THE VARANGIAN GUARD

The emperor of Byzantium’s axe-swinging, wine-swilling barbarians
AD 987–1204

It would be tiresome to recount the vicissitudes of this war; to narrate the cruelties which were perpetrated in detail would be disgusting; they can easily be imagined if one reflects that the Greeks, violent by nature and embittered by hatred, were frequently called on to exercise the right of retaliation, and they employed the rudest and most inhuman mercenaries for that purpose.

—Henry Smith Williams, The Historians’ History of the World

KNOWN TO THE NORSE SIMPLY AS Miklagard, meaning “the Great City,” the Byzantine Greek Empire’s capital, Constantinople, was by far the largest and most impressive city in the Western world during the Viking Age. Bastioned behind an impenetrable set of triple walls, her landscape accented by gold-plated domes, towering spires, spectacular cathedrals, and bustling dockyards, the breathtaking capital of the Eastern Roman Empire was the center of the richest and most advanced civilization on earth. Inside the sprawling golden palace high above the city sat the emperor of Byzantium, an unbelievably powerful man who commanded a limitless treasury, an almost endless army of loyal warriors, and complete control over all he surveyed.

Keeping watch at every entrance to his palace, standing tall among the swirling Greek and Middle Eastern courtiers, citizens, and dignitaries, were men who didn’t exactly fit in with their surroundings. Wearing sky-blue silk cloaks over their gold-plated scale mail armor, their red or blond hair falling down around their shoulders, their weathered hands clutching gold-embossed battle-axes, these terrifying battle-scarred warriors all stood well over six feet tall. The mere presence of their awe-inspiring beards and threatening axe blades was more than enough to keep order in the court.