If Leo the Isaurian had died on the day on which the army of the Caliph
 raised the siege of Constantinople it would have been well for his
 reputation in history. Unhappily for himself, though happily enough for
 the East-Roman realm, he survived yet twenty years to carry through a
 series of measures which were in his eyes not less important than the
 repulse of the Moslems from his capital. Historians have given to the
 scheme of reform which he took in hand the name of the Iconoclastic
 movement, because of the opposition to the worship of images which formed
 one of the most prominent features of his action.
 
 For the last hundred years the empire had been declining in culture and
 civilization; literature and art seemed likely to perish in the
 never-ending clash of arms: the old-Roman jurisprudence was being
 forgotten, the race of educated civil servants was showing signs of
 extinction, the governors of provinces were now without exception rough
 soldiers, not members of that old bureaucracy whose Roman traditions had
 so long kept the empire together. Not least among the signs of a decaying
 civilization were the gross superstitions which had grown up of late in
 the religious world. Christianity had begun to be permeated by those
 strange mediaeval fancies which would have been as inexplicable to the
 old-Roman mind of four centuries before as they are to the mind of the
 nineteenth century. A rich crop of puerile legends, rites, and observances
 had grown up of late around the central truths of religion, unnoticed and
 unguarded against by theologians, who devoted all their energies to the
 barren Monothelite and Monophysite controversies. Image-worship and
 relic-worship in particular had developed with strange rapidity, and
 assumed the shape of mere Fetishism. Every ancient picture or statue was
 now announced as both miraculously produced and endued with miraculous
 powers. These wonder-working pictures and statues were now adored as
 things in themselves divine: the possession of one of them made the
 fortune of a church or monastery, and the tangible object of worship seems
 to have been regarded with quite as much respect as the saint whose memory
 it recalled. The freaks to which image-worship led were in some cases
 purely grotesque; it was, for example, not unusual to select a picture as
 the godfather of a child in baptism, and to scrape off a little of its
 paint and produce it at the ceremony to represent the saint. Even
 patriarchs and bishops ventured to assert that the hand of a celebrated
 representation of the Virgin distilled fragrant balsam. The success of the
 Emperor Heraclius in his Persian campaign was ascribed by the vulgar not
 so much to his military talent as to the fact that he carried with him a
 small picture of the Virgin, which had fallen from heaven!
 
                               
 
  Bishops, Monks, Kings, Laymen, And Women, Adoring The Madonna. (_From a
     Byzantine MS._) (_From "L'Art Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris,
                              Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 All these vain beliefs, inculcated by the clergy and eagerly believed by
 the mob, were repulsive to the educated laymen of the higher classes.
 Their dislike for vain superstitions was emphasized by the influence of
 Mahometanism on their minds. For a hundred years the inhabitants of the
 Asiatic provinces of the empire had been in touch with a religion of which
 the noblest feature was its emphatic denunciation of idolatry under every
 shape and form. An East-Roman, when taunted by his Moslem neighbour for
 clinging to a faith which had grown corrupt and idolatrous, could not but
 confess that there was too much ground for the accusation, when he looked
 round on the daily practice of his countrymen.
 
 Hence there had grown up among the stronger minds of the day a vigorous
 reaction against the prevailing superstitions. It was more visible among
 the laity than among the clergy, and far more widespread in Asia than in
 Europe. In Leo the Isaurian this tendency stood incarnate in its most
 militant form, and he left the legacy of his enthusiasm to his
 descendants. Seven years after the relief of Constantinople he commenced
 his crusade against superstition. The chief practices which he attacked
 were the worship of images and the ascription of divine honours to
 saints--more especially in the form of Mariolatry. His son Constantine,
 more bold and drastic than his father, endeavoured to suppress monasticism
 also, because he found the monks the most ardent defenders of images; but
 Leo's own measures went no further than a determined attempt to put down
 image-worship.
 
 The struggle which he inaugurated began in A.D. 725, when he ordered the
 removal of all the images in the capital. Rioting broke out at once, and
 the officials who were taking down the great figure of Christ Crucified,
 over the palace-gate, were torn to pieces by a mob. The Emperor replied by
 a series of executions, and carried out his policy all over the empire by
 the aid of armed force.
 
 The populace, headed by the monks, opposed a bitter resistance to the
 Emperor's doings, more especially in the European provinces. They set the
 wildest rumours afloat concerning his intentions; it was currently
 reported that the Jews had bought his consent to image-breaking, and that
 the Caliph Yezid had secretly converted him to Mahometanism. Though Leo's
 orthodoxy in matters doctrinal was unquestioned, and though he had no
 objection to the representation of the cross, as distinguished from the
 crucifix, he was accused of a design to undermine the foundations of
 Christianity. Arianism was the least offensive fault laid to his account.
 The Emperor's enemies did not confine themselves to passive resistance to
 his crusade against images. Dangerous revolts broke out in Greece and
 Italy, and were not put down without much fighting. In Italy, indeed, the
 imperial authority was shaken to its foundations, and never thoroughly
 re-established. The Popes consistently opposed the Iconoclastic movement,
 and by their denunciation of it placed themselves at the head of the
 anti-imperial party, nor did they shrink from allying themselves with the
 Lombards, who were now, as always, endeavouring to drive the East-Roman
 garrisons from Ravenna and Naples.
 
 The hatred which Leo provoked might have been fatal to him had he not
 possessed the full confidence of the army. But his great victory over the
 Saracens had won him such popularity in the camp, that he was able to
 despise the wrath of the populace, and carry out his schemes to their end.
 Beside instituting ecclesiastical reforms he was a busy worker in all the
 various departments of the administration. He published a new code of
 laws, the first since Justinian, written in Greek instead of Latin, as the
 latter language was now quite extinct in the Balkan Peninsula. He
 reorganized the finances of the empire, which had fallen into hopeless
 confusion in the anarchy between 695 and 717. The army had much of his
 care, but it was more especially in the civil administration of the empire
 that he seems to have left his mark. From Leo's day the gradual process of
 decay which had been observable since the time of Justinian seems to come
 to an end, and for three hundred years the reorganized East-Roman state
 developed a power and energy which appear most surprising after the
 disasters of the unhappy seventh century. Having once lived down the
 Saracen danger, the empire reasserted its ancient mastery in the East,
 until the coming of the Turks in the eleventh century. We should be glad
 to have the details of Leo's reforms, but most unhappily the monkish
 chroniclers who described his reign have slurred over all his good deeds,
 in order to enlarge to more effect on the iniquities of his crusade
 against image-worship. The effects of his work are to be traced mainly by
 noting the improved and well-ordered state of the empire after his death,
 and comparing it with the anarchy that had preceded his accession.
 
                               
 
    Representation Of The Madonna Enthroned. (_From a Byzantine Ivory._)
    (_From "L'Art Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 Leo died in 740, leaving the throne to his son, Constantine V., whom he
 had brought up to follow in his own footsteps. The new emperor was a good
 soldier and a capable man of business, but his main interest in life
 centred in the struggle against image-worship. Where Leo had chastised the
 adherents of superstition with whips Constantine chastised them with
 scorpions. He was a true persecutor, and executed not only rioters and
 traitors, as his father had done, but all prominent opponents of his
 policy who provoked his wrath. Hence he incurred an amount of hatred even
 greater than that which encompassed Leo III., and his very name has been
 handed down to history with the insulting byword _Copronymus_ tacked on to
 it.
 
 Though strong and clever, Constantine was far below his father in ability,
 and his reign was marked by one or two disasters, though its general tenor
 was successful enough. Two defeats in Bulgaria were comparatively
 unimportant, but a noteworthy though not a dangerous loss was suffered
 when Ravenna and all the other East-Roman possessions in Central Italy
 were captured by the Lombards in A.D. 750. At this time Pope Stephen, when
 attacked by the same enemy, sent for aid to Pipin the Frank, instead of
 calling on the Emperor, and for the future the papacy was for all
 practical purposes dependent on the Franks and not on the empire. The loss
 of the distant exarchate of Ravenna seemed a small thing, however, when
 placed by the side of Constantine's successes against the Saracens, Slavs,
 and Bulgarians, all of whom he beat back with great slaughter on the
 numerous occasions when they invaded the empire.
 
 But in the minds both of Constantine himself and of his contemporaries,
 his dealings with things religious were the main feature of his reign. He
 collected a council of 338 bishops at Constantinople in 761, at which
 image-worship was declared contrary to all Christian doctrine, and after
 obtaining this condemnation, attacked it everywhere as a heresy and not
 merely a superstition. In the following year, finding the monks the
 strongest supporters of the images, he commenced a crusade against
 monasticism. He first forbade the reception of any novices, and shortly
 afterwards begun to close monasteries wholesale. We are told that he
 compelled many of their inmates to marry by force of threats; others were
 exiled to Cyprus by the hundred; not a few were flogged and imprisoned,
 and a certain number of prominent men were put to death. These unwise
 measures had the natural effect: the monks were everywhere regarded as
 martyrs, and the image-worship which they supported grew more than ever
 popular with the masses.
 
 While still in the full vigour of his persecuting enthusiasm, Constantine
 Copronymus died in 775, leaving the throne to his son, Leo IV., an
 Iconoclast, like all his race, but one who imitated the milder measures of
 his grandfather rather than the more violent methods of his father. Leo
 was consumptive and died young, after a reign of little more than four
 years, in which nothing occurred of importance save a great victory over
 the Saracens in 776. His crown fell to his son, Constantine VI., a child
 of ten, while the Empress-Dowager Irene became sole regent, and her name
 was associated with that of her son in all acts of state.
 
 The Isaurian dynasty was destined to end in a fearful and unnatural
 tragedy. The Empress Irene was clever, domineering, and popular. The
 irresponsible power of her office of regent filled her with overweening
 ambition. She courted the favour of the populace and clergy by stopping
 the persecution of the image-worshippers, and filled all offices, civil
 and military, with creatures of her own. For ten years she ruled
 undisturbed, and grew so full of pride and self-confidence that she looked
 forward with dismay to the prospect of her son's attaining his majority
 and claiming his inheritance. Even when he had reached the age of manhood
 she kept him still excluded from state affairs, and compelled him to
 marry, against his will, a favourite of her own. Constantine was neither
 precocious nor unfilial, but in his twenty-second year he rebelled against
 his mother's dictation, and took his place at the helm of the state. Irene
 had actually striven to oppose him by armed force, but he pardoned her,
 and after secluding her for a short time, restored her to her former
 dignity. The unnatural mother was far from acquiescing in her son's
 elevation, and still dreamed of reasserting herself. She took advantage of
 the evil repute which Constantine won by a disastrous war with Bulgaria,
 and an unhappy quarrel with the Church, on the question of his divorce
 from the wife who had been forced upon him. More especially, however, she
 relied on her popularity with the multitude, which had been won by
 stopping the persecution of the image-worshippers during her regency, for
 Constantine had resumed the policy of his ancestors and developed strong
 Iconoclastic tendencies when he came to his own.
 
 In 797 Irene imagined that things were ripe for attacking her son, and
 conspirators, acting by her orders, seized the young emperor, blinded him,
 and immured him in a monastery before any of his adherents were able to
 come to his aid. Thus ended the rule of the Isaurian dynasty. Constantine
 himself, however, survived many years as a blind monk, and lived to see
 the ends of no less than five of his successors.
 
 The wicked Irene sat on her ill-gained throne for some five troublous
 years, much vexed by rebellion abroad and palace intrigues at home. It is
 astonishing that her reign lasted so long, but it would seem that her
 religious orthodoxy atoned in the eyes of many of her subjects for the
 monstrous crime of her usurpation. The end did not come till 802, when
 Nicephorus, her grand treasurer, having gained over some of the eunuchs
 and other courtiers about her person, quietly seized her and immured her
 in a monastery in the island of Chalke. No blow was struck by any one in
 the cause of the wicked empress, and Nicephorus quietly ascended the
 throne.
 
                               
 
                           Details Of St. Sophia.
 
 
 Though containing little that is memorable in itself, the reign of Irene
 must be noted as the severing-point of that connection between Rome and
 Constantinople, which had endured since the first days of empire. In the
 year 800 Pope Leo III. crowned Karl, King of the Franks, as Roman Emperor,
 and transferred to him the nominal allegiance which he had hitherto paid
 to Constantinople. Since the Italian rebellion in the time of Constantine
 Copronymus, that allegiance had been a mere shadow, and the papacy had
 been in reality under Frankish influence. But it was not till 800 that the
 final breach took place. The Iconoclastic controversy had prepared the way
 for it, while the fact that a woman sat on the imperial throne served as a
 good excuse for the Pope's action. Leo declared that a female reign was an
 anomaly and an abomination, and took upon himself the onus of ending it,
 so far as Italy was concerned, by creating a new emperor of the West.
 There was, of course, no legality in the act, and Karl the Great was in no
 real sense the successor of Honorius and Romulus Augustulus, but he ruled
 a group of kingdoms which embraced the larger half of the old Western
 Empire, and formed a fair equipoise to the realm now ruled by Irene. From
 800, then, onward we have once more a West-Roman empire in existence as
 well as the East-Roman, and it will be convenient for many purposes to use
 the adjective Byzantine instead of the adjective Roman, when we are
 dealing with the remaining history of the realm that centred at
 Constantinople.