frontier was the news of a day; and the Catholics were neither surprised nor displeased, that a people so deeply infected with the Nestorian and Eutychian errors had been delivered by Christ and his mother into the hands of the infidels.27 The woods and valleys of Mount Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians 28 or Ibe. rians; but the Turkish sultan and his son Malek were indefatigable in this holy war: their captives were compelled to promise a spiritual, as well as temporal, obedience; and, instead of their collars and bracelets, an iron horseshoe, a badge of ignominy, was imposed on the infidels who still adhered to the worship of their fathers. The change, however, was not sincere or universal; and, through ages of servitude, the Georgians have maintained the succession of their princes and bishops. But a race of men, whom nature has cast in her most perfect mould, is degraded by poverty, ignorance, and vice; their profession, and still more their practice, of Christianity is an empty name; and if they have emerged from heresy, it is only because they are too illiterate to remember a metaphysical creed.29 The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Gazne. vide was not imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked with. out scruple the Greek empress Eudocia and her children His alarming progress compelled her to give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and Romanus Diogenes was 27 Οἱ τὴν ̓Ιβηρίαν καὶ Μεσοποταμίαν, καὶ τὴν παρακειμένην οἰκοῦσιν Αρμενίαν καὶ οἳ τὴν ̓Ιουδαϊκὴν τοῦ Νεστοριοῦ καὶ τῶν ̓Ακεφάλων θρη· oxεvovoiy αïgeoir, (Scylitzes, ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 834, whose ambiguous construction shall not tempt me to suspect that he confounded the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies.) He familiarly talks of the μήνις, χόλος, ὀργὴ, Θεοῦ, qualities, as I should apprehend, very foreign to the perfect Being; but his bigotry is forced to confess, that they were soon afterwards discharged on the orthodox Romans. 28 Had the name of Georgians been known to the Greeks, (Stritter, Memoriæ Byzant. tom. iv. Iberica,) I should derive it from the'r agriculture, as the Exudai yiwoyo of Herodotus, (1. iv. c. 18, p. 28', edit. Wesseling.) But it appears only since the crusades, among the Latins (Jac. a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. c. 79, p. 1095) and Orientals, (D'Herbelot, p. 407,) and was devoutly borrowed from St. George of Cappadocia. 29 Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. See, in Chardin's Trav els, (tom. i. p. 171-174,) the manners and religion of this handsome but worthless nation. See the pedigree of their princes from Adam to the present century, in the tables of M. De Guignes, (tom. i. p. 133-138) invested with the Imperial purple. His patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople within two months after his accession; and the next campaign he most scandalously took the field during the holy festival of Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of Eudocia in the camp, he was the emperor of the Romans, and he sustained that character with feeble resources and invincible courage. By his spirit and success, the soldiers were taught to act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of conquest. Laden with spoil, and careless of discipline, they were separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks: the activity of the emperor seemed to multiply his presence; and while they heard of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns, the Turks were driven beyond the Euphrates: in the fourth and last, Roma nus undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land obliged him to transport a supply of two months provisions; and he marched forwards to the siege of Malaz kerd,30 an important fortress in the midway between the mod ern cities of Arzeroum and Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand men. The troops of Constantinople were reenforced by the disorderly multitudes of Phrygia aud Cappadocia ; but the real strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the legions of Mace donia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a Moldavian horde, who were themselves of the Turkish race; 31 and, above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant 30 This city is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, 1. ii. c. 44, p. 119,) and the Byzantines of the xith c ntury, under the name of Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p 310) describes Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with water, without trees, &c. 3 The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant. tom. iii. p. 923 948) are the Gozz of the Orientals, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 522, tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the Danube and the Volga, and Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race. Ursel of Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings,39 and were allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance. On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at the head of forty thousand horse.33 His rapid and skilful evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, one of their principal generals, he displayed the first example of his valor and clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had sepa rated his forces after the reduction of Malazkerd. It was in vain that he attempted to recall the mercenary Franks: they refused to obey his summons; he disdained to await their return the desertion of the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against the mòst salutary advice he rushed forwards to speedy and decisive action. Had he listened to the fair proposals of the sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace; but in these overtures he supposed the fear or weakness of the enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and defiance. "If the Barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate_the_ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans, and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his sin cerity." Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout prayer, proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his horse's tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and cimeter, clothed himself in a white garment, per 32 Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (1. i. c. 33) among the Norman conquerors of sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to Durham, built Bernard's castle on the Tees, married an heiress of Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, li. ii. No. 4) has labored the subject in honor of the president de Bailleul, whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown. 33 Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number, which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000, (p. 227,) and by D'Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives 300,000 men to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, Cum centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magnâ pompa instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers. tumed his body with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial. The sultan himself had affected to cast away his missile weapons: but his hopes of victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent. Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian tactics, Romanus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and pressed with vigor and impatience the artful and yielding resistance of the Barbarians. In this desultory and fruitless combat he wasted the greater part of a summer's day, till prudence and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no sooner had the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the Cæsars." The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on this moment of confusion and lassitude; and the horns of their formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they forgot to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed. 85 As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save the relics of his army. When the centre, the Im. perial station, was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him; his horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet he stood alone and intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of Constan 34 The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of the presence of the sultan he committed his forces to a eunuch, had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or truth? 35 He was the son of Cæsar John Ducas, brother of the emperor Constantine, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165.) Nicephorus Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults, (1. i. p. 30, 38 1. ii. p. 53) Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus, ou narù di qiliwe ἔχων πρὸς Βασιλέα. Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treasor He tinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been excused on the promise of some signal service. Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a disorderly crowd of the meaner Barbarians. In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was led into the Turkish divan, and com. manded to kiss the ground before the lord of Asia. reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan, starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the neck of the Roman emperor.36 But the fact is doubtful; and if, in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy, assured him, that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the divan, Romanus was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice each day, seated him in the place of honor at his own table. In a free and familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the hour of danger, and gently admonished his autagonist of some errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. "If you are cruel," said he, "you will take n y life; if you listen to pride, you will drag me at your chariotwheels; if you consult your interest, you will accept a ransom, and restore me to my country." "And what," continued the sultan, "would have been your own behavior, had 36 This circumstance, which we read and doubt in Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by Nicephorus and Zonaras. |