The face of Christ

In early 942, after helping to exterminate the Russian fleet, John Curcuas rushed back to the East. To his relief, he arrived to find the Roman defences intact. His great enemy, Sayf al-Dawla, was still distracted by the crumbling Caliphate in Baghdad. While the Arabs fought each other, now was the time for Curcuas to resume his offensive. 

This was the moment he had spent over twenty years waiting and planning for. Curcuas ranks high among the pantheon of Roman generals, and was described as the equal to Trajan and Belisarius. Yet, unlike his famous predecessors, he fought no great battles, won no flashy victories. His great virtues as a commander were patience and consistency. Instead of charging into battle, trumpets blaring, he slowly reconquered lost territory, one step at a time. 

Finally, in 942, all was ready. In January he swept down into the province of Aleppo, stormed Hamus and captured (according to Arab sources) ten to fifteen thousand prisoners. The Arabs countered with a raid into Tarsus, while Curcuas returned to imperial territory to rest his troops, rearm and resupply. 

Then, in the autumn, he set off on a huge clockwise loop that took the army past Lake Van and westward to the great fortress-city of Amida on the banks of the Tigris. Now known as Diyarbakir, the city even today retains its tremendous medieval walls, including spectacular Islamic reliefs above the Harput gate that date from 910. These were in place when John Curcuas came storming into town.

The army drove onward through the winter months, into the very heart of Mesopotamia. Curcuas swung south-east to capture Nisibin (Nusaybin in Mardin province, Turkey) and thence west to direct his main attack against the city of Edessa. Though a Muslim city, Edessa was famed for possessing two precious Christian relics: the letter which the ailing King Agbar I had received from Jesus Christ in reply to an invitation to come and cure him, and the Saviour's own portrait, miraculously imprinted on a cloth. This image was known as the 'Mandylion'. In fact both objects were thought to be spurious - the letter had been declared a fake by Pope Gelasius in 494, while the portrait is not heard of before the fifth century. 

Curcuas, however, was determined to have the Mandylion. Although a military man, he had been raised and educated by a bishop, and probably had no doubts that the relic was genuine. He sent word to the inhabitants of Edessa, offering peace and the return of his prisoners in exchange for the Mandylion. 

Yet the portrait was just as important to the Edessans. In the eyes of Islam Jesus was one of those 'close to God', and his image a sacred trust. They pleaded with Curcuas to give them time to ask advice of the Caliph at Baghdad. He agreed, and spent the next year ravaging Mesopotamia and capturing more cities, including Dara and Ras al-Ain. 

In spring 944 the Edessans received an answer. Since the Caliph was unable to break the siege of Edessa, the citizens had his permission to surrender the Mandylion. With much ceremony it was carried from the city and placed in the hands of Curcuas, who immediately sent it to Constantinople. There it was formally received by the emperor, Romanos I, and his three young co-Emperors. These were his two surviving sons and his son-in-law, the Porphyrogenitus (born in the purple), Constantine. 

The reception was marred by two embarrassing incidents. First, Romanus's drunken sons had a good look at the Mandylion and declared they couldn't see the imprint of Christ's features. It was just a bit of cloth. Then, a joker (or a madman) in the crowd suddenly shouted: 

“Constantinople, accept the glory and the blessing; and you, Constantine, accept your throne!” 

Even so, the capture of the Mandylion made John Curcuas the hero of the hour. In late summer he crossed the Euphrates and ended his triumphant campaign at Marash, one of the great road centres of the frontier. Under his leadership the Empire had reconquered vast swathes of territory and reached cities where no Roman had set foot since the days of Heraclius. 

Roman chroniclers hailed Curcuas as the man who brought the frontier to the Euphrates, but they were (for once) guilty of under-praising. He had, in fact, brought it to the edges of the Tigris, and laid the groundwork for the next generation of even more talented Roman commanders. 

(The image shows the surrender of the Mandylion by the Edessans, from the Madrid Skylitzes)