Summary of the activities of the Isaurian dynasty.

            Historians place much value upon the services of the first rulers of the Isaurian line, particularly upon the achievements of Leo III, and justly so, for the latter, having ascended the throne after a highly troubled period of anarchy, showed himself to be an eminent general, a gifted administrator, and a wise legislator who understood the problems of his time. The religious policy of the iconoclasts stands quite apart from their other activities. In most of the historical writings Leo III is praised very highly. For instance, the Greeks recognize him “as one of the greatest rulers of the Eastern Empire, and one of the benefactors of humanity,”[114] the Germans, “as one of the greatest men on the imperial throne,” who clearly understood the need for “radical reform at the head and in the members,”[115] “a man who was destined to restore the empire by means of iron and blood, a person of great military genius.”[116] An English scholar referred to Leo’s achievements as “the regeneration of the Roman Empire,”[117] while a French historian characterized the deeds of the Isaurian emperors as “one of the very greatest and most admirable efforts that has ever been made for raising the moral, material, and intellectual level of the people,” and compared the importance of their “sweeping attempt at organization with the measures undertaken by Charles the Great.”[118] In recent times Charles Diehl made the statement that “from the government of the Isaurian emperors a new principle of life sprung forth, which was to enrich the world forever.”[119] In the somewhat casual estimates of Russian scholars, who, with the exception of the church historians, have not yet made any attempts at a detailed study of the general history of the Isaurian emperors, there is no excessive praise for these rulers. The three volumes of J. A. Kulakovsky deal only with events up to the epoch of the iconoclastic emperors. The first volume of Lectures in Byzantine History, by S. P. Shestakov, which covers this period, does not contain any estimate. A very interesting and fresh appraisal of the antimonasterial and antimonastic movement is found in the Outlines of C. N. Uspensky. Finally, Th. I. Uspensky remarked; “Leo the Isaurian is responsible for the rather rude manner with which the delicate problem of faith and worship of God was left by the government to the military and police authorities, who offended the religious feeling of the people and made of the local problem an event of state importance.”[120]

            While recognizing unusual energy and some administrative genius on the part of the first two iconoclastic emperors, and admitting that Leo III unquestionably saved the Empire, one must, on the basis of all the available historical materials, abstain from excessive praise of the Isaurian dynasty. For their policy, no matter how sincere on their part, introduced great internal troubles into the life of the Empire, which was seriously disturbed for more than a hundred years. Even in its first period in the eighth century the iconoclastic movement alienated Italy and brought about very strained relations with the pope, who excommunicated the iconoclasts and turned to the West for aid and protection. The resulting friendship with the Frankish rulers initiated a new and extremely significant period of medieval history. At the same time the foundation for the future final rupture between the churches was gradually being laid. During the Isaurian period the Byzantine Empire lost middle Italy, including the Ravenna exarchate, which was conquered in the middle of the eighth century by the Lombards and later handed over to the pope by Pippin the Short.

            However, no complete history of the Isaurian dynasty has yet been written, and many significant problems of this period still remain unsolved. For example, the question of the reduction of the number of monks and monasteries and of the apparently frequent secularization of monasterial lands calls for investigation, A more thorough study of the social aspect of the iconoclastic policy of the Isaurian emperors is at present one of the essential problems of Byzantine history. Careful research into this question may throw much new light upon the entire so-called “iconoclastic” epoch and disclose in it more profound meaning and still greater universal historical significance.