Thither to Tsargrad
The Building of Babel
“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they commence: and henceforth nothing will be restrained from them, which they have conceived to do. Anon, let us descend, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they ceased to build the city. Therefore is the name of it Babel; for the Lord did there confound the language of all creation: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
Genesis 11:5-9
I’m continuing my lectures; I’ve got a feeling most of the students are just sitting and waiting for a name they recognize, like Alexander, or maybe even Theodore. But I’d really like to talk about the civil war and the vicious struggle for the Imperial diadem first. Heraklios Monomakh, the blood scarcely dry upon his hands, died; and the son for whose sake he did the slayings took throne.
Constantine may have once been a good accountant and a decent bureaucrat but by the time he took the throne his depression deepened into madness. This was soon confirmed in the most dramatic fashion. After brooding about it for several months, he decided to spend the treasury, collected over most of his father’s reign, on building a great tower outside of Constantinople’s walls, ostensibly to signify unity of the disparate peoples of the Monomach Empire under the Despots and under God.
Immediately, Constantine’s opponents, who were many, dubbed it the “tower of Babel”, and foretold doom to the Empire as a result of the foolish venture. This, combined with the news that the old Empress Anastasia had been accused by the patriarch of speaking heresy had cast the entire dynasty in a terrible light. A great proportion of Constantine’s vassals immediately declared war on him; but they could not agree on who should be the next Emperor.
Nikephoros Mouzakios, the Rhodian Emperor, was a more capable leader than his father Theodore had been, and thus, to the Greek vassals, seemed a reasonable choice. His recent overthrow and annexation of all lands formerly occupied by the Moslem princes of Hum gained him manpower and respect; soon the lords of Krete and Thessaly joined him, as did several of Constanine’s erstwhile vassals – the Knytling prince of Tana, the Prince-Bishop of Theodosia as well as the princes of Dorylaion. With this newly-amassed strength he declared war upon Constantine; the Seljuks backed him as well, allowing his troops free passage.
Constantine, to his credit, was not the least bit afraid, but that was probably because he was crazy. Perhaps he was also trying to appease his father's ghost - Heraklois always thought him weak. However, despite that he was in a difficult situation, further compounded by the fact that his Russian vassals also rose in rebellion, and while most were too weak to seriously challenge him, his uncle Theodore, the prince of Novgorod-Severskiy, gained a large following. While Consantine’s armies were fairly successful in stalling Nikephoros’ forces, they met with disaster as Theodore marched from town to town, besieged them or bribed them, and deprived Constantine of the much-needed manpower. Nikephoros, upon receiving the news, grew bolder and pressed on. The campaign of 1132 saw the loss of Vidin and Nikopolis to the Rhodians, and most of the Russian possessions to Theodore. Constantine’s forces recovered the following year and forced the Rhodians back; Nikephoros retreated to his home island, waiting for reinforcements from Syria and Anatolia to resume the campaign. In July 1133 the voivoda and the people of Pereyaslavl opened the gates of the city to Theodore, and by autumn only Theodoros remained in Constantine’s hands. Even ostensibly loyal vassals, like Ingvar the Knytling of Tmutarakan did not lend troops to support the Despot’s cause. In the chaos of the situation, several weaker vassals, having rebelled against the Despot and therefore having lost all support from Constantinople and Pereyaslavl, were taken over by the Kimiak horde and the resurgent Novgorodian republic.
The situation was getting desperate. Constantine decided to attack Nikephoros directly; his army boarded the transports and accompanied by his much-larger navy, sailed for Rhodos. Nikephoros’ ships were beaten in a battle off the island, and he was now trapped, while Constantine was free to make a landing. However, Fortune being herself, the mad Despot didn’t manage to benefit from his one success: he was killed on the beach as he leapt ashore with his men. His Admiral then called off the attack and sailed back for Constantinople.
By next year Rhodian troops were once again occupying Bulgaria; however, a decision of immense importance was made among the powerful families of Constantinople: instead of offering the Despotate and the key to the city to Nikephoros, they instead sent for Theodore, whose army was even then sailing down the Bulgarian coast. Having inherited all claims from his unfortunate nephew, he was supported wholeheartedly by Pereyaslavl, the Crimea and Severschina; the support of Constantinople gave him further clout and, as his army was making its slow progress along the Danube to Vidin, messengers from the princes of the Rostov region came one after another, tripping over themselves to offer the new power their allegiance. Ingvar Vsevolodovich finally threw his lot in with Theodore by the end of the year.
Finally, Theodore knew that his treachery paid off; the power he wielded was greater than that of Nikephoros; he hastened to confront the Rhodian army in Bulgaria, while another expedition sailed for Rhodos. Both operations were successful; Nikephoros, having been captured on the battlefield and having nowhere to run as the centres of his power were one by one occupied by Theodore’s troops, surrendered his crown. This was the stone that crowned the long-constructed Babel tower that we came to call the Barbarian Empire.
Theodore’s remaining reign – of which we shall speak later - was immensely successful and compares favourably even to his talented successors’ reigns. Under his shrewed and aggressive leadership, the united Empire of the Romans, Rus and Bulgars would regain most territories lost under the Doukas and Mouzakios Emperors, and drive the Western crusaders from most of the key cities in Russia. When Theodore died, his Empire stretched from the Caucasus to Croatia and from Krete to Novgorod, ruling more than a dozen nations and all major faiths of Europe with his iron hand.
It would prove a great challenge to his successors to keep this Empire together, a task which they managed with varying degrees of success for no less than five generations.
