Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/214

 192 THE DECLINE AND FALL Nlcephorus I. A.D. 802, October 31 StauraciuB. A.D. 8U, •July 25 [26] refused this modest compensation ; and, in her exile of the isle of Lesbos, the empress earned a scanty subsistence by the labours of her distaft'. Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the universal abhorrence of their people. His character was stained with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and avarice ; -'^ his want of virtue was not redeemed by any superior talents, nor his want of talents by any pleasing qualifications. Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians ; and the advan- tages of his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the destruction of a Roman army. His son and heir Stauracius escaped from the field with a mortal wound ; yet six months of an expiring life were sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular, declaration that he would in all things avoid the example of his father. On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great master of the palace and the husband of his sister Procopia, was named by every person of the palace and city, except by his envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre now falling from his hand, he conspired against the life of his ^ [Nicephorus had to set the finances of the state in order after the extravagant administration of Irene, and thus he was placed in the same disadvantageous position as the emperor Maurice, who suffered for the lavish expenditure of Tiberius. " The financial administration of Nicephorus is justly accused of severity, and even of rapacity. . . . But though he is justly accused of oppression he does not merit the reproach of avarice often urged against him. When he considered expenditure necessary for the good of the empire, he was liberal of the public money. He spared no expense to keep up numerous armies, and it was not from ill-judged economy, but from want of military talents, that his campaigns were un- successful " (Finlay, ii. p. 97). Nicephorus "eagerly pursued the centralizing policy of his iconoclast predecessors, and strove to render the civil power supreme over the clergy and the Church. He forbade the Patriarch to hold any communi- cations with the Pope, whom he considered as the Patriarch of Charlemagne ; and this prudent measure has caused much of the virulence with which his memory has been attacked by ecclesiastical and orthodox historians. The Patriarch Tarasius had shown himself no enemy to the supremacy of the emperor, and he was highly esteemed by Nicephorus as one of the heads of the party, both in the church and state, which the emperor was anxious to conciliate." On the death of Tarasius, the emperor found (A.D. 806) in the historian Nicephorus " an able and popular prelate, disposed to support his secular views ". The emperor then proceeded to affirm the principle of his independence of ecclesiastical authority, and took as a test question the second marriage of Constantine VI. — a question in which he had no personal interest. A synod was assembled and pronounced the marriage valid. This infiamed the wrath of the monastic party, under the leader- ship of Theodore Studita ; they refused to communicate with the patriarch Ni- cephorus ; and the abbots Theodore and Plato were banished and deposed. The two principles of Nicephorus in his ecclesiastical policy were the supremacy of the civil authority and toleration. He declined for instance to persecute the Paulicians. (For the Bulgarian campaign in which Nicephorus lost his life see below, chap. Iv.)]