While Constantine Porphyrogenitus had been dragging out the monotonous
 years of his long reign, events which completely changed the aspect of
 affairs in the Moslem East had been following each other in quick
 succession on the Asiatic frontier of his realm. Ever since it first came
 into existence the Byzantine Empire had been faced in Asia by a single
 powerful enemy; first by the Sassanian kingdom of Persia, then by the
 Caliphate under the two dynasties of the Ommeyades and the Abbasides. Now,
 however, the Caliphate had at last broken up, and the descendants of
 Abdallah-es-Saffah and Haroun-al-Raschid had become the vassals of a
 rebellious subject, and preserved a mere nominal sovereignty which did not
 extend beyond the walls of their palace in Bagdad.
 
 The crisis had come in 951 A.D., when the armies of the Buhawid prince
 Imad-ud-din, who had seized on the sovereignty of Persia, broke into
 Bagdad and made the Caliph a prisoner in his own royal residence. For the
 future the Caliphs were no more than puppets, and the Buhawid rulers used
 their names as a mere form and pretence. But the conquerors did not gain
 possession of the whole of the Caliphate; only Persia and the Lower
 Euphrates Valley obeyed them. Other dynasties rose and fought for the more
 western provinces of the old Moslem realm. The Emirs of Aleppo and Mosul,
 who ruled respectively in North Syria and in Mesopotamia, became the
 immediate neighbours of the East-Roman Empire, while the lands beyond
 them, Egypt and South Syria, formed the dominions of the house of the
 Ikshides.
 
 Thus the Byzantines found on their eastern frontier no longer one great
 centralized power, but the comparatively weak Emirates of Aleppo and
 Mosul, with the Buhawid and Ikshidite kingdoms in their rear. The four
 Moslem states were all new and precarious creations of the sword, and were
 generally at war with each other. An unparalleled opportunity had arrived
 for the empire to take its revenge on its ancient enemies and to move back
 the Mahometan boundaries from the line along the Taurus where they had so
 long been fixed.
 
 Fortunately it was not only the hour that had arrived, but also the man.
 The empire had at its disposal at this moment the best soldier that it had
 possessed since the death of Leo the Isaurian. Nicephorus Phocas was the
 head of one of those great landholding families of Asia Minor who formed
 the flower of the Byzantine aristocracy; he owned broad lands in
 Cappadocia, along the Mahometan frontier. His father and grandfather
 before him had been distinguished officers, for the whole race lived by
 the sword, but Nicephorus far surpassed them. He was not only a practical
 soldier, but a military author: his book, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}, dealing
 with the organization of armies, still survives to testify to his
 capacity.
 
 It was on Nicephorus then that Romanus II., the son and heir of
 Constantine VII., fixed his choice, when he resolved to commence an attack
 on the Mahometan powers. The point selected for assault was the island of
 Crete, the dangerous haunt of Corsairs which lay across the mouth of the
 Aegean, and sheltered the pestilent galleys that preyed on the trade of
 the empire with the West. Several expeditions against it had failed during
 the last half-century, but this one was fitted out on the largest scale.
 The vessels are said to have been numbered by the thousand, and the land
 force was chosen from the flower of the Asiatic "themes." Complete success
 followed the arms of Nicephorus. He drove the Saracens into their chief
 town Chandax (Candia), stormed that city, and took an enormous booty--the
 hoarded wealth of a century of piracy. The whole island then submitted,
 and Nicephorus sailed back to Constantinople to present to his sovereign,
 in bonds, Kurup the captive Emir of Crete, and all the best of the booty
 of the island [961 A.D.].
 
 Nicephorus was duly honoured for his feat of arms, and given command of an
 army destined to open a campaign in the next year against the great
 frontier strongholds of the Saracens in Asia Minor. Descending by the
 passes of the Central Taurus into Cilicia, Phocas stormed Anazarbus, and
 then forced Mount Amanus, and marched into Northern Syria. There he took
 the great town of Hierapolis, and laid siege to Aleppo, the capital of the
 Emir Seyf-ud-dowleh, who ruled from Mount Lebanon to the Euphrates. The
 Emir was routed, the walls of his capital were stormed, and Aleppo, with
 all its wealth, fell into the hands of the Byzantine general. But the
 citadel still held out, and its protracted resistance gave time for the
 Moslems of South Syria and Mesopotamia to combine for the relief of their
 northern compatriots. So great an army appeared before the walls of Aleppo
 that Phocas determined not to risk a battle, and retreated with his booty
 and his numerous prisoners into the defiles of Taurus [962 A.D.]. Sixty
 captured forts and castles in Cilicia and North Syria were the permanent
 fruits of his campaign.
 
 The next year the emperor Romanus II. died, very unexpectedly, ere he had
 reached his twenty-sixth year. He left a young wife, and two little boys,
 Basil, aged seven, and Constantine, who was only two. There followed the
 form of regency that custom had made usual. Nicephorus, the most powerful
 and popular subject of the empire, claimed the guardianship of the two
 young Caesars, and had himself crowned as their colleague. To secure his
 place he married their mother, the young and beautiful empress-dowager
 Theophano.
 
 The joint reign of Nicephorus Phocas and his wards, Basil II. and
 Constantine VIII. lasted six years, 963-969. The regent behaved with
 scrupulous loyalty to the young princes, and made no attempt to encroach
 on their rights, or to supplant them by any of his numerous nephews, who
 had looked forward to his accession as likely to lead to their own
 promotion to imperial power.
 
 Nicephorus was an indefatigable soldier, and spent more of his reign in
 the field than in the palace. His end in life was to complete, as emperor,
 the conquest of Cilicia and North Syria, which he had commenced as
 general. The years 964 and 965 were spent in achieving the former object:
 three long sieges made him master of the great Cilician frontier
 fortresses, Adana, Mopsuestia, and Tarsus. Their rich bronze gates were
 sent as trophies to Constantinople, and set up again in the archways of
 the imperial palace. A few months later the tale of victories was
 completed by the news that Cyprus also had fallen back into Byzantine
 hands, after having passed seventy-seven years in the power of the
 Saracens.
 
 For two years after this Phocas was employed at home, where his
 administration was less popular than in the camp. The stern old soldier
 was not a friend of either priests or courtiers. He had several quarrels
 with the patriarch Polyeuctus, which made him detested by the clergy, and
 in his public life he displayed a dislike for pomp and ceremony which led
 the Byzantine populace to style him a niggard and an extortioner. He
 suppressed shows and sports, and turned all the public revenues into the
 war budget, which lay nearest his heart. When he left the city in 968 for
 a new campaign against the Saracens, he was a much less popular ruler than
 when he had entered it in triumph in 966 after the conquest of Cilicia.
 
 In the camp, however, Nicephorus was as well loved and as successful as
 ever. His last Syrian expedition was no less glorious than his earlier
 campaign in the same quarter six years before. All the North Syrian cities
 fell into his hands--Emesa, Hierapolis, Laodicea, and with them Aleppo, the
 residence of the Emir: Damascus bought off the invader by a great tribute.
 Only Antioch, the ancient capital of the land, held out, and Antioch also
 was taken in the winter by escalade, through the daring of an officer
 named Burtzes. The story of its fall is curious. The Emperor had left a
 blockading army before it under a general named Peter, with orders not to
 risk an assault. Burtzes, the second in command, disobeyed orders and
 stormed a corner tower on a snowy night at the head of a small band of 300
 men. Peter, in fear of the Emperor's orders, refused to send him aid, and
 for more than two days Burtzes maintained himself unaided in the tower he
 had won. At last, however, the main body entered, and the Saracens fled
 from the town. Nicephorus dismissed both his generals from the
 service--Burtzes for having acted against orders, Peter for having obeyed
 them too slavishly, and allowing an important advantage to be imperilled.
 
 Nicephorus returned to Constantinople in the following year, to meet his
 death at the hands of those who should have been his nearest and dearest.
 His wife, Theophano had learnt to hate her grim and stern husband, who,
 though he possessed all the virtues, displayed none of the graces. She had
 cast her eyes in love on the Emperor's favourite nephew, John Zimisces, a
 young cavalry officer, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Syrian
 war. Zimisces listened to her tempting, but he was not swayed by lust, but
 by ambition: he had hoped that his uncle would make him heir to the
 throne, to the detriment of the young emperor Basil. The loyal old soldier
 had no idea of wronging his wards, and his nephew resolved to gain by
 murder what he could not gain by favour.
 
                               
 
    Return Of A Victorious Emperor. (_From an Embroidered Robe._) (_From
        "L'art Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 So John and Theophano conspired against their best friend, and basely
 murdered him in the palace one December night in 969. The Emperor was
 awakened from sleep to find a dozen of the assassins forcing his door.
 John threw him to the ground, and the others stabbed him, while he cried
 in his death-agony, "Oh, God! grant me Thy mercy!"
 
 Thus ended the brave and virtuous Nicephorus Phocas. His murderers
 succeeded in their end, for John Zimisces was able to seduce the guards,
 overawe the ministers, and force the patriarch to crown him emperor. He
 showed some contrition for the base slaughter of his uncle, giving away
 half his private fortune to found hospitals for lepers, and the other half
 to be distributed among the poor of the city. He did not wed the partner
 of his guilt, the empress Theophano, but refused to see her face, and
 ultimately sent her to a monastery.
 
 If the manner of his accession could but be forgiven John might pass for a
 favourable specimen of an emperor. He respected the rights of the young
 emperors Basil and Constantine as scrupulously as his uncle had done, and
 proved that as an administrator and a soldier he was not unworthy to sit
 in the seat of Phocas. But the Nemesis of the murder of his uncle rested
 upon him in the shape of a long civil war. His cousin Bardas Phocas took
 arms to revenge the death of the old Nicephorus, and stirred up troubles
 among his Cappadocian countrymen for several years, till at last he was
 captured and immured in a monastery.
 
 The chief feat for which John Zimisces is remembered is his splendid
 victory over the Russians, whose great invasion of the Balkan Peninsula
 falls within the limits of his reign. We have not yet had much occasion to
 mention the Russian tribes, who for many centuries had been dwelling in
 obscurity and barbarism, by the waters of the Dnieper and the Duna, in a
 land of forest and marsh, far remote from the boundaries of the empire.
 Nor should we hear of them now, but for the fact that their scattered
 tribes had been of late unified into a single horde by a power from
 without, and urged forward into a career of conquest by a race of
 ambitious princes. Into the land of the Russians there had come some
 hundred years before the reign of John Zimisces [862 A.D.], a Viking band
 from Sweden, headed by Rurik, the ancestor of all the princes and Tzars of
 Russia. The descendants of these adventurers from the north had gradually
 conquered and subdued all the Slavonic tribes of the great forest-land,
 and formed them into a single powerful kingdom. Its capital lay at Kief on
 the Dnieper, and it had proved a formidable neighbour to all the barbarous
 tribes around. The Viking blood of the new Russian princes drove them
 seaward, and ere many generations had passed they had forced their way
 down the Dnieper into the Euxine, and begun to vex the northern borders of
 the Byzantine Empire with raids and ravages like those which the Danes
 inflicted on Western Europe. Twice already, within the tenth century, had
 large fleets of light Russia row-boats--they were copies on a smaller scale
 of the Viking ships of the North--stolen down from the Dnieper mouth to the
 shores of Thrace, and landed their plundering crews within a few miles of
 the Bosphorus, for a hurried raid on the rich suburban provinces. On the
 first occasion in 907, the Russians had returned home laden with plunder,
 but on the second, which fell in 941, the Byzantine fleet had caught them
 at sea, and revenged the harrying of Thrace by sinking scores of their
 light boats, which could not resist for a moment the impact of the heavy
 war-galley urged by its hundred oars.
 
                               
 
 Arabesque Design From A Byzantine MS. (_From "L'Art Byzantin." Par Charles
                       Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 But the attack which John Zimisces had to meet in 970 was far more
 formidable than either of those which had preceded it. Swiatoslaf, king of
 the Russians, had come down the Dnieper with no less than 60,000 men, and
 had thrown himself on to the kingdom of Bulgaria, which was at the moment
 distracted by civil war. He conquered the whole country, and soon his
 marauders were crossing the Balkans and showing themselves in the plain of
 Thrace. They even sacked the considerable town of Philippopolis before the
 imperial troops came to its aid. This roused Zimisces, who had been absent
 in Asia Minor, and in the early spring of 971 an imperial army of 30,000
 men set out to cross the Balkans and drive the Russians into the Danube.
 The struggle which ensued was one of the most desperate which East-Roman
 history records. The Russians all fought on foot, in great square columns,
 armed with spear and axe: they wore mail shirts and peaked helmets, just
 like the Normans of Western Europe, to whom their princes were akin. The
 shock of their columns was terrible, and their constancy in standing firm
 almost incredible. Against these warriors of the North Zimisces led the
 mailed horsemen of the Asiatic themes, and the bowmen and slingers who
 were the flower of the Byzantine infantry. The tale of John's two great
 battles with the Russians at Presthlava and Silistria reads much like the
 tale of the battle of Hastings. In Bulgaria, as in Sussex, the sturdy
 axeman long beat off the desperate cavalry charges of their opponents. But
 they could not resist the hail of arrows to which they had no missile
 weapons to oppose, and when once the archers had thinned their ranks, the
 Byzantine cavalry burst in, and made a fearful slaughter in the broken
 phalanx. More fortunate than Harold Godwineson at the field of Senlac,
 King Swiatoslaf escaped with his life and the relics of his army. But he
 was beleaguered within the walls of Silistria, and forced to yield
 himself, on the terms that he and his men might take their way homeward,
 on swearing never to molest the empire again. The Russian swore the oath
 and took a solemn farewell of Zimisces. The contrast between the two
 monarchs struck Leo the Deacon, a chronicler who seems to have been
 present at the scene, and caused him to describe the meeting with some
 vigour. We learn how the Emperor, a small alert fair-haired man, sat on
 his great war-horse by the river bank, in his golden armour with his
 guards about him, while the burly Viking rowed to meet him in a boat, clad
 in nothing but a white shirt, and with his long moustache floating in the
 wind. They bade each other adieu, and the Russian departed, only to fall
 in battle ere the year was out, at the hands of the Patzinak Tartars of
 the Southern Steppes. Soon after Swiatoslaf's death the majority of the
 Russians became Christians, and ere long ceased to trouble the empire by
 their raids. They became faithful adherents of the Eastern Church, and
 drew their learning, their civilization, even their names and titles from
 Constantinople. The Tzars are but Caesars misspelt, and the list of their
 names--Michael, Alexander, Nicholas, John, Peter, Alexis--sufficiently
 witnesses to their Byzantine godparents. Russian mercenaries were ere long
 enlisted in the imperial army, and formed the nucleus of the "Varangian
 guard," in which at a later day, Danes, English, and Norsemen of all sorts
 were incorporated.
 
                               
 
 Russian Architecture From Byzantine Model. (_Church at Vladimir._) (_From
        "L'Art Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 John Zimisces survived his great victory at Silistria for five years, and
 won, ere he died, more territory in Northern Syria from the Saracens. The
 border which his uncle Nicephorus had pushed forward to Antioch and Aleppo
 was advanced by him as far as Amida and Edessa in Mesopotamia. But in the
 midst of his conquests Zimisces was cut off by death, while still in the
 flower of his age. Report whispered that he had been poisoned by one of
 his ministers, whom he had threatened to displace. But the tale cannot be
 verified, and all that is certain is that John died after a short illness,
 leaving the throne to his young ward Basil II., who had now attained the
 age of twenty years [976 A.D.].