BookV apprehended who are planning to carry out your murder." After the emperor read the note, he ordered the chamberlain Michael 64 to make a careful search for the men. But either out of respect for the augusta, or because he procrastinated, or was led astray by divine madness, he left unsearched the room in which the band of murderers 65 was sitting. As night had already fallen, the empress, as was her custom, went in to the emperor, and spoke of the maidens who had recently arrived from Mysia, saying, "I am leaving to give some instructions 66 about their care, and then I will come back to you. But leave the bedchamber open and don't lock it now; for I will lock it when I come back." With these words she left. During a whole watch of the night the emperor made his usual prayers to God and devoted himself to study of the Holy Scriptures. When the need for sleep came upon him, he lay down on the floor, upon the leopardskin and scarlet felt cloth, before the holy icons of the theandric image of Christ and of the Mother of God and of the Holy Forerunner and Herald. 67 |p. 87] 7. Meanwhile John's retainers, who had been admitted by the augusta, had emerged from the room, armed with swords, and were awaiting his arrival, watching closely from the terrace of the upper rooms of the palace.The clock was just indicating the fifth hour of the night, 68 a fierce north wind filled the air, and snow was falling heavily. Then John arrived with his fellow conspirators, sailing along the shore in a light boat and disembarking on land where the stone Hon is seizing the bull (traditionally

64 The Greek phrase is τω τοΰ κοιτώνος κατάρχοντι, literally, "the one in charge of the bedchamber," which should be equivalent to chamberlain, the . Apparently Leo is referring to Michael, the former , promoted to chamberlain (to whom the protovestiarios was subordinate) and brother of the Niketas; see above, Book IV, n. 64, and Guilland, Institutions, 1:172, 184, 220 and esp. 362. Skylitzes (Skyl. 281.36) says he gave the order to the protovestiarios. 65 Reading φονώντων for φόνων των, as suggested by Panagiotakes. 66 Reading έπισκήψουσα for έπισκήψασα, as suggested by Panagiotakes. 67 Note that this assemblage of three icons forms a Deesis scene, on which see ODB 1:599-600. 68 The Greek term translated as "clock" is γνώμων, literally "indicator," used specifically of the pointer on a sundial. In this case it must refer to a waterclock, on which see ODB 2:947, s.v. Horologion. For a parallel to Leo's usage see Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 2.42b (G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae deipnosophistarum libri xv, 3 vols. [Leipzig: 1887,1890; repr. Stuttgart, 1965—66]): έν τοΐςγνώμοσι ρέον <ΰδωρ> ούκ άναδίδωσι τάς ώρας έν τώ χειμώνι, apparently the only other such usage. The fifth hour of the night was about 11:00 P . M .

137 Book V the place is called Boukoleon); 69 whistling to his retainers, who were leaning out from the terrace above, he was recognized; for this was the signal he had given to the murderers.They let down from above a basket attached to ropes, and hauled up first all the conspirators one at a time, and then John himself. After thus ascending without being detected, they entered the imperial bedchamber with swords drawn. When they reached the bed and found it empty with no one sleeping in it, they were petrified with terror and tried to hurl themselves into the sea [from the terrace]. But a dastardly 70 fellow 71 from [the staff of] the women's quarters led them and pointed out the sleeping emperor; they surrounded him and leapt at him and kicked him with their feet. When Nikephoros was awakened and propped his head on his el- bow, Leo, called Balantes, 72 struck him violently with his sword. And the emperor, in severe pain [p. 88] from the wound ([for] the sword struck his brow and eyelid, crushing the bone ,73 but not injuring the brain), cried out in a very loud voice, "Help me, Ο Mother of God!";74 and he was covered all over with blood and stained with red. John, sitting on the imperial bed, ordered [them| to drag the emperor over to him.When he was dragged over, prostrate and collapsing on the floor (for he was not even able to rise to his knees, since his gigantic strength had been sapped by the blow of the sword), [John] questioned him in a threatening man- ner, saying, "Tell me, you most ungrateful and malicious tyrant, wasn't it through me that you attained the Roman rule and received such power? Why then did you disregard such a good turn, and, driven by envy and evil frenzy, did not hesitate to remove me, your benefactor, from the

69 The Boukoleon palace had its own small port on the Sea of Marmara. It took its name from a statue of a lion attacking a bull that survived until the earthquake of 1532: see Janin, CP byz., 101; R. Guilland,"Le palais du Boukoleon. L'assassinat de Nicephore II Phokas," BSl 13 (1952/53): 101-36; Berger, Untersuchungen, 258-60; and Mango, "The Palace of the Boukoleon." 70 Reading ίταμόν with Panagiotakes instead of the ιταμών of the Hase ed. 71 Άνδράριον, literally "little man"; elsewhere in Leo (7.4, 39.4) the word is always used of a eunuch, and surely that is the implication here. See Ringrose, The Perfect Servant, 35-39. 72 In Skylitzes (Skyl. 279.4,280.17,285.30) his name is twice rendered Abalantes and he is called a .The Balantai were an aristocratic family from Asia Minor: see Cheynet, "Les Phocas," 309, and idem, Pouvoir, 328. 73 See Homer, Iliad 16.324. 74 On the prayer, cf.Theoph. 1:442.30-31: και ε'ί πού τις συμπίπτων ή αλγών την συνήθη Χριστιανοΐς άφήκε φωνήν, τό Θεοτόκε βοήθει. . . .

138 Book V command of the troops? Instead you dismissed me to waste my time in the countryside with peasants, like some alien without any rights, 75 even though I am more brave and vigorous than you; the armies of the en- emy fear me, and there is no one now who can save you from my hands. Speak then, if you have any grounds of defense remaining against these charges." 8. The emperor, who was already growing faint and did not have anyone to defend him, kept calling on the Mother of God for assistance. But John grabbed hold of his beard and pulled it mercilessly, while his fellow conspirators cruelly and inhumanly smashed his jaws with their sword handles [p. 89] so as to shake loose his teeth and knock them out of the jawbone. When they had their fill of tormenting him, John kicked him in the chest, raised up his sword, and drove it right through the middle of his brain, ordering the others to strike the man, too. They slashed at him mercilessly, and one of them hit him in the back with an akouphion 7h and thrust it right through to the breast. This is a long iron weapon that very much resembles a heron's beak. But it differs from the beak in its shape, inasmuch as nature bestowed a straight beak on the bird, whereas the akouphion gradually extends in a moderate curve, end- ing in a rather sharp point. Such was the end of the life of the emperor Nikephoros, who lived fifty-seven years, but held the imperial power for only six years and four months. 77 He was a man who unquestionably surpassed every man of his generation in courage and physical strength, and was very experi- enced and energetic in warfare; unyielding in every kind of undertak- ing, not softened or spoiled by physical pleasures, a man of magnanimity and of genius in affairs of state, a most upright judge and steadfast legis- lator, inferior to none of those who spend all their lives on these matters; he was strict and unbending in his prayers and all-night standing vig- ils 78 to God, and kept his mind undistracted during the singing of hymns,

75 See Homer, Iliad 9.648 and 16.58-59, where the angry Achilles indicates his view of how Agamemnon had treated him. 76 According to Trapp, LBG, s.v. (no doubt following Kolias, Waffen , 172) the akouphion is a Hakenhammer , a hooked hammer. M. Parani, on the other hand, has suggested that it may have been a curved saber: see Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images, 131—32. 77 Leo is evidently calculating the length of Nikephoros's reign from August 963, when he entered (after being proclaimed emperor by his troops in Cappadocia the previous month), until December 969. 78 A common ascetic practice; see ODB 1:203, s.v. "Asceticism."

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