Liutprand of Cremona, Report to Otto I (968)

The Carolingian successors of King Charlemagne (r. 768–814) could not sustain his unifying vision. Wracked by family squabbles, the empire was divided into three kingdoms in 843. The imperial title lived on, however, in the Ottonian dynasty that succeeded the Carolingians in Germany in the tenth century. Fashioning himself in Charlemagne’s image, Otto I (r. 936–973) was the most powerful of these rulers. Crowned emperor in 962, Otto treated his Byzantine counterpart as an equal. To enhance his status, Otto dispatched his ambassador Liutprand (c. 920–972), a northern Italian bishop, to Constantinople in 968 to arrange the marriage of Otto’s son to a Byzantine princess. With this goal in mind, Liutprand met with the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus Phocas (r. 963–969). As he describes in a report sent to Otto, excerpted here, his efforts were in vain, and the failed mission elucidates the widening gap between the emerging territorial kingdoms in the West and Byzantium.

From The Works of Liutprand of Cremona, trans. F. A. Wright (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), 235–43.

On the fourth of June we arrived at Constantinople, and after a miserable reception, meant as an insult to yourselves, we were given the most miserable and disgusting quarters. The palace where we were confined was certainly large and open, but it neither kept out the cold nor afforded shelter from the heat. Armed soldiers were set to guard us and prevent my people from going out, and any others from coming in. This dwelling, only accessible to us who were shut inside it, was so far distant from the emperor’s residence that we were quite out of breath when we walked there—we did not ride. To add to our troubles, the Greek wine we found undrinkable because of the mixture in it of pitch, resin, and plaster. The house itself had no water and we could not even buy any to quench our thirst. All this was a serious “Oh dear me!” but there was another “Oh dear me” even worse, and that was our warden, the man who provided us with our daily wants. If you were to seek another like him, you certainly would not find him on earth; you might perhaps in hell. Like a raging torrent he poured upon us every calamity, every extortion, every expense, every grief, and every misery that he could invent. . . .

On the fourth of June, as I said above, we arrived at Constantinople and waited with our horses in heavy rain outside the Carian gate until five o’clock in the afternoon. At five o’clock Nicephorus ordered us to be admitted on foot, for he did not think us worthy to use the horses with which your clemency had provided us, and we were escorted to the aforesaid hateful, waterless, draughty stone house. On the sixth of June, which was the Saturday before Pentecost, I was brought before the emperor’s brother Leo, marshal of the court and chancellor; and there we tired ourselves with a fierce argument over your imperial title. He called you not emperor, which is Basileus in his tongue, but insultingly Rex, which is king in ours. I told him that the thing meant was the same though the word was different, and he then said that I had come not to make peace but to stir up strife. Finally he got up in a rage, and really wishing to insult us received your letter not in his own hand but through an interpreter. . . .

On the seventh of June, the sacred day of Pentecost, I was brought before Nicephorus himself in the palace called Stephana, that is, the Crown Palace. He is a monstrosity of a man, a dwarf, fat-headed and with tiny mole’s eyes; disfigured by a short, broad, thick beard half going gray; disgraced by a neck scarcely an inch long; piglike by reason of the big close bristles on his head; in color an Ethiopian and, as the poet [Juvenal] says, “you would not like to meet him in the dark”; a big belly, a lean posterior, very long in the hip considering his short stature, small legs, fair sized heels and feet; dressed in a robe made of fine linen, but old, foul smelling, and discolored by age; shod with Sicyonian slippers; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury and falsehood a Ulysses. My lords and august emperors, you always seemed comely to me; but how much more comely now! Always magnificent; how much more magnificent now! Always mighty; how much more mighty now! Always clement; how much more clement now! Always full of virtues; how much fuller now! At his left, not on a line with him, but much lower down, sat the two child emperors, once his masters, now his subjects. He began his speech as follows:—

It was our duty and our desire to give you a courteous and magnificent reception. That, however, has been rendered impossible by the impiety of your master, who in the guise of an hostile invader has laid claim to Rome; has robbed Berengar and Adalbert of their kingdom contrary to law and right; has slain some of the Romans by the sword, some by hanging, while others he has either blinded or sent into exile; and furthermore has tried to subdue to himself by massacre and conflagration cities belonging to our empire. His wicked attempts have proved unsuccessful, and so he has sent you, the instigator and furtherer of this villainy, under pretence of peace to act comme un espion, that is, as a spy upon us.

To him I made this reply: “My master did not invade the city of Rome by force nor as a tyrant; he freed her from a tyrant’s yoke, or rather from the yoke of many tyrants. Was she not ruled by effeminate debauchers, and what is even worse and more shameful, by harlots? Your power, methinks, was fast asleep then; and the power of your predecessors, who in name alone are called emperors of the Romans, while the reality is far different. If they were powerful, if they were emperors of the Romans, why did they allow Rome to be in the hands of harlots?” . . .

“Come, let us clear away all trickeries and speak the plain truth. My master has sent me to you to see if you will give the daughter of the emperor Romanos and the empress Theophano to his son, my master the august emperor Otto. If you give me your oath that the marriage shall take place, I am to affirm to you under oath that my master in grateful return will observe to do this and this for you. Moreover he has already given you, his brother ruler, the best pledge of friendship by handing over Apulia, which was subject to his rule. . . .

“It is past seven o’clock,” said Nicephorus “and there is a church procession which I must attend. Let us keep to the business before us. We will give you a reply at some convenient season.”

I think that I shall have as much pleasure in describing this procession as my masters will have in reading of it. . . .

As Nicephorus, like some crawling monster, walked along, the singers began to cry out in adulation: “Behold the morning star approaches: the day star rises: in his eyes the sun’s rays are reflected: Nicephorus our prince, the pale death of the Saracens.” And then they cried again: “Long life, long life to our prince Nicephorus. Adore him, ye nations, worship him, bow the neck to his greatness.” How much more truly might they have sung:—“Come, you miserable burnt-out coal; old woman in your walk, wood-devil in your look; clodhopper, haunter of byres, goat-footed, horned, double-limbed; bristly, wild, rough, barbarian, harsh, hairy, a rebel, a Cappadocian!” So, puffed up by these lying ditties, he entered St. Sophia, his masters the emperors following at a distance and doing him homage on the ground with the kiss of peace. His armor bearer, with an arrow for pen, recorded in the church the era in progress since the beginning of his reign. So those who did not see the ceremony know what era it is.

On this same day he ordered me to be his guest. But as he did not think me worthy to be placed above any of his nobles, I sat fifteenth from him and without a table cloth. Not only did no one of my suite sit at table with me; they did not even set eyes upon the house where I was entertained. At the dinner, which was fairly foul and disgusting, washed down with oil after the fashion of drunkards and moistened also with an exceedingly bad fish liquor, the emperor asked me many questions concerning your power, your dominions, and your army. My answers were sober and truthful; but he shouted out:—“You lie. Your master’s soldiers cannot ride and they do not know how to fight on foot. The size of their shields, the weight of their cuirasses, the length of their swords, and the heaviness of their helmets, does not allow them to fight either way.” Then with a smile he added: “Their gluttony also prevents them. Their God is their belly, their courage but wind, their bravery drunkenness. Fasting for them means dissolution, sobriety, panic. Nor has your master any force of ships on the sea. I alone have really stout sailors, and I will attack him with my fleets, destroy his maritime cities and reduce to ashes those which have a river near them. Tell me, how with his small forces will he be able to resist me even on land?” . . .

I wanted to answer and make such a speech in our defense as his boasting deserved; but he would not let me and added this final insult: “You are not Romans but Lombards.” He even then was anxious to say more and waved his hand to secure my silence, but I was worked up and cried: “History tells us that Romulus, from whom the Romans get their name, was a fratricide born in adultery. He made a place of refuge for himself and received into it insolvent debtors, runaway slaves, murderers, and men who deserved death for their crimes. This was the sort of crowd whom he enrolled as citizens and gave them the name of Romans. From this nobility are descended those men whom you style ‘rulers of the world.’ But we Lombards, Saxons, Franks, Lotharingians, Bavarians, Swabians, and Burgundians, so despise these fellows that when we are angry with an enemy we can find nothing more insulting to say than—‘You Roman!’ For us in the word Roman is comprehended every form of lowness, timidity, avarice, luxury, falsehood, and vice. You say that we are unwarlike and know nothing of horsemanship. Well, if the sins of the Christians merit that you keep this stiff neck, the next war will prove what manner of men you are, and how warlike we.”

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