Spoke 10: The Biblewheel and The 10th Century - Nikephoros II Phokas Killed in Bed

Spoke 10: The Biblewheel and The 10th Century
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Nikephoros II Phokas Killed in Bed

Nikephoros II Phokas in the 10th century was murdered as was Absalom by Joab, David's nephew the captain in the 10th book of the Bible 2Samuel 18. There were a few political assassinations in 2Samuel by David's men but against David's will. Amnon was also killed by Absalom his half brother in 2Samuel 13. Absalom in the beginning was more favorable until he conspired against David his father.

Nikephoros II Phokas was killed in bed just like Ishbosheth the son of king Saul in 2Samuel 4.


In the beginning of his reign ambassadors were sent from the west during the beginning of the reign of Otto I, called the Holy Roman Emperor. This was insulting to the Eastern Roman Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas because their line of emperor-ship descended from Constantine the Great who was the Roman Emperor before the Empire split.  Especially after reading the German Pope John XII's criticism on him as simply King of the Greeks, whereas the German Otto I is considered Holy Roman Emperor, and he was asking a bride for his son Otto II. In response he shaves the ambassadors and mistreats them.

Comparing the insults of Nikephoros II Phokas in the 10th century to the 10th book of the Bible David's men were sent to Ammon as an act of kindness as the king of Ammon passed away. But the advisers told Hanun the king's son and successor that David sent his men to spy out the kingdom. And in return he told his men to shave the ambassadors and send them home:

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/632826185165573687

Nikephoros II Phokas

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Nikephoros II Phokas (Latinized: Nicephorus II Phocas; Νικηφόρος Β΄ Φωκᾶς, Nikēphóros II Phōkãs; c. 912 – 11 December 969) was Byzantine Emperor from 963 to 969. His brilliant military exploits contributed to the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire during the 10th century. His reign, however, included controversy. In the west, he inflamed conflict with the Bulgarians and saw Sicily completely turn over to the Muslims, while he failed to make any serious gains in Italy following the incursions of Otto I. Meanwhile, in the east, he completed the conquest of Cilicia and even retook the island of Cyprus, thus opening the path for subsequent Byzantine incursions reaching as far as the Jazira and the Levant. His administrative policy was less successful, as in order to finance these wars he increased taxes both on the people and on the church, while maintaining unpopular theological positions and alienating many of his most powerful allies. These included his nephew John Tzimiskes, who would take the throne after killing Nikephoros in his sleep.

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Reign

Western Wars

Nikephoros II was less successful in his western wars. Under his reign, relations with the Bulgarians worsened. It is likely that he bribed the Kievan Rus to perform a raid on the Bulgarians in retaliation for them not blocking Magyar raids.^[10] This breach in relations instigated a decades-long decline in Byzantine-Bulgarian diplomacy and was a precursor for the wars fought between the Bulgarians and later Byzantine emperors, namely Basil II.

Nikephoros' first military failures would come in Sicily. In 962 the son of the governor of Fatimid Sicily, Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi, captured and reduced the city of Taormina, one of the last Byzantine strongholds on the island. The last major Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, Rometta, soon appealed to the newly crowned emperor Nikephoros for aid against the approaching Muslim armies. Nikephoros soon renounced his payments of tribute to the Fatimid caliphs, and sent a huge fleet, purportedly boasting a size of around 40,000 men, under Patrikios Niketas and Manuel Phokas, to the island. The Byzantine forces, however, were swiftly routed in Rometta and at the Battle of the Straits, and Rometta soon fell to the Muslims, completing the Islamic conquest of Sicily.^[11][12]

In 967, the Byzantines and the Fatimids hastily concluded a peace treaty with the goal of the cessation of hostilities in Sicily. Both empires had grander issues to attend to: the Fatimids were preparing to invade Egypt, and tensions were flaring up on mainland Italy between the Byzantines and the German emperor Otto I. Tensions between the Germans and the Byzantines were consistently inflamed throughout the overlap of the two empires. This was largely due to mutual cultural biases, but also to the fact that both the Germans and the Byzantines laid claim to be the successors of Rome.^[13] Conflicts in southern Italy were preceded by religious contests between the two empires and by the malicious writings of Liutprand of Cremona. Otto first invaded Byzantine Apulia in 968 and failed in an attempt to take Bari. Early the next year, he once again attempted to move against Byzantine Apulia and Calabria, but, failing to capture Cassano or Bovino, failed to make any progress. In May he returned north, leaving Pandulf Ironhead to take charge of the siege. However, he was quickly routed by the Byzantine general Eugenios and taken captive in Constantinople. Eugenios went on to besiege Capua and enter Salerno. The two empires would continue to make skirmishes with the other until after the reign of Nikephoros, but neither side was able to make permanent or significant gains.

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Contemporary descriptions

The tension between East and West resulting from the policies pursued by Nikephoros may be glimpsed in the unflattering description of him and his court by Bishop Liutprand of Cremona in his Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana.^[20] His description of Nikephoros was clouded by the ill-treatment he received while on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. Nikephoros, a man of war, was not apt at diplomacy. To add insult to injury, Pope John XIII sent a letter to Nikephoros while Liutprand was in Constantinople calling Otto I Emperor of Rome and even more insultingly referring to Nikephoros merely as Emperor of the Greeks. Liutprand failed in his goal of procuring an Imperial princess as a wife for Otto's young son, the future emperor Otto II.

Bishop Liutprand described Nikephoros as:

...a monstrosity of a man, a pygmy, fat-headed and like a mole as to the smallness of his eyes; disgusting with his short, broad, thick, and half hoary beard; disgraced by a neck an inch long; very bristly through the length and thickness of his hair; in color an Ethiopian; one whom it would not be pleasant to meet in the middle of the night; with extensive belly, lean of loin, very long of hip considering his short stature, small of shank, proportionate as to his heels and feet; clad in a garment costly but too old, and foul-smelling and faded through age; shod with Sicyonian shoes; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury, and lying a Ulysses.^[21]

Whereas Bishop Liutprand describes the emperor's hair as being bristly, Leo the Deacon says it was black with "tight curls" and "unusually long". Anthony Kaldellis calls Liutprand's description a "racist satire".^[22] John Julius Norwich called him "the White Death of the Saracens, hero of Syria and Crete, saintly and hideous, magnificent and insufferable".^[23]

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Death

The plot to assassinate Nikephoros began when he dismissed Michael Bourtzes from his position following his disobedience in the siege of Antioch. Bourtzes was disgraced, and he would soon find an ally with whom to plot against Nikephoros. Towards the end of 965, Nikephoros had John Tzimiskes exiled to eastern Asia Minor for suspected disloyalty. It is also possible that Nikephoros' wife, Theophano, was involved in the plot. Both a popular and a powerful public figure, the exile of Tzimiskes ensured Nikephoros' demise, and he was assassinated in his apartment by Tzimiskes himself on December 11 969. Following his death, the Phokas family broke into insurrection under Nikephoros' nephew Bardas Phokas, but their revolt was promptly subdued as Tzimiskes ascended the throne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikephoros_II_Phokas


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Comparing 2Samuel the 10th Book of the 1st Cycle to the 10th Century

2Samuel 4 - Listen 1 And when Saul's son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled. 2 And Saul's son had two men [that were] captains of bands: the name of the one [was] Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin: (for Beeroth also was reckoned to Benjamin: 3 And the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and were sojourners there until this day.) 4 And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son [that was] lame of [his] feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name [was] Mephibosheth. 5 And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth, who lay on a bed at noon. 6 And they came thither into the midst of the house, [as though] they would have fetched wheat; and they smote him under the fifth [rib]: and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. 7 For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, and they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away through the plain all night. 8 And they brought the head of Ishbosheth unto David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold the head of Ishbosheth the son of Saul thine enemy, which sought thy life; and the LORD hath avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed. 9 And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said unto them, [As] the LORD liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, 10 When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who [thought] that I would have given him a reward for his tidings: 11 How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth? 12 And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged [them] up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth, and buried [it] in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.

Comparing 2Samuel the 10th Book of the 1st Cycle with the 10th Century

2Samuel 10 - Listen 1 And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. 2 Then said David, I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. 3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David [rather] sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it? 4 Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, [even] to their buttocks, and sent them away. 5 When they told [it] unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and [then] return. 6 And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Bethrehob, and the Syrians of Zoba, twenty thousand footmen, and of king Maacah a thousand men, and of Ishtob twelve thousand men. 7 And when David heard of [it], he sent Joab, and all the host of the mighty men. 8 And the children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the entering in of the gate: and the Syrians of Zoba, and of Rehob, and Ishtob, and Maacah, [were] by themselves in the field. 9 When Joab saw that the front of the battle was against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice [men] of Israel, and put [them] in array against the Syrians: 10 And the rest of the people he delivered into the hand of Abishai his brother, that he might put [them] in array against the children of Ammon. 11 And he said, If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me: but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee. 12 Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the LORD do that which seemeth him good. 13 And Joab drew nigh, and the people that [were] with him, unto the battle against the Syrians: and they fled before him. 14 And when the children of Ammon saw that the Syrians were fled, then fled they also before Abishai, and entered into the city. So Joab returned from the children of Ammon, and came to Jerusalem. 15 And when the Syrians saw that they were smitten before Israel, they gathered themselves together. 16 And Hadarezer sent, and brought out the Syrians that [were] beyond the river: and they came to Helam; and Shobach the captain of the host of Hadarezer [went] before them. 17 And when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together, and passed over Jordan, and came to Helam. And the Syrians set themselves in array against David, and fought with him. 18 And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew [the men of] seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there. 19 And when all the kings [that were] servants to Hadarezer saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel, and served them. So the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more.