William Stearns Davis

The Beauty of the Purple

A Romance of Imperial Constantinople Twelve Centuries Ago

Warsaw 2022

Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROEM. BY THE OAKS OF ST. THEODORE

CHAPTER I. A HUMAN CHATTEL APPROACHING NEW ROME

CHAPTER II. A WHARF BY THE GOLDEN HORN

CHAPTER III. HOW FERGAL FOUND A MISTRESS

CHAPTER IV. KASIA AND LEO

CHAPTER V. AT THE SACRED PALACE

CHAPTER VI. THE HOUSE OF PEACE

CHAPTER VII. THE PROCESSION OF THE EMPRESS

CHAPTER VIII. A DEACON OF HAGIA SOPHIA

CHAPTER IX. THE HOUSE OF PEACE IS VIOLATED

CHAPTER X. THE TRIBUNAL OF THE PATRIARCH

CHAPTER XI. THE UNMAKING OF THE EMPEROR

CHAPTER XII. THE VILLA AT THERAPIA

CHAPTER XIII. A NIGHT ON THE MARMORA

CHAPTER XIV. THE CAPTAIN GENERAL OF ANATOLIA

CHAPTER XV. THE ISLE OF CEDARS

CHAPTER XVI. THE PIETY OF NEOKLES

CHAPTER XVII. BY THE RIVERS OF DAMASCUS

CHAPTER XVIII. THE DIVAN OF THE KALIF

CHAPTER XIX. A HAREM TRAGEDY

CHAPTER XX. AT AMORIUM

CHAPTER XXI. THE DISCOVERY OF KASIA

CHAPTER XXII. “LEO, TU VINCAS!”

CHAPTER XXIII. THE GUESTS AT SOPHIA’S WEDDING

CHAPTER XXIV. A COUNCIL AT GALATA

CHAPTER XXV. KALLINIKOS MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT

CHAPTER XXVI. THE COMING OF THE SARACENS

CHAPTER XXVII. THE EMPEROR SPEAKS FOR THE MAN

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MIRACLE OF FIRE

CHAPTER XXIX. THE GATE OF ST. ROMANOS

CHAPTER XXX. IN THE CAMP OF MOSLEMAH

CHAPTER XXXI. THE ROAR OF THE LION

CHAPTER XXXII. HOW CYRUS REDEEMED HIS SOUL

CHAPTER XXXIII. EVAGRIOS CHOOSES HIS ROAD

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE BATHS OF XEUXIPPOS

CHAPTER XXXV. THE DOGS BEFRIEND SALOMA

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE TRIUMPH OF THE LION

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE GREAT CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE GOLDEN APPLE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This romance attempts to show forth something of the brilliancy, magnificence and teeming life of Christian Constantinople in an age when London and Paris were little better than squalid villages. It also tries to tell the story of the rise and the mighty deeds of Leo the Isaurian, that peasant youth who saved Constantinople and the Later Roman Empire from the Saracens, and thereby postponed for seven hundred years the extension of Moslem supremacy in the Near East. Historians are now well agreed that by his victorious defence of “New Rome” in 717-718 A.D., far more than by the repulse of the Saracen raiders by Karl Martel at Tours fifteen years later, Christian civilization was rescued from Islam, and that it did not come to pass (to quote Gibbon’s famous words) that “the interpretation of the Koran was taught at Oxford, nor did her pulpits demonstrate the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed.”

The tale of Leo’s humble origin, his interview with the strange prophets from Syria, his astonishing rise to high command and then to Empire, of his battles by land and sea against the Saracens and of the unexpected discovery and terrific use of “Greek Fire” in the great siege of Constantinople, are rescued from the half-forgotten pages of such monk-chroniclers as Theophanes and Nikephoros.

Those who recall the well-authenticated accounts of how the Emperors Constantine VI, Staurikos and Theophilus choose their brides will not doubt the precise story of the award of the “Golden Apple” given here in the final chapter. Those familiar with the characters of such Emperors as Maurice, Leo the Armenian, Nikephoros Phokas and Basil II, will find confirmation of the statement that Leo the Isaurian like them was a man of deep and unaffected religious faith.

Constantinople in the eighth Christian century was a Greek- speaking city for all the boasts of its inhabitants that they were “Romans” and their metropolis “New Rome.” In spelling proper names therefore, while those that have a familiar Latin form have so been given, those less familiar have ordinarily been spelled by transliteration from the Greek.

W. S. D.

The University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.

PROEM.–BY THE OAKS OF ST. THEODORE

THIS is the story which the monks who wrote the annals of the Christian Empire of Constantinople desired other ages to accept as true.

In the year which later generations would reckon as 705 A.D., on a certain midsummer’s day a droning peace brooded over the village of St. Theodore. The village was very small, only a few white-walled, red-tiled houses and barns clustered around the grey stuccoed dome of the little church before which opened a market-place. The latter was sprinkled with a dozen oak-trees useful for tying cattle when the Thracian farmers gathered to barter their rural products. This, however, was not a market day, and the signs of life were few except just by the church where sprawled the low buildings of a tavern and posting station. Here travellers sometimes changed horses, for St. Theodore lay on the highroad betwixt Constantinople and Adrianople, and here also diverged a way southward to Kallipolis if one wanted to cross to Asia without first going to the capital.

It was, to repeat, a sleepy moment in the early afternoon. The long-haired “pope” of the church, having intoned his last office to an empty nave, was sitting with his red-cheeked wife at one of the small tables in the shade by the tavern door, each meditating over a pot of thin country wine. Two farmers’ churls were throwing dice for a stake of three coppers at the next table, while a drover, an unkempt man in a dirty sheepskin coat, leaned on his crook-topped staff and recounted his adventures to Simmias, the idling inn-keeper.

“Yes, the pigs were sold at a good price,–praised be the Panagia! The recent uproars in Constantinople have made almost a famine, though the country is still so unsettled that I feel lucky to have trudged back these fifty miles with this wallet (he slapped his thigh) without attack or adventure. When I saw the old tavern I said, “Only three miles more to the farm,’ and turned in to wet my throat after the dust.”

“So old Justinian Slit-nose is back in the palace?” suggested Simmias, rubbing his face with a much-spotted apron.

“He’s back and his temporary supplanters are in heaven or a place more fiery. Ai!but there was a strange sight! The merchant who bought the pigs got me a seat in the Hippodrome; up high, of course, but I could see very well. You know all about the Hippodrome?”

“I saw the “Blue’ chariots win there four years ago,” assented the inn-keeper.

“Well, that of course was when Justinian II was in exile. St. Kosmas smite me, but I can’t remember how in these queer days they change around their “Sacred Clemencies’ in the palace. Tiberius Aspimar must have been reigning then. As I remember it’s just ten years since Leontios deposed Justinian, slit up his nose and packed him off to exile in Scythia; then after three years Tiberius deposed Leontios, shaved off hisnose in turn and clapped him in a monastery.”

The publican plucked at his own nose, as if to make sure that familiar ornament was still in normal condition.

“Then, d’you see,” continued the drover, “after seven odd years, Justinian breaks away from exile, gets help from the Bulgarians and retakes Constantinople.”

“Haven’t we heard all that?” retorted the other.

“No doubt,” condescended his customer, “but perhaps you haven’t heard what lately befell in the city while I was there. After Tiberius Aspimar had been deposed they dragged his nigh-forgotten rival Leontios out of his monastery. The restored Justinian had the two usurpers haled around the streets in chains, of course with a mob hooting and throwing offal. Then as many of us as could packed into the Hippodrome, everybody roaring and applauding together. Whereupon in came Justinian, clad in purple and gold, so splendid he could be seen clear across the arena, with all his “Protectors’ shining in silvered armour around him. He took his seat in the Kathisma–that’s the imperial box, you know–amid greater uproar still; and next they dragged in Leontios and Tiberius Aspimar. Poor wretches! They must have been nigh dead already. With my own eyes I saw them forced to prostrate themselves on the top step of the throne, and then Justinian put his right foot on the neck of one and his left on that of the other. Whereupon all the courtiers, Protectors and the Blue and Green faction leaders around the Kathisma took up a great chant, something from the Psalter, I think: “Thou shalt tread upon the LION and the ASP, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet!’ And there those two miserable creatures had to lie while the chariots raced, and while we all wagered and cheered like mad. After that I’ve heard they took the usurpers away and chopped their heads off, also that Justinian burned out the old Patriarch’s eyes and set up a new “Holy Beatitude’ on the archbishop’s throne in Hagia Sophia. Ai!These have been brisk days in Constantinople.”

Simmias crossed himself with deliberation. “When I pray to the saints to-night,” said he, “I shall give thanks that I sell wine in a quiet village and am neither Emperor nor Patriarch. Fine titles are fine things, but a firm neck and two good eyes seem better. Hei?–but what’s that moving in the road?”

As a matter of fact two of the roads which converged near the church were clouded with dust, the one from the city obviously by two or three vehicles, the one from the north apparently by the approach of a large flock of sheep. The wagons rolled in rapidly and soon were halting at the tavern while Simmias ran forward.

“What are the kyrios’commands?” he began.

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