Nevertheless, in the mid-tenth century the productive hinterland of Constantinople was no longer trampled under the boots of Bulgarian troops. Perhaps the most significant indication of the new status quo is the absence of any substantive chapter on the Bulgarians in the treatise known as the De Administrando Imperio (DAI). Compiled on the instruction of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, to whom it is generally attributed, it comprises 53 chapters of advice addressed to his son and heir Romanus II (959-63). Some chapters are culled directly from earlier histories to provide antiquarian information on peoples and places of contemporary concern to the imperial court.
However, the chapters of greatest interest are those based on dossiers of information on the empire’s neighbours compiled in the century before the work was completed c. 954. Virtually all that we know of Byzantine diplomatic procedure is based on the DAI, and it is possible to construct a detailed picture of imperial policy in the Balkans and beyond from a close examination of the text.
Report of his Mission to Constantinople
Introduction [From Henderson translation]
This remarkable and exceedingly original piece of writing has been relegated to the appendix [of Henderson’s source collection] not because it is less important than the other documents in this collection, but because, being more of a narrative, it differs from them in character.
We first hear of Liutprand at the court of Berengar and Willa, who, in the middle of the tenth century, ruled over northern Italy. Becoming estranged from his royal patrons he wrote against them the Antapodosis, or book of retribution, which is one of our most valued historical sources for those times. In 963 Liutprand was envoy of Otto the Great to the shameless Pope John XII., and wrote the only connected account which we have of the latter’s condemnation and deposition.
The journey to Constantinople took place in 968. Otto had, in his efforts to bring Italy into his power, come into collision with the Greeks, who regarded Benevento and Capua as belonging to the provinces of the Eastern Empire. Otto went so far as to occupy Apulia and to besiege the Greek town of Bari, but soon came to the conclusion that more was to be gained by negotiations than by war. Liutprand, now Bishop of Cremona, advised peace, and suggested that a Greek princess should be sought in marriage for the young emperor Otto II., who had commenced to reign ,conjointly with his father.
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