The non-specialist, forewarned, will probably find the differences in nuance
between historical accounts written from court and from severely Christian
perspectives more illuminating than confusing. Two other types of evidence
supply contrasts or supplements to what is on offer from Byzantine narratives.
Firstly, accounts penned by persons with no ambition whatsoever
to be considered ‘Roman’ reveal much about Byzantine history, as the frequent
citations from them in chapters below will attest.Here one may note
that several conflicts or confrontations between the empire and external
rary
sources that were composed by third parties. A prime example is the
Arab conquests in the seventh century, recounted by an eyewitness Egyptian
bishop, John of Nikiu, and by the contemporary Armenian author
now known as Sebeos, as well as by later Byzantine and Muslim writers.45
Other examples might include the encounters, diplomatic and military,
between Byzantine emperors and the emergent German and Rus leaderships
of the second half of the tenth century,46 while the First and Fourth
Crusades each inspired a classic Byzantine set piece as well as vivid eyewitness
accounts from westerners.47 Adversarial situations and battles are the
stuff of narrative, and outside observers or travellers – other than ninthand
tenth-centuryMuslim writers48 – have less to say about peaceful forms
of exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours, or about the internal
structure of the empire.
This brings us to a second type of evidence that may draw the newcomer
closer to the inner workings of the empire. It is neither narrative nor
descriptive of Byzantium, but consists of didactic texts ranging from general
theoretical considerations, maxims and counsel to precise technical instructions.
In some ways these texts resemble the Byzantine source-material discussed
above, seeing that they could be termed idealising or aspirational.
They prescribe how things ought to be done, rather than describing things
as they were. They do not amount to archival data, functioning organs of
the empire in use. But the durability of some of the texts suggests that they
appeared relevant, of potential invocation or practical application. The format
could also allow a writer to voice opinions on contemporary issues of
politics and society as well as on the abstract or the technical. This in itself
gives them historical source value. Furthermore, some touch on issues of
life and statecraft that seldom ranked as suitable subject-matter for formal
historical compositions. Only a few examples will be cited here, not least
because the Byzantines closely followed – and copied – the instructions of
the ancients on so many subjects, grammar, mathematics, medicine and
warfare among them. Attempts were, however, made to update received
wisdom in light of changing circumstances; occasionally a wholly new text
was composed. Fortunately, the Byzantines’ more original texts and major
revamps tend to attract English translators.
A notable example of political thought couched as recommendations to
an emperor dates from Justinian’s era, Agapetus’ Mirror of princes. Ernest
Barker translated extensive sections, together with excerpts from orations
and other texts bearing on political thought for eras up to the last decades
of the Byzantine empire. Among the works translated and commented on
by Barker are Gemistos Plethon’s ‘Address toManuel Palaiologos on affairs
in the Peloponnese’, and his ‘Treatise on laws’.49
One duty of the emperor himself was to set a moral lead, and his injunctions
could have the status of solemn precepts or law. Leo VI expanded
on this notion not only with his sermons, but also with other writings,
including two treatises on military tactics, drawn largely from earlier texts.
One of his main sources, the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice, is available
in English as is the ‘constitution’ on naval warfare taken from Leo’s Tactica,
but the rest of Leo’s oeuvre awaits its translator.50 Leo’s son Constantine
went further still, commissioning a lengthy series of excerpts from classical
and early Byzantine historical texts, each collection devoted to one topic,
for example ‘plots against emperors’, ‘virtue and vice’ and ‘instructive sayings’.
Constantine thereby displayed his unique access to book-learning,
but his preface is addressed to ‘the public’. The texts are mostly in fairly
straightforward Greek, and the lists of excerpted authors provided at the
start of, probably, each set will have facilitated quick consultation. The ‘public’
probably consisted in practice mainly of persons in state service, who
might benefit from picking up guidebooks, user-friendly both for practical
expertise and for the broader ethical and cultural hinterland of empire.One
of the few extant sets of excerpts is devoted to ‘embassies’, presumably being
designed for persons involved with diplomacy in one way or another. The
lengthy excerpts from a sixth-century historian of diplomatic exchanges are
coherent enough for them to have been published in translation, partially
reconstructing the now-lost original.51
Constantine VII’s regard for the written word as a means of enhancing
good form and order is shown by the compilation on court ceremonies he
commissioned. His sideswipe at Romanos I Lekapenos (920–44) for shortcomings
in ceremonial (see above, p. 19) hits on a fundamental question:
how to maintain stately continuity while accommodating the dynamics
of power shifts, finding room for one-off events and exceptional circumstances.
The Book of ceremonies, while invoking the harmony of movement
that God gives to all creation, draws partly on memoranda arising from
particular occasions. Scholars have detected the layers of adaptation and
improvisation underlying this, and the English translation now in preparation
should make this plain.52 Constantine’s concern to uphold imperial
decorum and exclusivity at all events emerges equally from the treatises
on imperial expeditionary forces compiled for him.53 Most striking of all,
however, are the prescriptions for divide-and-rule and other techniques of
statecraft in his De administrando imperio.54 Romilly Jenkins’ translation
conveys the generally plain style both of the source-materials assembled
by Constantine and his aides, and of the emperor’s own written ‘doctrine’.
We glimpse the Realpolitik behind the scenes, the presupposition that the
barbarians for whom the grand receptions were staged were driven mainly
by greed, fear and mutual rivalries. A ruler’s personal assumptions and calculations
about his polity are captured, albeit in snapshot form, to a degree
virtually unparalleled among pre-modern states. And all in the name of
taxis.
World History
