It is a great pleasure to read a contemporary appreciation of Byzantium which stresses its civilisation of quality, intelligence and success, and even a model from which we can learn. It is especially refreshing as it suggests that the stereotype of Byzantium, its very name an insult, may finally wane.
Only last Monday I read in Maureen Dowd’s op-ed piece, which I usually enjoy for her sharp and original judgements: “Obama will resist blinders as he grapples with the byzantine, seemingly bottomless conflicts he inherited”. Bottomless, maybe; Byzantine, no.
This notion of the Byzantine as complex and ill-begotten can be traced back to the treacherous destruction of the Christian city of Constantine in the Spring of 1204 by the Fourth Crusade - and the projection of the West’s bad faith since that day.
But I fear that Edward Luttwak may be stretching the argument a little when he proposes Byzantium as a model power for the United States. Or rather, it may be too late for Washington to absorb the lessons of Constantinople that he eloquently proposes, if it ever could.
As I attempted to show in my book, Byzantium, the surprising life of a medieval empire (which Luttwak reviewed most generously in the Times Literary Supplement) the core strength of Byzantium came from its inner Greek fire, a unique combination of pagan energy, Greek education, Roman law and administration, and Christian faith.
Judith Herrin's recent book, and Edward Luttwak's
When the capital city was inaugurated in 330, all these elements were present and the society that resulted, with its extraordinary self-belief, was “born old”. This was the cultural background to its capacity to play the long game when necessary. It also gave it immense self-confidence and flexibility, permitting innovation and invention, from the unprecedented domed structure of Hagia Sophia to the secret of Greek fire itself. It was quite capable of delivering ruthless and crushing defeats as well as developing the arts, techniques and insignia of diplomacy that Luttwak praises.
Luttwak is right to stress Byzantium’s grasp of the long term as an instrument of rule. This in part stemmed from its historic sense of itself as Roman, but in a different way from Rome. Why, then, do I feel it is unlikely that the United States, which also has a capacity to be a cosmopolitan society like Byzantium, is not going to prove itself capable of taking Luttwak’s advice?
The core driver of American self-belief is surely the market, and the market has delivered to Obama most of the bottomless conflicts he grapples with. Byzantium’s defining force was the ideological combination of imperial rule and church rather than its economic system. However, it was the supposedly devious empire that grasped the simple but fundamental importance of a stable currency for radiating influence and exercising hegemony over its opponents. The gold solidus (or besant) was small in the hand but loomed large in the mind. It was to be minted by emperor after emperor (and even by some empresses, another aspect of Byzantium’s uniqueness) for almost 700 years from the fourth to the eleventh century without being debased or devalued - a period over twice as long as the current history of the USA.
Much of Byzantium’s military influence and diplomatic success was established on the basis of its reliable gold coin, and its devaluation proved very damaging. Today, Washington, after less than 200 years as a major trading country, happily devalues the dollar to diminish the value of its debt to China and make its goods cheaper to export. Sixty years ago the eminent economic historian Lopez described the Byzantine solidus as ‘the dollar of the middle ages’ – an analogy meant to communicate its universal attraction and trusted value. Today, such a comparison would be laughable.
It is hard, therefore, for a Byzantinist not to sense that when it comes to the United States it is back to the eleventh century. Given the acceleration of events, at this rate perhaps we can expect Washington to fall in less than a hundred years – unless the great power game itself is abandoned, a much more attractive alternative.
None of which is to diminish the military lessons Luttwak proposes or his framework of comparison. For too long the myths of classical Roman power, symbolically inscribed in the neo-classical architecture of Washington, have monopolised the idea of greatness and command held by US presidents, their staff, armed forces and media. Here too is another stereotype which should be abandoned.
Comments
It is odd to suggest that the US is deliberately devaluing the dollar in order to reduce its debt to China, when the renminbi is both under-valued and pegged to the dollar. The US plainly has very little influence over Chinese economic policy, and Chinese under-consumption is one of the main - perhaps the principal - cause of the crisis. Americans may at times overdo their adulation of free markets, but given a choice between a modern, liberal market economy, and the "ideological combination of imperial rule and church", most people nowadays would opt for the former. Come to think of it, isn't it China that more resembles Byzantium?
Although there were periods of resurgence the story of Byzantium is essentially the one of protracted decline described so masterfully by Edward Gibbon. It experienced almost constant territorial loss as beyond the metropolis ordinary people often found the rule of barbarians or Muslims less oppressive and burdesome than that of the Christian emperor. It was a centralized state sucking talent and resources to the capital and stifling enterprise and initiative elsewhere. As the bureacratic overhead became spread over a smaller and smaller area, the process accelerated. Constantinople literally cannibalised the remains of earlier civilisations so that by the end it was the only city left - Rome was destroyed not by the Goths, but by the Imperial reconquest a century later.
The relevant comparison is not with the USA, but with the British Empire, now shorn of its outlying provinces, which now concentrates its malignant bureacratic energy on its 65 million remaining subjects in the so-called "United Kingdom". Although the Latin conquest did considerable damage to the capital, in the provinces it triggered a remarkable revitalisation as a result of forced decentralisation. We need something similar. Where are the crusaders when you need them?
The U.S. was on the gold standard, but after WWII, and Truman printing $'s to rebuild Europe, good, old De Gaul demanded Fort Know gold for U.S. dollars in France. That is, the b#$tard tried to bankrupt us. Hence, we went off the standtard, and the silver standard to boot.
Your comments about Ms Dowd's use of byzantium will more than likely fall on deaf ears even if she sees your note. You are right in stating that Byzantium--with a capital letter--was a well-run medieval state especially when one compares it with the tribal illiterate church run areas through out Europe during the so called "dark ages or medieval times." Dark mostly because of the Europeans' lack of culture and learning and the Eastern areas ruled from Constantinople through the 14th century approximately. But her education and most Americans'--if they learned any at all--learned byzantium without a capital as a plan and/or area of very confusing/confused times. If the European crusaders had appreciated the culture there, they most likely would not have torn down the gold from the walls and statues to be made into bricks for their own purposes. Most here haven't changed their ideas regarding Byzantium history or the Ottoman Empire that came after it changing Constantinople to Istanbul. Their ideas are still byzantium in knowledge. It's too bad. But even Pope Benedict sees it that way or he would not have criticizied King Michael's guest with the quote about the cruelty of Islam.
The USA would do well to look to Constantinople as an example of how to survive . She was the world`s superpower and created a civilisation that lasted for 1123years. The invading barbaric so-called "crusaders" in 1204 had never seen such a beautiful and luxuriously adorned city that they had deliberately set out to destroy and plunder, with the then Pope`s blessing. The Greeks ,nevertheless, recovered and managed to overcome the holocaust and enjoyed a revival but which, alas, was only to last until the next holocaust in 1453 at the hands of a much more brutal and sinister enemy. The Muslim Turks. The message for the USA is emulate the Byzantines in their strong christian faith if you,too wish to last as long and not be servile to the international zionism.
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