Kyriakos, the bishop of Thessalonike and also, in effect, its governor, greeted me just inside the Kassandreia Gate. "God bless the Emperor Justinian!" he cried, "the God-crowned maker of peace, benefactor to this city, pious and faithful to Jesus Christ our Lord!"
"God bless Thessalonike," I replied, to which the people cheered. "Through His help and that of the great martyr, Saint Demetrios, we have triumphed against our foes, who are also the foes of the saint." The Thessalonikans shouted louder for their beloved saint than they had for their city.
Kyriakos leading the way, we paraded through Thessalonike. When we passed under a great triumphal arch perhaps a bowshot inside the wall, he crossed himself, saying, "This was built by the arch-persecutors, Galerius and Diocletian."
Reliefs on the arch showed prisoners- easterners: Persians, perhaps- pleading for mercy before a Roman Emperor in antique costume like that which Constantine the Great is often seen wearing on his monuments. As the bishop had said, Galerius and Diocletian savagely persecuted Christians, and no doubt suffer the pangs of hell because of it. But without their victories, the Roman Empire would have suffered untold grief at the hands of its enemies. How was I to feel about them, then? How I felt, at the time, was puzzled.
Just north of the triumphal arch was an impressive church dedicated to St. George: Thessalonike seemed to have, and to need, several churches favoring the military saints. It also had, along the Via Egnatia, a church dedicated to the Mother of God. "In here," Kyriakos said proudly, "rests an icon of our Lord which human hands did not paint." His pride was justified, for by possessing such a holy image Thessalonike showed itself to be no provincial backwater, but a city to be reckoned with.
Shortly after passing the church dedicated to the Virgin, we turned north up a meaner, narrower street leading to the church of St. Demetrios, a church worthy of standing comparison to any I have ever seen, save only the great church in the imperial city. It is an old-fashioned basilica, rectangular in plan, with a wooden roof and with a transept giving it something of a cruciform appearance.
"Here we shall celebrate the divine liturgy," Kyriakos said, "celebrating also your glorious victory against the godless Sklavenoi who have for so long oppressed and harassed Thessalonike."
Notables, both priests and laymen, filled not only the wide nave of the church but also the aisles to either side, aisles separated from that nave by columns of red, green, and white marble, a stone with which Thessalonike is abundantly supplied. I admired the mosaics of St. Demetrios and others, who I learned were a prefect Leontios (the coincidence of names amused me), who had built the first church on the site more than two and a half centuries before, and Kyriakos's predecessor, John, who had led the defense of the city against the Sklavenoi during my great-great-grandfather's reign.
At the close of the liturgy, I took communion from Kyriakos, eating of our Lord's flesh and drinking His blood. Afterwards, the bishop introduced me to a whole great swarm of prominent Thessalonikans, men whose names vanished from my head the moment I left the city they inhabited. And why not? Men who think themselves worth remembering come to Constantinople, to see if they can prove it.
A partial exception was Dorotheos, commander of the garrison of Thessalonike. Even he, though, was less than he might have been, allowing Kyriakos to take the leading role in administering Thessalonike; in that, though, he but acquiesced to a long-standing tradition of episcopal control in city affairs.
To me, Dorotheos said, "You have done a great thing, Emperor, in subduing the Sklavenoi hereabouts. They've made life miserable for us the past hundred years."
"Your hinterland is free of them now, for I've cleared them out by the tens of thousands," I answered, and then paused, struck by a happy thought. I had been contemplating making Thrace a military district on the order of those in Anatolia; doing the same around Thessalonike would give the city warriors on whom to draw should the barbarian menace revive. I said, "I will send military peasants here, to settle on some of the lands cleared of the Sklavenoi. And you, Dorotheos, you I shall name the first commander of the military district of Hellas." At the last moment, I chose that more sweeping title instead of naming the district after Thessalonike.
"Thank you, Emperor!" Dorotheos exclaimed. We both knew, of course, that great stretches of Hellas remained outside effective Roman control- indeed, outside any Roman control at all- being overrun by more bands of Sklavenoi. All the same, the name offered the promise of eventual redemption for the territory named.
Then Kyriakos said, "What a splendid promotion for you, Dorotheos," in tones suggesting he did not find it splendid at all. I realized the bishop was used to being the leading man in Thessalonike, and found anything tending to aggrandize a rival distasteful in the extreme. I also realized I would be wise to do something to placate Kyriakos, as he would probably remain more important here than Dorotheos even after the military district of Hellas was established.
At a supper later that evening, I found a way to grant Kyriakos a favor without diminishing the new authority I was conferring upon Dorotheos. The centerpiece at the feast was a roast kid basted with olive oil and crushed garlic. Watching Neboulos amused me; while relishing the fatty richness of the dish, he cut away the crisp outermost slices of meat and shoveled on salt with both hands to kill the taste of the garlic, the Sklavenoi, like many barbarians, being less fond of it than we Romans.
When he noticed my eye on him, he said, "Emperor, I am glad again I surrender to you. You Romans live by sea, make all salt you want. You do not sell salt to me. You do not sell it to my people. Now at last I can eat all I want." And he reached for the saltcellar again.
"Selling salt is against our law," I said, and let it go at that. Without salt, preserving food is much harder. That makes the stuff a weapon of war, hardly less than iron. Anyone selling his foes that which strengthens them deserves what happens to him.
Neboulos sprinkled still more salt over the fresh surfaces of kid his knife exposed. Turning to Kyriakos, I adapted the text of the Book of Matthew, saying, "In the Sklavinian you see a man for whom the salt has not lost his savor."
"True enough, Emperor," he said, and then, lowering his voice, "I would not mind if, like Lot's wife, he were turned into a pillar of salt. Not only would we be rid of him as a man- which, thanks to you, we are in a different way- but we could break him up and sell him for a good price."
I laughed, but quickly grew thoughtful. "You want to sell salt for a good price? I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll give the church of Saint Demetrios a salt pan all to itself, and all the revenues from it, to thank the saint for aiding us against the Sklavenoi. Let the salt pan be entirely free: you'll pay no taxes for it, and you will not be obliged to furnish salt from it to the soldiers without payment. Does that suit you, Kyriakos?"
"God bless you, Emperor!" the bishop exclaimed, which I took for an affirmative.
"My secretaries will draw up the edict tomorrow," I said, and Kyriakos looked more joyful still. Thessalonike lying by the sea, granting the church he headed the privilege of producing its own salt would bring it extra revenue without seriously inconveniencing the garrison, which had other salt pans upon which to draw. It also helped salve the bishop's bitterness at the greater authority Dorotheos was to acquire.