the best educated and most formidably talented men of his age.  Indeed he was so learned that there were rumours he was actually a master of the occult and a servant of the devil and in an ignorant age there can be no higher compliment.  He was also a highly capable head of the church.  Unfortunately at least part of the church didn't agree.  By comparison with Photios his predecessor Ignatios was an ignorant bigot but he did have the advantage of believing in god as something more than a metaphysical concept.  His supporters petitioned the pope for his reinstatement.  The pope, always happy to exert his rapidly dwindling authority over the Byzantine church, sent investigators to Constantinople to find out exactly what had happened.  Photios met them, charmed them, wined and dined them, wrote their report for them and sent them home.  The pope exploded in rage and excommunicated Photios.  Photios excommunicated the pope right back.

There was, of course, something else behind this flurry of religious tit for tat than just the pope's deep concern that the election of Photios had been uncanonical (it was).  The something else was Bulgaria.  Bulgaria was a pagan country to the north of European Byzantium.  The two nations already had a long history which consisted largely of invading each other.  However the ruler of Bulgaria was shopping around for a respectable religion (no-one took pagans seriously) and both Rome and Constantinople were eager to bring Bulgaria into their orbit.  Photios jumped first and best.  He persuaded Michael to invade Bulgaria, conversion to orthodox Christianity was part of the price Bulgarians paid for peace.

So what was Michael doing while all this was going on?  According to subsequent historians he was drinking himself senseless, watching chariot races and on his occasional moments of chariot free sobriety leading his army into battle.  Oh yes, he was also sleeping with the daughter of one of his guardsmen.  At some point Michael had acquired a hanger-on by the name of Basil.  Basil was a horse breaker from Macedonia and according to legend he had impressed the emperor by being able to tame a horse no-one else could control.  Naturally promotion to high rank followed.  Bardas, either Michael's senior adviser or the true ruler of the empire depending on your viewpoint was appalled at this scruffy thug who appeared to pander to all of the worst aspects of Michael's personality.  He would have even more excuse to be appalled somewhat later when Basil convinced Michael that Bardas was plotting against him and cut him up for dogmeat in the emperor's tent.  As a reward Michael made Basil chamberlain.  He also made Basil marry his mistress.  This was a convenient way of keeping the girl in the imperial palace.

Then Michael made his final mistake, he made Basil co-emperor and formally adopted him as his son.  Basil said "thanks very much" waited until Michael was hopelessly drunk (or possibly just had a sick headache) and cheerfully murdered him.  As the sole surviving emperor Basil the Macedonian took over the empire and the Macedonian dynasty was born.  Naturally one of the first requirements was for a clutch of convenient historians to blacken the name of the previous occupant of the throne.