Keith's Rants

Based on the book, “A Short History of Byzantium,” by John Julius Norwich (recommended).

The city of Constantinople was founded by the emperor Constantine in AD 330 in order to provide a capital for the Eastern Roman Empire. There was a big party, and at the end, when Constantine went back to check on the Western Roman Empire, it was gone, and all that was left was France.

Constantine then died, and was succeeded by his son, Constans. Constans’s first official duty as Emperor was to kill his two brothers, Constantine Jr. and Constantinius, their children, his own mother, his stepmother, her children, their children, their cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, pets, farm animals, bastard stepchildren, friends, servants, fleas, and a man called Tim who once gave Constantine Jr. the time of day. In doing this, he secured his office against pretenders to the throne.

That very same day, Constans was overthrown in a coup led by Justinian, a barbarian general who immediately renamed himself Constantine in order to confuse historians. Constans’s ears and nose were cut off and he was banished to a monastery.

The Emperor Constantine then assembled a large army with the intention of destroying, once and for all, the savage Vandals and reclaiming Italy for Byzantium. His army wrought great havoc amongst the Vandals and was on the verge of victory when he was called back to Constantinople in order to settle a dispute among bishops.

The dispute centered around whether Jesus was of the same material as God the Father, or merely of the same substance. The dispute arose because of a typographical error in translating into Greek the original Latin text of the Old Testament, which had itself been translated into Latin from Greek, thence from Aramaic, then Hebrew, and originally English, the sole language of the LORD.

Constantine arrived in Constantinople just as two rival mobs were on the verge of rioting, and immediately convened a council of bishops from all over Christendom in order to solve the conflict and restore the One True Faith. The debate wore on for days until the leader of the “materialistic” faction of the bishops, during the middle of a passionate speech, suddenly and dramatically died of apoplexy. The dispute was resolved and the Creed of Constantinople of 331 was adopted, describing God the Father as being “composed of the same substantial material as Jesus, the begotten Son of God.”

During this time, the barbarian Vandals routed the Byzantine army at the 26th battle of Adrianople, capturing half of the empire’s territory and sacking the capital city.

Blame for the military disaster fell squarely on Constantine, unbeknownst to whom the previous emperor, Constans, had sneaked back into the capital wearing a silver nose and ears. Constantine made the mistake of backing the underdog during a chariot race, and after the upset, an angry mob led by Constans stormed the palace and overthrew Constantine, who was exiled to a monastery.

Constans was restored to power, but became stricken with dropsy until he was but a bloated and gormless remnant of his former self. It was left to his wife Theodora to rule the empire from behind the scenes. This she did, and her de facto reign is remembered to this day as the golden age of Byzantium. During this time, six new basilicas were constructed in the city and the army’s strength was increased by hiring 70,000 Vikings – Vikings being the most trustworthy of all barbarian mercenaries.

After nominally reigning for some 55 years, Constans died and was succeeded by the child Emperor, Constantine, his wife’s bastard son by the plumber. Theodora, however, was getting on in years and it was left to Theodosius, a court eunuch, to raise the young Constantine. One night, as the frail 105 year-old Theodora lay on her death bed, surrounded by crucifixes and incense and attended by a team of priests, she was set upon by a platoon of Viking guards who stabbed her to death, drew and quartered her, chopped her into tiny pieces, and exiled the pieces to a convent, where they remain to this day as holy relics (plate 13).

Theodosius was immediately suspected of the coup, but held onto power until 421, when he began to propagate the heresy that the Holy Spirit was begotten of God the Father, rather than proceeding from Him as was decided at the Fifth Council of Chalcedon in 399. Theodosius’s followers ran through the city, destroying any art or literature that could be interpreted to mean that the Holy Spirit proceeded from God the Father. During this episode, over ten thousand pieces of artwork, some over five thousand years old, were ground up and used as mulch.

Matters came to a head after a “begottenian” mob entered the basilica of St. Sophia during a homily given by the Bishop, St. Justinius. Justinius was a staunch “processor” and his sermon reflected his views. The begottenian mob dragged him kicking and screaming by the ankles from the basilica, pausing only to pry his fingers off the door frame.

Justinius then confronted Theodosius in the forum, and just when they seemed about to come to blows, Theodosius was struck dead by a massive hemorrhage, during which his bowels were seen to be explosively propelled from his body. The Byzantine people rejoiced as the true heir to the throne, the young Constantine, took his rightful place in power.

During this time, the Byzantines failed to notice the approach of an army of crusaders from Venice. The crusaders, part of the Eleventh Crusade, had originally started off for the Holy Land in order to recapture it from the infidels. Upon their arrival in Tyre, however, they were dismayed to find the infidels both well armed and poor, such that plundering their cities for the glory of God would not provide a sufficient return on the Venetians’ investment in armor and horse shoes. The crusaders then set their sights on Constantinople, which was rumored to be so wealthy that even the gardens were mulched in gold leaf and exquisite marble.

The crusaders arrived before the walls of Constantinople just in time to see the Byzantines’ 70,000 man Viking army desert en masse. The citizens were comforted, however, by the solidity of their city’s extensive network of stone walls, which were no less than 60’ high and covered with spikes, barbed wire, and a type of primitive White Phosphorous called “Greek Fire.” Tourists may still see the remnants of these walls behind the McDonalds on Ataturk Blvd. in Istanbul (plate 18).

Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the walls stopped at water’s edge, and at low tide the crusaders waded through the knee-deep waters of the Bosporus and around the city’s defenses. After thanking Jesus for their victory, they set to pillaging the city, systematically raping all of the residents and removing everything of value from every church in Constantinople. Tourists may still see this loot in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, level B3, corridor 14H, behind the porn collection (plate 22).

Upon completing their sack of Constantinople, the crusaders set fire to the shattered ruins and returned to Italy, where the press roundly condemned the Byzantine use of Greek Fire as being against the Third UN Convention on the Use of Chemical Weapons of 1973, which Byzantium did not sign. They then got back to writing The Prince, killing each other in mob hits, and seeing just how late they could make a train run before it became early*.

The citizens of Constantinople were left to eke out a meager living by begging and selling hookahs to foreign college students. Tourists may still buy hookahs at the Souk on Mustafa St. in Istanbul (plate 27). They continued this way for hundreds of years under a succession of emperors named Constantine, one in three of which died of natural causes, and of those all but two of apoplexy.

The fall of the Eastern Roman Empire came in 1453, when an army of barbarian Turks laid siege to the city. The Byzantines once again hunkered down behind their stone walls, but the Turks had a secret weapon in the form of a cannon so large it had to be aimed by a team of draft horses. The cannonballs were so large that the piece could only be fired once a week, but in time the walls were breached and the Turkish army poured into the city. The last Roman emperor, Constantine LXXVI, died wearing the purple boots that were his badge of office, leading his men in a final stand against the invading horde. Tourists may still wear purple boots at the Hollywood Disco on Kemal St. in Istanbul (plate 33).

When reached for comment after the assault, the Turkish Sultan was quoted as saying:

“Byzantines? What Byzantines? There are no such things as Byzantines. We are all Turks! One big, happy, family of Turks. In any case, they betrayed us. We certainly didn’t kill them all, if that’s what you’re thinking. Jeez. You might as well have asked what happened to the Armenians, if there were such a thing as Armenians. We certainly didn’t kill them all, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

* The current record is 18 hours 36 minutes 12 seconds, set by conductor Alfonzo Borgia of the Rome-Taranto express on August 11-12, 1949.