alliance with the Ernperor against the common enemy, and treats with Argyros, a freebooting person who had got from Constantinople a commission to fight against the Normans.[1] The republic of Amalphi acknowledged the suzerainty of New Rome till 1073, and its doge was an Imperial "Proedros." There was, then, every reason for the Eastern Emperor and the Pope to remain friends at this time, and they both knew it. It was the Patriarch who forced the schism on them, very much against the will of both. But such a man as St. Leo IX was not likely to allow the rights of the Holy See to be defied. One is as glad that the cause of the Latins was represented by so great a man as Leo in 1054 as that Nicholas was Pope in 857.
The Emperor, Constantine IX (Constantine Monomachos, 1042–1054), was of a very different type. One of the many adventurers who climbed from a low place to the Roman throne, he had already been exiled for trying to usurp it, when he succeeded quite peaceably by marrying Zoe, the youngest daughter of Basil the Macedonian. She had already been twice married, and had made both her husbands Emperors (Romanos, 1028–1034, and Michael IV, 1034–1041). Now in 1042 she marries for the third time. Her husband, Constantine, had also been twice married, so that there was a double infringement of Byzantine Canon Law,[2] but this time no one made much difficulty. Constantine had been strong, learned, witty,[3] and very beautiful; but soon after he became Emperor he was struck by paralysis, and remains henceforth well-meaning but hopelessly weak and frightened. The chief policy of his reign was to drive the Normans out of Magna Græcia, and for this he needed the help of both the Pope and
- ↑ Argyros was a Lombard adventurer, who had at first been on the Norman side. Then he went to Constantinople for five years (1046–1051), and came back, having changed his coat, as a Roman patrician, Duke of Italy, and commander-in-chief of the Emperor's forces. Cf. Gibbon, chap. lvi. (ed J. Bury, Methuen, 1898), vol. vi. p. 180, seq.
- ↑ Only two marriages were allowed.
- ↑ He could imitate a goat bleating so perfectly that every one would hunt the room to find the quadruped (Psellos, i. p. 170). Plainly, the only place worthy of so varied talents was the Roman throne.
