All language subtitles for Byzantium The Lost Empire 2

Pictures of Mary

Jesus and the saints

images from the long lost
Empire of Byzantium.

This is a journey of discovery

the search for the origins
of western faith

the tale of ancient battles
that changed the world forever.

Born of the Bible and the
pagan Roman Empire

Byzantium still stands at
the heart of the modern

world... its ideas of heroes
and of villains and of government

both good and bad and
the right of law.

All of the cities of
Byzantium

held holy images within them.

Sacred pictures

It was said that
came from heaven.

They were carried into
battle.

People died to save them
from destruction.

This is their story

This is the heart of
the ancient

palace of the popes of Rome.

It's centuries older
than the Vatican

and filled with
holy wonders.

Believers say
that Jesus Christ

once walked
upon these steps

that they were taken from

Pontius Pilate's
palace in Jerusalem.

The steps were brought to

Rome in the first
centuries of

Christianity and are
reverenced still by millions of

people every year who pass
up them on their knees

deep in penitential prayer.

Inside the ancient
chapel at their top

Rome's most holy picture
an image made

so it was said
not by human hands at all.

A portrait so powerful that
when deep in the Dark Ages

the barbarians stood at
the gates of ancient

Rome the awe inspiring
image crippled the

tribes with its
paralyzing gaze and sent

them running back
to Germany.

The painting's entirely
encased in silver.

The nearest you can get
to it is that little face

on the top which is
actualla painted on linen and

lays right on
the ancient panel.

And that type of face a round
one with dark hair

is probably the
nearest you can get to

an authentic
portrait of Jesus.

The original was said

to have been painted
on the walls of Pontius

Pilate's palace
by the first Christians.

The real
painting underneath

has been entirely washed
away a thousand years ago.

That doesn't matter really.

This is more than a picture.

It is literally a
window into heaven

a link between divinity
and the earth.

The Romans called their
painting the Achuropeta

an eastern word that means
a picture made in heaven.

It was actually
made in the seventh

century in the
Empire of Byzantium

part of a standard
set of pictures of the

people of the Bible.

All those images
come from the East.

They're our most basic
images of kings and gods

and governments and heroes
and mothers and villains.

All those types
we take for granted

and their story of how
they got from the East

to the modern West is
an astonishing tale.

They're come from fire
It's a story of blindings

and hatreds and
the light of faith.

It's our story

and it's a part of the
story of Byzantium too.

The story starts in the
year 360 just a few years

after the Roman Empire had
accepted Christianity

when a pagan pilgrim came
here to the Greek

sanctuary of Delphi to ask
the god Apollo if the

ancient pagan images would
ever again be honored

and worshipped in the
ancient ways.

Deep down under Apollo's vast
temple an old lady sat

filled with the fumes from
a volcanic crack underneath

and drugged with cyanide.

She babbled a reply

and a priest took down her
words in classic verse.

"Tell the world the
glorious temple has fallen.

Apollo's springs are dry.

The world no longer
has a prophet.

Using the signs and
symbols of the ancient gods

Apollo's priest had just
announced the ending

of the pagan world.

Of the pagan world

the gods controlled
everything the

movements of the stars
in the sky to the

fishes in the sea.

And their signs and
symbols were everywhere.

They protected
crops and trees.

They were in every stone.

When the thunder came down
you understood it

because it
belonged to a god

and every god had its sign.

It was a complete universe
and everybody felt secure in it.

When Christianity took
over the Roman Empire

it attacked and swept
away all these signs.

Now these signs were as
old as man himself

and Christianity was
pretty poorly

supplied with alternatives.

After all

it was a language of
books and words.

But unless it was to fail
it had to develop

and develop quickly a whole new
Set of images for the world.

The trick the genius
you might say

wasn't just to swap this
ancient chaos with ten

thousand pagan signs and
symbols for a single set

of Christian images

but to find a quick way of
spreading these Christian

images and pictures right
through the ancient

Mediterranean.

Books books
were the answer.

Books were invented
at the same time that

Christianity started.

Before that there were scrolls.

Now there were pages.

This is a copy of one of
the oldest books in the world

from the first centuries
of Christianity.

Look! If you flip through
it you see pictures.

They are illustrating
the narrative.

If that would've been
a Christian book

it could have gone from
one end of the

Mediterranean
to the other and

taken a whole
set of Christian pictures

the story from the
walls of the church.

Well that's just a copy.

These images
these ancient images

are so precious that
real books of that age

from the fifth century

some of the oldest
pictures in the world

that've come from books

are now not in books
but trapped in glass.

Look! Here is Jupiter.

This is a pagan book
illustrating pagan poetry and

it's a picture of Jupiter
the king of the gods

and he's got a halo

just like Christian saints
will have in their pictures

And he's holding a globe

just like Christ will
in a thousand churches.

And he's sitting under the
arc of heaven as Christ does

and he's king of the stars
and the moon and the sun.

This is this is a pose which
says to you"king".

You can't have Jesus
king of the world unless

He looks like a king.

That looks like a king.

That's where they're
getting as it were

their iconography from

straight from
the pagan faith.

Now look at this.

Here another one of
these very precious

ancient illustrations

really the roots
of our western art.

Think of that.

When you
make gestures today

when you go "Victory!"
Or "Communism!"

"Fascism! Bang! Bang!"

You are doing
universal gestures.

They get emotions
in you immediately.

This said
to the early Christians

similar sorts of things.

Look! Here is a Roman general
and his mistress

and a friend having dinner.

They're sitting
round a table

They're got halos on.

Everybody would know this
was an imperial table.

There's a

there's a way
of drawing tables

even with a fish
on a plate in the middle.

You'll
see that in churches.

You'll see that same
image except

there it
becomes the last supper.

The first imperial
images to tell the stories

of the Christian Bible
to symbolize its faith

came from this city a thousand
miles to the east of Rome

ancient Constantinople

now Istanbul in modern Turkey.

The emperor
Constantine the Great

dedicated this
column when he founded

Constantinople
in the year 330.

From that year on the city
stood at the heart of

Constantine's vast empire

the first Christian state

master of the greatest cities
the world had ever seen

Alexandria

Antioch

and Rome

and the capitol of the
brand new empire of

Byzantium.

From the very beginning

Constantinople
really sizzled.

New religion new state
new government

everything here was
up for grabs.

Amazingly enough

we have a good idea of
how it felt to be alive

inside this city and at
just this time in history.

This is a fifteen hundred
year old press photo

not on film though
it's on ivory.

There's the pole for the
poor old elephant's tusk.

The Byzantines imported
ivory from India

and from Africa.

This probably came from
Africa because

it's so enormous.

It would have come

of course

through Egypt up through
the empire

to Constantinople.

The Byzantines loved ivory.

They thought
it had a texture

like living skin.

This then is the only glimpse
we have of life

in Constantinople
in about the year 420.

It's a procession.

Two priests are carrying
the bones of Saint

Stephen of
Jerusalem on a royal

carriage into the
imperial palace of Byzantium.

The mighty emperor

Theodosius the Second

is walking with
his ministers and soldiers

right through the
center of the city.

Theodosius' procession
would have passed up

this very street.

This is modern Istanbul.

In those days

in the fifth century

it was
called Constantinople.

We're walking between
the docks and the ancient

center of this city.

I suspect it was much
the same in those days

but there would have been
thousands of people

watching their emperor on
his way to the palace.

You know these processions

especially at that time were
a very tense affair.

These sort of cities these
great classical cities

were a thousand years old.

But the Christian bishops that
ran them were starting to look

at them with brand new eyes.

The times really
were a changing.

They saw the rich
on the way to church

to tend to their souls

kicking beggars out of
the way by the doors

of the church

children mutilated
by their parents

to make them
look more pitiful.

And they saw the
rich women walking

they said

with a thousand "meals"
swinging from their ears

and they didn't
like what they saw.

The Christian bishops
wanted a moral city

a sexless city
a pure city

and a more equitable city too.

So that perhaps

is why the emperor isn't
sitting in his carriage

but walking in the
street and carrying

a candle
with his courtiers.

And the bones of
a poor man from

Palestine riding
in the royal coach.

The emperor's procession
was on its way to

a grand square

half way between the
palace and the court church

I think our ivory
procession would have

passed through here

right through the heart
of the ancient city.

Now you see that Turkish
bath over there?

That's in about the same

place as the
gate on our ivory.

And see the great
high dome on the gate?

And see that figure of Christ

that face of
Christ on the gate?

That was such
a famous figure!

It was called
Christ at the Gateway

the most famous and influential
portrait of Christ.

It was copied
from the great

shining ivory statue of
Zeus of the Seven Wonders.

And that was parked in a
palace just over there.

Now think of our
procession moving along.

You see they're going past
this great portico.

Three high
stories are they

people peering out
arches looking down

swinging their incense

pleased to see
the saint arriving

in the city to make the
New Jerusalem joining

heaven to earth.

And over there

look! That's about
the spot where the church

the brand new church

of Saint Stephen
is being built.

It's ready
to receive the relics

but they haven't
finished the roof

and the tilers are still
working away out there.

But the empress is proudly
waiting by the door

holding a cross.

And that is
quite extraordinary.

For the first time
in the ancient world

the center of attention
is not the emperor

but an empress.

She carries the
cross of victory

she receives the holy
relics into her church.

It's probably the virgin
empress Pulcharia.

In that most ancient
language signs and symbols

the little
ivory is telling

us about an
ancient revolution

and one that still
affects the world today.

In the first years

many of Christianity's
most famous pictures

were made here
in the grounds of the great

monastery of Saint John
Studious of Constantinople.

These monasteries were
Pulcharia's holy battle

grounds the places
where she conjured up

the sacred images and
metaphors with which

she waged her
earthly arguments.

At the center of this
ancient image factory

one of Constantinople's
oldest churches

where the sacred signs and

stories were put
to powerful use.

Imagine that it is Easter

April the 15th, 428

and that this nice
new church is filled

with all the nobles
of Constantinople

men downstairs women upstairs
in the galleries.

Suddenly there was
a great hush.

The imperial guard the emperor
and all his family

had walked into the church.

Now in the middle
of these churches

there's a stone pulpit.

For more than
a century now

preachers have
been giving fire and

brimstone from
these pulpits

using all the language

all the signs and
symbols of the Christian

faith and the
ethics of the Bible.

They laid out
the whole structure of

this brand
new Christian empire.

And the emperor and his family
listened in humility.

Right on this line here
there was an altar rail.

It separated the main body

of the church
from the high altar.

Only the emperor and his priests
were allowed in here

close to the divine
mystery of communion.

In 428

though things were
rather different.

Theodosius the emperor
was usually accompanied

to the altar by
his sister Pulcharia.

They're ruled together
since they'd been children

two frightened toddlers in
a palace filled with intrigues

and plots
for the succession.

When she was fourteen

Pulcharia had
hit upon the answer.

She dedicated an altar
to her own virginity

and to the
rule of the emperor.

From that moment on they ruled
as a strange sacred couple

like Joseph and Mary

and there were no
plots for the succession.

It'd also given
Pulcharia the unique role

within the church.

On that particular Easter day

though things turned
out rather differently.

Pulcharia's way to the
altar was barred by the

new patriarch of Constantinople

one Nestorius.

He said that only men
could enter the sanctuary.

Pulcharia was aghast
Her new role as a virgin

had projected women
in a different way.

She was as pure as gold

she said. She had kept
herself as soft

as fleece to receive
the holy spirit.

"Have I not given birth
to God!" she cried.

Nestorius

though was a
man of the old school.

He preferred to see women
as the daughters of Eve

that unfortunate

lady who dabbled in
snakes and sex and sin.

"You," he
said to Pulcharia,

"Have given birth
to Satan!"

And there you have it really.

The three roles of women
laid out in the early

Christian church... sinners
virgins and mothers.

By opening the debate
Pulcharia had not only

advanced the role
of the Virgin Mary

and women in Byzantium but

defined the role of women
in Christendom forever.

Encouraged by Pulcharia
the next full council

of the church declared
Mary the mother of Jesus

to be Mary the mother of God.

It was a defining moment.

Nestorius' challenge
to the empress Pulcharia

was now seen as an
insult to the Virgin Mary.

He was declared
a heretic and exiled.

Thanks to Pulcharia the family
of the emperor of Byzantium

had become a mirror
image of the holy family

in the court of heaven.

That is why these
medieval emperors offer

their city and an
image of this church

Saint Sofia

Byzantium's cathedral

for the protection
of the Virgin Mary.

Christ's mother
is their mother too.

After Pulcharia the
emperors of Byzantium

ruled by divine right
and by right of birth

and all later Western
kings's imitated them.

Pulcharia had cast that
spell of power and sanctity

that still surrounds the
offices of government today.

She'd also changed the
way that men saw women

and women saw themselves.

Once more ancient images
tell the story.

Pagan Greeks and Romans
loved public displays

of sexuality
inside the city.

They seemed to hold the
force of life within them.

They gave assurances
of immortality.

The Christians though
that gazed upon eternity

just as they destroyed
the pagan temples

so they attacked the
pagan body image.

Byzantine preachers said
that the sight of barren

nakedness threatened
anarchy within the

family and the state.

And it was covered up.

Women like Pulcharia who once
had flaunted wealth and

beauty at the public baths
now lived a regretful

celibate, in hermit's house

inside
their marble palaces.

No longer was
each man an Alexander

and every woman a Venus.

Right through the empire

the cities of
Byzantium were filling up

with Christian piety.

Yet it was still a magic
superstitious world.

A world too

where those who knew the
will of God held

quite enormous power.

Hermits like
Saint Simon of the Pillar

who preached in Syria

and did not hesitate to
question the behavior

of the emperor himself.

Since you have become arrogant
Emperor

and since your
heart has forgotten

the Lord your God who gave
you the imperial crown

and the imperial throne

and since you have become
a friend of the feckless

faithless Jew then know this.

Soon you
will face divine judgment

and then you will raise your
hands to heaven and moan!

Impiety, then, brought
down the wrath of God.

Piety on the other hand
brought prosperity

good government and victory too.

The preachers kept
their eyes on the great

cities and on the
countryside as well.

For the people who fed and
fueled Byzantium were

also at the
mercy of the Lord.

Deep in Turkish Anatolia

this little village
was once the city of

Saint Michael of
Ten Thousand Angels

famed
for its fine churches.

In Byzantium's countryside
life was on a knife

edge between
prosperity and starvation

between flesh
and the Devil.

Magic stones still
eased the pain of

reaping and of childbirth.

Magic images half cockerel half
snake all dressed in armor

still kept the Evil
Eye at bay.

Byzantium was built on the

memories
of this pagan past

sometimes even
from the same old stones.

Ancient demons
haunted the countryside

stopped
up wells curdled milk

and threatened
plague and madness.

Many saints were really
doctors ministering

to a madness
born of holy terror.

Their prayers drove
out the ancient devils

safeguarded
animals and crops.

For archaeologists

of course

such goings on are very
hard to excavate. Yet

sometimes there are
clues to them

still lying on the
swelling earth.

Have you ever wondered
what attracts archaeologists

to one place
rather than another?

This hill is
a wonderful example.

Just look at its shape.

It's a bit
strange in the landscape.

Look at all
these white stones.

This is building stone.

That's interesting
you might think.

But then I found this.

See! It's a very
rare piece of marble

just like the Byzantines
used to use to clad the

walls of buildings.

So this is
quite a rich building.

Here's a bit of the roof.

So we've got
the walls and the ceiling

everything you could need.

What the devil is it?

Well look a bit closer and
here you can find

something
absolutely unique.

This field is
studded with tiny

little bits of glass.

These bits of
glass are very special.

These are mosaics and they were
made from the fifth

to the seventh
or eighth centuries.

That makes
this field unique.

Look around and
you'll soon discover

why such a sophisticated
city church was built

here deep
in the countryside.

Long before the Christians
took over its magic

this area had been a
pagan sanctuary

a place of sacred springs
and running waters

a little paradise.

Well

this is the place that's given
this region its name...

old Turkish "Yurmai",

Greek "Germia",

Roman "Thermai".

That's
a hot spring over there.

Once it
was a great pagan shrine.

That Christian church then
that Christian church

on the hill
with those mosaics

perhaps that is
its exact descendant.

It's a magic place.

Once there were many places
like this in Anatolia.

Once upon a time in the early
years of Christianity

a pagan washer woman
called Hypatia said

that she would become
a Christian only

if she could see the
face of Jesus for herself.

And straight away
the story goes

she found a portrait
of the Lord floating

in the waters of
the village spring.

And she
was very frightened

and clutched the
picture to her breast.

And then Hypatia found
she had two pictures

the original panel and another
imprinted on her dress.

It was a miracle.

Such powerful images

fallen straight from heaven
and mysteriously duplicating

are called achuropeta.

Tradition has it that several
of them still survive.

The achuropeta
in the ancient palace

of the popes of Rome
the great shroud of Turin.

In the sixth century

Hypatia's panel
painting became

Byzantium's battle icon

the picture to paralyze the
enemy with a terrifying gaze.

With such miraculous signs
and symbols how could

the Byzantines ever lose?

Yet lose they did.

And with that loss

Byzantium and
all its signs

and symbols
were forever changed.

These are the
ruins of a Byzantine

border fortress
set right upon

the edge
of the Syrian desert.

In the seventh century
the East exploded.

The Byzantines
moved on Persia

and the Persian armies moved
towards Byzantium.

Vast battles rolled back
and forth across

these plains for a quarter
of a century and more.

These majesterial armies
with their gold

and silver and their
standards and their

generals all the
panoply of ancient war

and at the end
of it all of Persia

was destroyed and all of
Byzantium had been sacked

except one city
that of Constantinople.

And at the same time

that this tremendous
battle was going on

small tribes were

infiltrating
up through the empire.

One of them
brought bubonic plague.

It was so bad in
Constantinople that

ten thousand people
a day died from it.

The bodies were piled
in a fortress and the

terrible smell of death
hung over the city.

One of these tribes from a
Byzantine trading

city in Arabia found a great
prophet in their midst Muhammad.

Muhammad had the ability
to turn a personal

religious revelation into an
immediate political reality.

Fired by his genius

the armies of Islam swept
through the devastated

landscapes of the East.

In 636

in a gigantic battle on
the Golan Heights in Syria

the
Byzantines were crushed.

Not long after

the best part of
the Byzantine Empire

that vast empire that once had
run from Spain to Syria

was ruled by Arab Kurds.

At the same time

the nation
of the Slavs had broken

through the northern
Byzantine defenses

on the Danube and were raiding
south down into Greece and

even threatening
Constantinople.

Old Byzantium
was completely broken.

An ancient way of life
was coming to an end.

The story of the Syrian
city of Apamea could serve

for a hundred others.

Apamea had been a huge rich city
for a thousand years.

In pagan times
it had a sprinkling

of philosophers
and fine temples.

Antony and Cleopatra came
here on their honeymoon.

Byzantine Apamea too

had its share of elegance

of churches relics and
fire eating bishops.

There'd been hundreds of
cities like Apamea

throughout the
Empire of Byzantium.

But now after the great wars
they all collapsed.

It's very difficult to see
a disaster in archaeology.

Things stop.

All you get is ash.

In the Byzantine Empire coinage
practically stopped being issued.

This meant that nobody
could collect taxes

nobody could
mend anything anymore

there were no inscriptions.

History
practically stopped.

After the seventh century

the survivors came back
into the ruins and

started to
build little houses and

small fortresses
amongst the great spines

of the broken cities.

At that point in the
world Constantinople

was the only imperial
city left unconquered.

You could say that
Byzantium had changed from

an empire of cities to an
empire of fortresses.

Much of seventh
century Constantinople

must have looked like this.

Old
Monunvassier in southern Greece.

The city's walls

protected refugees from the
lost empire soldiers craftsmen

landowners.

Its churches
were filled with images from

ten thousand
distant shrines.

Its open
squares and public

highways were choking up

with curving
lanes and little alleyways.

The scale of life
had changed completely.

People now stayed
by the family fireside

read books
in silence by themselves

cultivated their songs

engaged in
clandestine love affairs.

Even patterns of eating
and drinking changed.

Take bread for example.

Corn in Constantinople
largely came from Egypt.

After the Arab invasions there
was no corn from Egypt

no free bread handouts

first time
in hundreds of years.

Worse than that the wheat
that came from

the north actually
tasted different.

But it rose.

It rose
like modern bread and

that's really where the
modern loaf starts in.

But it wasn't just
the food you eat.

It was actually the way
you ate it.

Ancient people had
sat on couches

and been served by slaves.

They didn't really
have knives and forks.

There was
nowhere to put them.

Now with chairs and tables

people were sitting down
so that the

great classical spoons
were filed down to make

a little fork with which
you could prod the food.

Pretty soon people would be cutting
their own food up with knives.

Other changes too with the loss
of Syria to the Arabs practically

all the
olive oil trade dried up.

So you had to light your
house with candles.

They were quite expensive.

Not so many fry ups either.

There were more boiled
foods now from the north.

Northern foods called more
for beef than pork.

The Northerners too brought
different clothes with them.

Byzantium was cold.

People took up wearing
trousers for the first time.

And those
tough guys from the North

with their
long hair began to be

copied by the Byzantines.

If you want to look cool
and groovy and wild

you look like a Northerner.

The old classical
world was disappearing.

Behind
the high stone walls

there was uncertainty
and stress and fear.

And in the age old way

Byzantium expressed this change

of mood with the signs and
symbols of its faith.

This is a very good
example of what I mean.

In its day this coin was
absolutely unique.

Instead of having a
picture of the emperor

on the
front it had a picture

of the Christ that was
over the palace gate.

It's extraordinary.

Nobody
knows why it was done.

One sure thing it did.

It cut the Arabs
off from using it because

they didn't agree
with religious portraits.

So the Byzantine
exchequer was sort of

shut off
from them from this moment

because the coins had a
picture of Christ on them.

There's
another side to this too.

There were lots of
Byzantines at the same time

who didn't
like pictures of Christ.

There was
a debate broke out

inside Byzantium whether
it was a good idea

or not a good idea
to have images.

It was a debate that
went on with blindings

burnings
maimings

and ferocity
for over a hundred years

and it changed
Byzantium forever.

By the eighth century after the
invasion of Byzantium

Constantinople
the ancient capitol

stood at the center
of a gathering storm.

The storm
called iconoclasm

which
means quite literally

the destruction
of the images.

In the year 730

there was a whole lot of
agitated people milling

around in this square.

They'd come here
because they heard

that the emperor wanted to
take down the great picture

of Christ that hung
above the palace gateway.

They loved the picture.

They didn't want it taken down.

It healed the sick.

Now this painting stood
under the great high

arches of the palace gates
somewhere over there.

And a soldier put
up a ladder to go and

get the painting
and somebody rushed out

of the crowd and
pushed the ladder down

and killed the soldier.

But the other soldiers
took the painting down

and arrested the person
who had killed their friend

and they had her executed.

And Saint Theodosia
the virgin martyr

became the first
victim of iconoclasm.

Iconoclasm

the cataclysm
of the paintings.

This movement that
started in the palace of

Byzantium to
destroy all holy images.

Thirty
years after they took

the picture
down from the palace

the iconoclasts

that is the people who
were destroying the images

went through
the great church itself.

The patriarch was murdered.

All the
images were taken down.

And though the angels
came down from heaven

so it was said and beat
the impious emperors

the iconoclasm continued.

Glass mosaics
were pounded into dust.

Books were ripped apart

wooden panel paintings
chopped into pieces

and the blood of the holy
images so it was said

soaked the clothing of
the iconoclasts.

It wasn't
only little things either.

The monuments of
this city were

actually covered in images

This for example

was part of a great
milestone that stood

at the center of the city.

The emperor decreed
that the sacred image

of the Virgin
that it contained

should be scraped away

and a picture of
his favorite charioteer

put up in its place.

What
on earth was going on?

Once more
signs and symbols tell the story.

About the year 750

that same emperor
who so hated holy images

restored
this fine old church

Saint
Irene's in Constantinople.

The plain cross was
the measure of the man.

The pious emperor
Constantine the Fifth

a single minded soldier.

Like other emperors
and generals at the time

Constantine the
Fifth believed that sacred

pictures were evil
in the sight of God.

The church
contains no other images.

We move in a dangerous
and mysterious age.

Part of the dark
mystery of iconoclasm was

actually solved a few
years ago in the Vatican

library by the
study of this old book.

Now
this book

well it was clearly more
than a thousand years old.

But the text in it was twice as
old as that and more

This is called
Ptolemy's Handy Tables

and it was written
in ancient Alexandrian Egypt.

And it describes all the
passages of the stars

and the sun and the
moon through the sky.

What was so
remarkable about this copy of

it was not
simply its beauty

but also the fact that it

had been
written at the height

of iconoclasm right
at that burning beginning

when every
image in the churches

were being destroyed.

Now the key of this book
and the central

image of it is this beautiful
plate in the front

And it shows you... it's
a sort of a diagram

from the most ancient
world of astrology.

There's the zodiac
signs around the edge.

All those wonderful
old signs all added

together to
make a sort of cosmos.

And in the middle
this iconoclast artist

has actually painted Apollo
the sun god.

This is the
ancient Greek world.

It revolves
around the sun.

And there's Apollo in
his chariot sailing

through the sky.

Isn't that extraordinary?

These pious emperors who
think so deeply and so

hard about Christianity
put Apollo in his

chariot at the
center of the universe.

Why do you
think they've done that?

The truth is
of course

this man is interested
in these old pagan values.

He's thinking of luck.

Charioteers

his favorite charioteers
ran races and won

them in the
center of Constantinople.

The charioteers brought

luck and victory to his city

And that's what
these iconoclasts wanted.

They wanted a
pure Christianity.

But they wanted that most
ancient virtue luck.

In the great spasm of
iconoclasm that passed

through Byzantium
in the seven hundreds

the monasteries and
nunneries along this lonely

coastline to the south of
Constantinople sheltered

both artists
and the holy images.

The battle for the icons

ebbed and
flowed throughout

Byzantium
like a summer storm.

But you know

those pictures never
really left the people.

They were too much beloved

The monks
really fought for them.

The monks of
the great imperial

monasteries
of Constantinople

the monks that lived
here in this idyllic

land along
the coast of Marmara

they died
for those pictures.

There were icons too even
in the royal palace.

The ordinary
people liked them.

The people in the
royal family liked them.

Constantine the Fifth's
own son was married

to a girl from Athens

who's Irene

who kept
icons in the palace.

Now Irene was an
interesting lady.

She wanted the icons back.

And when her
son finally became

emperor in his own right

she took him back to the
room where he's been born

a room
with shining porphyry

and had him blinded

and restored the pictures.

That terrible
story of Irene

wasn't
the end of the iconoclasm.

Fifty years later

they were still torturing
people who liked pictures

A painter called
Lazarus had his hands

forced down
on sheets of red hot iron

to stop him painting.

And still

he got a paint
brush in his crippled hand

and painted a new
image of the Helke Christ

on the gate of the imperial palace.

And that as the people
of the city knew

was the restoration
of the pictures.

In the year 867

on the
twenty-ninth of March

the patriarch
of Constantinople

one Foteus dedicated
the first pictorial

mosaic in the
church of Saint Sofia

Beside it

in mosaic was a single sentence.

"These images that
the heretics cast down

are being set up again
by pious emperors

The iconoclasts had lost
the century old debate.

Even in her image

Foteus tells us the Virgin
graces and delights

she strengthens
and she comforts us

Once again the holy
pictures filled Byzantium

with their
unearthly presence.

In Saint Sofia

images of Christ were
placed up in the dome

and here above the
church's central door

where only
the emperor could enter.

Not the
favorite Western image

the mortal Christ impaled
in time upon a cross

but the old familiar figure

from the palace gate

Christ of all
time and of all places

Christ lord of the cosmos.

Before this ancient image
penitent emperors now

prostrate themselves in awe.

Not long ago

there was a better
ending to this story.

Here in ancient
walled city of Nicaea

close to Constantinople.

In the first
years of Byzantium

Christian creed had been
written in this pretty

little city
and approved here too

by the first
council of the church.

Over the
following centuries

Nicaea had filled
with little churches.

One of them a miniature
Saint Sofia

decorated with
mosaics that celebrated

the return of icons
after the iconoclasm.

Now though

you can only see
the glittering scenes in

old photographs... the
triumphant angels

the exquisite Madonna drawn over

the shadow of the
iconoclasts' plain cross.

All of this was
blown away in the Greek

and Turkish wars of 1922.

And each side
still blames the other.

How is it that
people can show such tremendous

ferocity
to such quiet beauty

to such passive images?

Well I think
it depends upon the way

you look at pictures.

You see that Virgin who stood

here in
the nave of this church

like the
one in Saint Sofia

wasn't like
a Western picture.

It wasn't
just a picture of a woman

in a blue
dress sitting on the chair

with a sacred baby.

It wasn't like
a record of an event.

These pictures
were actually intended to

actually take part of the
identity of the Virgin

part of the eternal cosmic
identity of the Virgin

something was there
at the beginning of

time and there
at the end of time.

And you had
it in your church.

As every little icon
every little picture

throughout the empire
refracted these bits of

holiness
throughout the empire.

The emperors
didn't want that.

They wanted to gather
all that dispersed holiness

around their
own person in the city

along with the sacred relics
inside their palace.

Just as they
collected the taxes

so they wanted that
power to themselves.

The Byzantines
came from one of the most

ancient cultures
of the Middle East.

The people
wanted their images.

So the
triumph of the pictures

you might say
is really a compromise.

The emperor
gets his sacredness

his divine power and
his taxes in Byzantium.

And the people
get their pictures.

The compromise is the
most indelible aspect

of the Byzantine identity.

This is a picture of
a procession carrying

an icon and it was made
six centuries ago

in the last
years of Byzantium.

It gives a precious
glimpse of Constantinople's

most famous image of the
Virgin Mary painted

it was believed from the
life by Saint Luke himself

Underneath the sum of those who
centuries before had fought

iconoclasm and found
their way to paradise.

Saint Theodosia
the virgin martyr

the abbots of the
monasteries the artists...

they hold the pictures
that they died for.

Pictures painted with such
passion and precision

such blazing
color such quiet power.

They say that on the
last night of Byzantium

on the
evening of Monday the

twenty-eighth
of May in 1453

just hours before
Constantinople fell to

armies of the
Turks that the Virgin

came down into her city
for the last time and took

her picture back to heaven