Sons Chapter V
799: Death of Constantine VI.
The Basileus, all sources were agreed, was too much into his liquor and it killed him. Owing toward his relation with the grapes, he had been able to have only minimal relations with his wife and as a result Marozia was left with a 2 year old daughter, Eudokia and nothing else. Almost instantly his mother's partisans brought back Sister Anna and while Krum was still at the front with the Avars, Irene was quickly gaining power but it was Marozia who suggested in a move out of desperation to gain favor with her angry mother-in-law that she name herself Emperor.
And so, in AD 800, she did.
Krum at the front, could do nothing as a new Avar assault kept his attention. In fact, it was left to one of his younger allies, Marinos, the Droungarios of the Vigla and a rather lower ranked noble, and master of the newly created Imperial Guard, even in the capital to try to keep things under control. He had been raised though by Krum who found it advantagous to him when more men who were outsiders either by blood or standing were promoted by the Emperor. Indebted to himself and the Basileus, they were more likely to remain loyal and as long as Krum kept an eye on then he made sure none of them usurped his place. But they were all able men, and now Marinos did what he could until Krum returned.
And return he would, for he had reached out to the Franks and Charles had answered. During the campaigning season of 800, the Avars were attacked in the east and the west and annihilated to the man. Charles added a small part of the territory to Bohemia, while the Empire took much of the east. The rest it was decided would be a buffer state between the realms, and thus was born the Princedom of Nitra, the epitomee of international diplomacy. It's ruler would be crowned by the Emperor, but chosen by the Franks. It's capital Nitra, a tiny no-account village until then, both Empires chose it because it was equidistant from their borders and the border with the wild tribes of the north.
That winter Krum rushed back to the capital determined to prevent Irene from unraveling everything he'd gained. Indeed, Harun al-Rashid had siezed the opportunity and launched a massive invasion of Anatolia as soon as he had got the new of Irene's acension. It was while the border crumbled and the political infighting in the capital reached new heights that the Pope acted.
Pope John VIII had spent his pontificate in a cage. It was a nice cage, well tended but a cage none the less. After the death of Pope Adrian he had long striven to assert himself against the Emperors and now at last came the chance. For Irene was no Emperor and the power, such as it was, devolved on
him and he intended to use it... but all through the year 800 one question ate at him, he wanted to Crown and Emperor and he had to do it quickly, but of the candidates there were two, and he could not afford to slight either of them.
Charles was the obvious choice, his realm massive, his power great and his sword victorious. He had subdued the pagans and the Lombards and brought back civilization north of the Alps. But Salamon had also subdued the Lombards in part, moreover he belong to a Dynasty that had taken back more land from the Muslims than Charles could ever hope to. He was
re-Christianizing North Africa and if he had to be honest, it looked like King Salamon was fast becoming as wealthy as Charles if not more so.
And so Pope John looked into his extensive library, a vast collection of religious books but also books of all kinds from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the latest treatises on Medicine from the Caliphate, and all, ALL donated by Salamon through his extensive trading links with the Caliph. How the man could be reclaiming lands for Christianity while still having good relations with the Caliph of Baghdad he could not fathom, but it was happening and it was in these histories, an old Roman history that had been traslated from Arabic that he hit on the solution. Messages were sent out and King Salamon and King Charles came Rome late in the year of 801.
In that old book on the Roman Republic, John had come across a unique situation, before the Emperors the people of Rome had named two men supreme so neither could fully usurp the power. That suited John well, because that way neither could truly contend with
him. So there, on Christmas day of AD 801, three days before Krum forced Irene to name him Caeser, the world was changed as Pope John VIII placed a thin and well-crafted circlet on the heads of both men and named Charles and Salamon, Consuls of Rome.
Europe at the Dawn of the Consulate:
