Read Online The Apogee - Byzantium 02 by John Julius Norwich - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Julius Norwich
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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defenders of the city were at their last gasp. His hearers, assuming that they would therefore meet with little serious resistance, advanced to the attack carelessly and in loose order; they were taken totally by surprise when several gates were suddenly thrown open to release an avalanche of imperial troops, who fell on them before they had time to recover themselves and slaughtered them by the score. After that, the assault on Blachernae was abandoned. A naval battle, apparently fought on the same day, ended in another reverse for the rebels; while their second fleet, arriving from Hellas and the Peloponnese in the early summer, had scarcely engaged the Emperor's navy before being totally destroyed by Greek fire.
By the second winter of the rebellion - which, in view of the numbers involved, might perhaps be more properly described as a civil war — Thomas had still not achieved a single major victory; both to him and to his close associates it must have been clear that his bid for the crown had failed. But he did not give up the struggle; and there is no telling how long the stalemate might have continued had it not been for the Bulgar
Khan Omortag, Krum's son, who soon after his accession had concluded a thirty-year treaty with the Empire and who now offered Michael armed assistance. The Emperor is said to have politely declined the offer, being reluctant to permit Christian blood - even that of traitors -to be shed by pagan swords; but he could not prevent the Khan, for whom the prospects of plunder were well-nigh irresistible, from acting on his own account and may even, for all we know, have given him covert encouragement. However that may be, in March 823 the Bulgar horde swept down from Mount Haemus in Thrace and a few weeks later, on the plain of Keduktos 1 near Heraclea, smashed the rebel army to pieces. The plunder proved fully up to expectations. Well satisfied with his work, Omortag returned home.
Thomas, now desperate, gathered up what was left of his shattered forces and led them some twenty miles west of Constantinople to another expanse of flat, open country known as the plain of Diabasis. Shortly afterwards - it must have been about the beginning of May -the Emperor rode out of the capital, at the head of his own army, to meet him; and there, where the two little rivers Melas (now the Karasu) and Athyras flowed down from the hill of Kushkaya near the Anastasian walls, 2 the issue was finally decided. Thomas adopted the time-honoured tactic of a pretended flight; but when the moment came to spin round and charge the enemy his remaining troops, dispirited and demoralized, could not bring themselves to do so and laid down their arms instead. Their erstwhile commander, escaping with a handful of followers, fled to Arcadiopolis - the modern Liileburgaz - and barricaded himself in.
Now the roles were reversed: Michael was the besieger, Thomas the besieged. The latter, acutely conscious of the shortage of provisions, expelled from the city all the women, the children and the men who were too old or incapacitated to bear arms and so managed to hold out through the summer; but in October, by which time he and his men were reduced to eating the putrescent corpses of their own horses, it became clear that they could resist no longer. Many deserted, lowering themselves by ropes from the walls, and made straight for the imperial camp; the Emperor thereupon sent a message to the soldiers left in the city, promising them all a free pardon if they would deliver their leader
1 A corruption of Aquaeductus . Heraclea (now Eregli) was famous for the great Roman aqueduct just outside the city.
1 The great outer defence of Constantinople, built in the early sixth century by Anastasius I across the thirty-odd miles from Selymbria (Stlivri) on the Marmara to the Black Sea.
into his hands. They in turn, realizing that the alternative might well be a general massacre, agreed.
Thomas and Michael had been enemies for many
By the second winter of the rebellion - which, in view of the numbers involved, might perhaps be more properly described as a civil war — Thomas had still not achieved a single major victory; both to him and to his close associates it must have been clear that his bid for the crown had failed. But he did not give up the struggle; and there is no telling how long the stalemate might have continued had it not been for the Bulgar
Khan Omortag, Krum's son, who soon after his accession had concluded a thirty-year treaty with the Empire and who now offered Michael armed assistance. The Emperor is said to have politely declined the offer, being reluctant to permit Christian blood - even that of traitors -to be shed by pagan swords; but he could not prevent the Khan, for whom the prospects of plunder were well-nigh irresistible, from acting on his own account and may even, for all we know, have given him covert encouragement. However that may be, in March 823 the Bulgar horde swept down from Mount Haemus in Thrace and a few weeks later, on the plain of Keduktos 1 near Heraclea, smashed the rebel army to pieces. The plunder proved fully up to expectations. Well satisfied with his work, Omortag returned home.
Thomas, now desperate, gathered up what was left of his shattered forces and led them some twenty miles west of Constantinople to another expanse of flat, open country known as the plain of Diabasis. Shortly afterwards - it must have been about the beginning of May -the Emperor rode out of the capital, at the head of his own army, to meet him; and there, where the two little rivers Melas (now the Karasu) and Athyras flowed down from the hill of Kushkaya near the Anastasian walls, 2 the issue was finally decided. Thomas adopted the time-honoured tactic of a pretended flight; but when the moment came to spin round and charge the enemy his remaining troops, dispirited and demoralized, could not bring themselves to do so and laid down their arms instead. Their erstwhile commander, escaping with a handful of followers, fled to Arcadiopolis - the modern Liileburgaz - and barricaded himself in.
Now the roles were reversed: Michael was the besieger, Thomas the besieged. The latter, acutely conscious of the shortage of provisions, expelled from the city all the women, the children and the men who were too old or incapacitated to bear arms and so managed to hold out through the summer; but in October, by which time he and his men were reduced to eating the putrescent corpses of their own horses, it became clear that they could resist no longer. Many deserted, lowering themselves by ropes from the walls, and made straight for the imperial camp; the Emperor thereupon sent a message to the soldiers left in the city, promising them all a free pardon if they would deliver their leader
1 A corruption of Aquaeductus . Heraclea (now Eregli) was famous for the great Roman aqueduct just outside the city.
1 The great outer defence of Constantinople, built in the early sixth century by Anastasius I across the thirty-odd miles from Selymbria (Stlivri) on the Marmara to the Black Sea.
into his hands. They in turn, realizing that the alternative might well be a general massacre, agreed.
Thomas and Michael had been enemies for many
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