At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers, who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of the state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years after the death of Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of the East.

[Footnote 104: The Aglabites and Edrisites are the professed subject of M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 1-63.)]

[Footnote 105: To escape the reproach of error, I must criticize the inaccuracies of M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 359) concerning the Edrisites. 1. The dynasty and city of Fez could not be founded in the year of the Hegira 173, since the founder was a posthumous child of a descendant of Ali, who fled from Mecca in the year 168. 2. This founder, Edris, the son of Edris, instead of living to the improbable age of 120 years, A. H. 313, died A. H. 214, in the prime of manhood. 3. The dynasty ended A. H. 307, twenty-three years sooner than it is fixed by the historian of the Huns. See the accurate Annals of Abulfeda p. 158, 159, 185, 238.]

[Footnote 106: The dynasties of the Taherites and Soffarides, with the rise of that of the Samanines, are described in the original history and Latin version of Mirchond: yet the most interesting facts had already been drained by the diligence of M. D'Herbelot.]

[Footnote 107: M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 124-154) has exhausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt, and thrown some light on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.]

Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of commander of the faithful; [108] the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke to the people, or conversed with the learned; the last who, in the expense of his household, represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient caliphs. After him, the lords of the Eastern world were reduced to the most abject misery, and exposed to the blows and insults of a servile condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed their dominions within the walls of Bagdad: but that capital still contained an innumerable multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with their present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of nations. Their idleness was exercised by faction and controversy. Under the mask of piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal [109] invaded the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, the wine, broke the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonored, with infamous suspicions, the associates of every handsome youth. In each profession, which allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the clamorous grief of the sectaries, who denied their title, and cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military force; but who could satisfy the avarice or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra, [110] imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any neighboring prince, their deliverance was a change of servitude, till they were prompted by despair to invite the Bowides, the sultans of Persia, who silenced the factions of Bagdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second of the three brothers, and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling was assigned by his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling multitude, the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon, by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his Dilamites. His palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station of danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity, the luxurious caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled of their armor and silken robes, they fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tradition of the Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge, the functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations still waited on the successors of the apostle, the oracles of the law and conscience of the faithful; and the weakness or division of their tyrants sometimes restored the Abbassides to the sovereignty of Bagdad. But their misfortunes had been imbittered by the triumph of the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the extremity of Africa, these successful rivals extinguished, in Egypt and Syria, both the spiritual and temporal authority of the Abbassides; and the monarch of the Nile insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the Tigris.

[Footnote 108: Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque saepius pro concione peroraret.... Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum eruditis et facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret. Ultimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et thesauri, culinae, caeteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo post quam indignis et servilibius ludibriis exagitati, quam ad humilem fortunam altimumque contemptum abjecti fuerint hi quondam potentissimi totius terrarum Orientalium orbis domini. Abulfed. Annal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage as the manner and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence belongs more properly to Reiske. The Arabian historian (p. 255, 257, 261-269, 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting facts of this paragraph.]

[Footnote 109: Their master, on a similar occasion, showed himself of a more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn Hanbal, the head of one of the four orthodox sects, was born at Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there A. H. 241. He fought and suffered in the dispute concerning the creation of the Koran.]

[Footnote 110: The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al Omra, Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Radhi, and which merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides: vectigalibus, et tributis, et curiis per omnes regiones praefecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in concionibus mentionem fieri, (Abulpharagius, Dynart. p 199.) It is likewise mentioned by Elmacin, (p. 254, 255.)]

In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which elapsed after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile transactions of the two nations were confined to some inroads by sea and land, the fruits of their close vicinity and indelible hatred. But when the Eastern world was convulsed and broken, the Greeks were roused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the accession of the Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and they might encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national foes of the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning star, and the death of the Saracens, [111] were applied in the public acclamations to Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in the camp, as he was unpopular in the city. In the subordinate station of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced the Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire. [112] His military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonor. The Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe and level bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore. Seven months were consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the native Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their brethren of Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was still maintained in the streets and houses of the city. [1121] The whole island was subdued in the capital, and a submissive people accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the conqueror. [113] Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a triumph; but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.

[Footnote 111: Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered by his uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt more applicable to Nicephorus than the vain titles of the Greeks, Ecce venit stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutu solis radios, pallida Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus.]

[Footnote 112: Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, &c., (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete was completely and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 873-875. Meursius, Creta, l. iii. c. 7, tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)]

[Footnote 1121: The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione Cretae, miserable iambics, relate the whole campaign. Whoever would fairly estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read the description of the slinging a jackass into the famishing city. The poet is in a transport at the wit of the general, and revels in the luxury of antithesis. Theodori Acroases, lib. iii. 172, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist.—M.]

[Footnote 113: A Greek Life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found in the Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit Sirmond, for the use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary legend casts a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the 10th century. He found the newly-recovered island, foedis detestandae Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam.... but the victorious missionary, perhaps with some carnal aid, ad baptismum omnes veraeque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per totam insulam aedificatis, &c., (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961.)]

After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively married Nicephorus Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two heroes of the age. They reigned as the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons; and the twelve years of their military command form the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals. The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong; and of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses: [114] a train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a few years by the course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute the conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the desert of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, in Cilicia, first exercised the skill and perseverance of their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is divided by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were predestined to death or slavery, [115] a surprising degree of population, which must at least include the inhabitants of the dependent districts. They were surrounded and taken by assault; but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no sooner had the Saracens yielded on honorable terms than they were mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval succors of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the confines of Syria: a part of the old Christians had quietly lived under their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished by a new colony. But the mosch was converted into a stable; the pulpit was delivered to the flames; many rich crosses of gold and gems, the spoils of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful offering to the piety or avarice of the emperor; and he transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, which were fixed in the walls of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his victory. After they had forced and secured the narrow passes of Mount Amanus, the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their arms into the heart of Syria. Yet, instead of assaulting the walls of Antioch, the humanity or superstition of Nicephorus appeared to respect the ancient metropolis of the East: he contented himself with drawing round the city a line of circumvallation; left a stationary army; and instructed his lieutenant to expect, without impatience, the return of spring. But in the depth of winter, in a dark and rainy night, an adventurous subaltern, with three hundred soldiers, approached the rampart, applied his scaling-ladders, occupied two adjacent towers, stood firm against the pressure of multitudes, and bravely maintained his post till he was relieved by the tardy, though effectual, support of his reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine subsided; the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored; and the efforts of a hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect before the walls of Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to Seifeddowlat, of the dynasty of Hamadan, who clouded his past glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his kingdom and capital to the Roman invaders. In his stately palace, that stood without the walls of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen hundred mules, and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls of the city withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of Jaushan. Their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen and mercenaries; the guard of the gates and ramparts was deserted; and while they furiously charged each other in the market-place, they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword; ten thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from the naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their lands, that they themselves, in the ensuing season, might reap the benefit; more than a hundred cities were reduced to obedience; and eighteen pulpits of the principal moschs were committed to the flames to expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic names of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in the list of conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ransom of a submissive people; and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. Since the days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage of Mount Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the Greeks.

The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces; and the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, [116] and Nisibis, the ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood of the Tigris. His ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping the virgin treasures of Ecbatana, [117] a well-known name, under which the Byzantine writer has concealed the capital of the Abbassides. The consternation of the fugitives had already diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied riches of Bagdad had already been dissipated by the avarice and prodigality of domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the stern demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied, that his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn from his hands, and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture of the palace was sold; and the paltry price of forty thousand pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury. But the apprehensions of Bagdad were relieved by the retreat of the Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the desert of Mesopotamia; and the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden with Oriental spoils, returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his triumph, the silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by this transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the fugitive princes returned to their capitals; the subjects disclaimed their involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems again purified their temples, and overturned the idols of the saints and martyrs; the Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a Saracen to an orthodox master; and the numbers and spirit of the Melchites were inadequate to the support of the church and state.

Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with the cities of Cilicia and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a permanent and useful accession to the Roman empire. [118]

[Footnote 114: Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.]

[Footnote 115: Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs (Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Masifa, Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more correctly, styled in the middle ages, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 580.) Yet I cannot credit this extreme populousness a few years after the testimony of the emperor Leo, (Tactica, c. xviii. in Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817.)]

[Footnote 116: The text of Leo the deacon, in the corrupt names of Emeta and Myctarsim, reveals the cities of Amida and Martyropolis, (Mia farekin. See Abulfeda, Geograph. p. 245, vers. Reiske.) Of the former, Leo observes, urbus munita et illustris; of the latter, clara atque conspicua opibusque et pecore, reliquis ejus provinciis urbibus atque oppidis longe praestans.]

[Footnote 117: Ut et Ecbatana pergeret Agarenorumque regiam everteret.... aiunt enim urbium quae usquam sunt ac toto orbe existunt felicissimam esse auroque ditissimam, (Leo Diacon. apud Pagium, tom. iv. p. 34.) This splendid description suits only with Bagdad, and cannot possibly apply either to Hamadan, the true Ecbatana, (D'Anville, Geog. Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 237,) or Tauris, which has been commonly mistaken for that city. The name of Ecbatana, in the same indefinite sense, is transferred by a more classic authority (Cicero pro Lego Manilia, c. 4) to the royal seat of Mithridates, king of Pontus.]

[Footnote 118: See the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, from A. H. 351 to A. H. 361; and the reigns of Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces, in the Chronicles of Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 199—l. xvii. 215) and Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 649-684.) Their manifold defects are partly supplied by the Ms. history of Leo the deacon, which Pagi obtained from the Benedictines, and has inserted almost entire, in a Latin version, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 873, tom. iv. 37.) * Note: The whole original work of Leo the Deacon has been published by Hase, and is inserted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians. M Lassen has added to the Arabian authorities of this period some extracts from Kemaleddin's account of the treaty for the surrender of Aleppo.—M.]



Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.

Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent And Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of Constantinople.— Titles And Offices.—Pride And Power Of The Emperors.— Tactics Of The Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.—Loss Of The Latin Tongue.—Studies And Solitude Of The Greeks.

A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the tenth century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, [1] which he composed at a mature age for the instruction of his son, and which promise to unfold the state of the eastern empire, both in peace and war, both at home and abroad. In the first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the church and palace of Constantinople, according to his own practice, and that of his predecessors. [2] In the second, he attempts an accurate survey of the provinces, the themes, as they were then denominated, both of Europe and Asia. [3] The system of Roman tactics, the discipline and order of the troops, and the military operations by land and sea, are explained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. [4] In the fourth, of the administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labors of the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honor of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics, [5] the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics [6] of Constantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three books, [7] and every citizen might apply, to his contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy.

[Footnote 1: The epithet of Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple, is elegantly defined by Claudian:—

Ardua privatos nescit fortuna Penates; Et regnum cum luce dedit. Cognata potestas Excepit Tyrio venerabile pignus in ostro.

And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many passages expressive of the same idea.]

[Footnote 2: A splendid Ms. of Constantine, de Caeremoniis Aulae et Ecclesiae Byzantinae, wandered from Constantinople to Buda, Frankfort, and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid edition by Leich and Reiske, (A.D. 1751, in folio,) with such lavish praise as editors never fail to bestow on the worthy or worthless object of their toil.]

[Footnote 3: See, in the first volume of Banduri's Imperium Orientale, Constantinus de Thematibus, p. 1-24, de Administrando Imperio, p. 45-127, edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of Meursius is corrected from a Ms. of the royal library of Paris, which Isaac Casaubon had formerly seen, (Epist. ad Polybium, p. 10,) and the sense is illustrated by two maps of William Deslisle, the prince of geographers till the appearance of the greater D'Anville.]

[Footnote 4: The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works of Meursius, by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920, 1211-1417, Florent. 1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The Imperial library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.)]

[Footnote 5: On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Romani, p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted: xli. books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris, 1647,) in seven tomes in folio; iv. other books have been since discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman's Novus Thesaurus Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole work, the sixty books, John Leunclavius has printed, (Basil, 1575,) an eclogue or synopsis. The cxiii. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis.]

[Footnote 6: I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics, (by Nicolas Niclas, Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols. in octavo.) I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two books of Hippiatrica, or Horse-physic, were published at Paris, 1530, in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 493-500.)]

[Footnote 7: Of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus, Antwerp, 1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, August. Vindel. 1603) and de Virtutibus et Vitiis, (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634.)]

A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money, enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metaphrast. [8] The merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which had been taught since the days of Xenophon, [9] as the art of heroes and kings. But the Tactics of Leo and Constantine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the other. A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and useful information, as the curiosity of government only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants. [10] Such information the historian would have been pleased to record; nor should his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population of the capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard, have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained with the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit; the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the geography and manners of the Barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius. [11] From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil government and military force, the character and literature, of the Greeks in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of Heraclius to his successful invasion of the Franks or Latins.

[Footnote 8: The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible of the original texture.]

[Footnote 9: According to the first book of the Cyropaedia, professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. A good edition of all the Scriptores Tactici would be a task not unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new Mss., and his learning might illustrate the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and alas! Quintus Icilius is no more. * Note: M. Guichardt, author of Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et sur les Romains. See Gibbon's Extraits Raisonnees de mes Lectures, Misc. Works vol. v. p. 219.—M]

[Footnote 10: After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus. The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against Freron: Un serpent mordit Jean Freron—Eh bien? Le serpent en mourut. But as the Paris wits are seldom read in the Anthology, I should be curious to learn, through what channel it was conveyed for their imitation, (Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Themat. c. ii. Brunck Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 56. Brodaei Anthologia, l. ii. p. 244.)]

[Footnote 11: The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephorum Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i.]

After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany over-spread the provinces and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion: her limits were inviolate, or at least entire; and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient and precarious; and almost a moiety of the Eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and, after the reduction of Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval powers; and it was from their extreme stations, the harbors of Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel emirs insulted the majesty of the throne and capital. The remaining provinces, under the obedience of the emperors, were cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the presidents, the consulars, and the counts were superseded by the institution of the themes, [12] or military governments, which prevailed under the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and seventeen in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful or capricious: the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear, were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that were maintained at the expense, and for the guard, of the respective divisions. The vanity of the Greek princes most eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of the Euphrates: the appellation and praetor of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil the Second, revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries, of the Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the metropolis of Antioch, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance of Christ and Caesar: one third of Italy was annexed to the throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed; and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighborhood of Rome. In the eleventh century, the prospect was again clouded by new enemies and new misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away by the Norman adventures; and almost all the Asiatic branches were dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors. After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Aegean or Holy Sea; [13] and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms.

[Footnote 12: See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p. 1-30. It is used by Maurice (Strata gem. l. ii. c. 2) for a legion, from whence the name was easily transferred to its post or province, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom. i. p. 487-488.) Some etymologies are attempted for the Opiscian, Optimatian, Thracesian, themes.]

[Footnote 13: It is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the corrupt names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been transformed by geographers and seamen, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la Greece, p. 60.) The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos, (Observations de Belon, fol. 32, verso,) monte santo, might justify the epithet of holy, a slight alteration from the original, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of goats, to the bounding waves, (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 829.)]

The same princes might assert, with dignity and truth, that of all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city, [14] the most ample revenue, the most flourishing and populous state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the cities of the West had decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome, or the mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts of Paris and London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches, and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her treasures might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could be discovered which had not been violated by some fierce Barbarian, impatient to despoil, because he was hopeless to possess. From the age of Justinian the Eastern empire was sinking below its former level; the powers of destruction were more active than those of improvement; and the calamities of war were imbittered by the more permanent evils of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of his sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer, and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most dexterous and diligent of nations; their country was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation; and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still adhered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa retired to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their brethren: the movable wealth, which eludes the search of oppression, accompanied and alleviated their exile, and Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs of Armenia and Scythia, who fled from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably entertained: their followers were encouraged to build new cities and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe and Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had seated themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers. Did we possess sufficient materials to survey the twenty-nine themes of the Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might be satisfied with a chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the clearest light should be thrown on the most interesting province, and the name of Peloponnesus will awaken the attention of the classic reader.

[Footnote 14: According to the Jewish traveller who had visited Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the great city of the Ismaelites, (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par Baratier, tom. l. c. v. p. 46.)]

As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, [15] were overrun by some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops, had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what yet remained of their sickly and withered roots. In this irruption, the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the Grecian blood was contaminated; and the proudest nobles of Peloponnesus were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the diligence of succeeding princes, the land was in some measure purified from the Barbarians; and the humble remnant was bound by an oath of obedience, tribute, and military service, which they often renewed and often violated. The siege of Patras was formed by a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the praetor of Corinth revived the courage of the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory, and the captive race was forever devoted to the service and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and Lacedaemon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately distinguished a domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in some degree, might derive their blood from the much-injured Helots. The liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. [16] In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea: they accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine praetor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, [17] forty cities were still numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique splendor and their present desolation. The duty of military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousand pounds sterling,) and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia [18] was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold. [19]

[Footnote 15: Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p. 25,) in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise observes, (l. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of this petty geographer.]

[Footnote 16: Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius, Graec. Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. iv. c. 8.]

[Footnote 17: Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, l. ii. c. 50, 51, 52.]

[Footnote 18: The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's Leap so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church.]

[Footnote 19: Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere, similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suos, (Liutprand in Legat. p. 489.)]

But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the revenue, were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufacturers; and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponnesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the manufacturers of linen, woollen, and more especially of silk: the two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of Homer; and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign of Justinian. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth, Thebes, and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous people: the men, women, and children were distributed according to their age and strength; and, if many of these were domestic slaves, their masters, who directed the work and enjoyed the profit, were of a free and honorable condition. The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacock's tail, of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah. She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, and adorned by the labors of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane. [20] In his description of the Greek manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price, according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of the texture, the beauty of the colors, and the taste and materials of the embroidery. A single, or even a double or treble thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale; but the union of six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly workmanship. Among the colors, he celebrates, with affectation of eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold: the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers: the vestments that were fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of Oriental pearls. [21] Till the twelfth century, Greece alone, of all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs of the East and West scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and Lisbon, were famous for the manufacture, the use, and, perhaps, the exportation, of silk. It was first introduced into Sicily by the Normans; and this emigration of trade distinguishes the victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostilities of every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, his lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and artificers of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and disgraceful to the Greek emperor. [22] The king of Sicily was not insensible of the value of the present; and, in the restitution of the prisoners, he excepted only the male and female manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labor, says the Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old Eretrians in the service of Darius. [23] A stately edifice, in the palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious colony; [24] and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to satisfy the increasing demand of the western world. The decay of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles of the island, and the competition of the Italian cities. In the year thirteen hundred and fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister republics, enjoyed the lucrative monopoly. [25] A domestic revolution dispersed the manufacturers to Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and even the countries beyond the Alps; and thirteen years after this event the statutes of Modena enjoin the planting of mulberry-trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk. [26] The northern climates are less propitious to the education of the silkworm; but the industry of France and England [27] is supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China.

[Footnote 20: See Constantine, (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76, p. 195, 197, in Script. post Theophanem,) who allows himself to use many technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he. Ducange labors on some: but he was not a weaver.]

[Footnote 21: The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo Falcandus, (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. v. p. 256,) is a copy of those of Greece. Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage the strange word exarentasmata is very properly changed for exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor Falcandus lived about the year 1190.]

[Footnote 22: Inde ad interiora Graeciae progressi, Corinthum, Thebas, Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres, expugnant; et, maxima ibidem praeda direpta, opifices etiam, qui sericos pannos texere solent, ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis gloriam, captivos deducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliae, metropoli collocans, artem texendi suos edocere praecepit; et exhinc praedicta ars illa, prius a Graecis tantum inter Christianos habita, Romanis patere coepit ingeniis, (Otho Frisingen. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 668.) This exception allows the bishop to celebrate Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio praenobilissimae, (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 415.)]

[Footnote 23: Nicetas in Manuel, l. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes these Greeks as skilled.]

[Footnote 24: Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and made sugar in the plain of Palermo.]

[Footnote 25: See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by Machiavel, but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi. Muratori, who has inserted it in the xith volume of his Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378.)]

[Footnote 26: From the Ms. statutes, as they are quoted by Muratori in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. ii. dissert. xxv. p. 46-48.)]

[Footnote 27: The broad silk manufacture was established in England in the year 1620, (Anderson's Chronological Deduction, vol. ii. p. 4: ) but it is to the revocation of the edict of Nantes that we owe the Spitalfields colony.]



Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.

I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty memorials of the times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the revenue, and the resources of the Greek empire. From every province of Europe and Asia the rivulets of gold and silver discharged into the Imperial reservoir a copious and perennial stream. The separation of the branches from the trunk increased the relative magnitude of Constantinople; and the maxims of despotism contracted the state to the capital, the capital to the palace, and the palace to the royal person. A Jewish traveller, who visited the East in the twelfth century, is lost in his admiration of the Byzantine riches. "It is here," says Benjamin of Tudela, "in the queen of cities, that the tributes of the Greek empire are annually deposited and the lofty towers are filled with precious magazines of silk, purple, and gold. It is said, that Constantinople pays each day to her sovereign twenty thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of Russia and Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by sea and land." [28] In all pecuniary matters, the authority of a Jew is doubtless respectable; but as the three hundred and sixty-five days would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions sterling, I am tempted to retrench at least the numerous festivals of the Greek calendar. The mass of treasure that was saved by Theodora and Basil the Second will suggest a splendid, though indefinite, idea of their supplies and resources. The mother of Michael, before she retired to a cloister, attempted to check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful son, by a free and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited; one hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred thousand of silver, the fruits of her own economy and that of her deceased husband. [29] The avarice of Basil is not less renowned than his valor and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and rewarded without breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand pounds of gold, (about eight millions sterling,) which he had buried in the subterraneous vaults of the palace. [30] Such accumulation of treasure is rejected by the theory and practice of modern policy; and we are more apt to compute the national riches by the use and abuse of the public credit. Yet the maxims of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his enemies; by a republic respectable to her allies; and both have attained their respective ends of military power and domestic tranquillity.

[Footnote 28: Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom. i. c. 5, p. 44-52. The Hebrew text has been translated into French by that marvellous child Baratier, who has added a volume of crude learning. The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels. * Note: I am inclined, with Buegnot (Les Juifs d'Occident, part iii. p. 101 et seqq.) and Jost (Geschichte der Israeliter, vol. vi. anhang. p. 376) to consider this work a mere compilation, and to doubt the reality of the travels.—M.]

[Footnote 29: See the continuator of Theophanes, (l. iv. p. 107,) Cedremis, (p. 544,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157.)]

[Footnote 30: Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 225,) instead of pounds, uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a literal sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty fold the treasure of Basil.]

Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or reserved for the future use, of the state, the first and most sacred demand was for the pomp and pleasure of the emperor, and his discretion only could define the measure of his private expense. The princes of Constantinople were far removed from the simplicity of nature; yet, with the revolving seasons, they were led by taste or fashion to withdraw to a purer air, from the smoke and tumult of the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to enjoy, the rustic festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by the exercise of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing, and in the summer heats, they were shaded from the sun, and refreshed by the cooling breezes from the sea. The coasts and islands of Asia and Europe were covered with their magnificent villas; but, instead of the modest art which secretly strives to hide itself and to decorate the scenery of nature, the marble structure of their gardens served only to expose the riches of the lord, and the labors of the architect. The successive casualties of inheritance and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietor of many stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which twelve were appropriated to the ministers of state; but the great palace, [31] the centre of the Imperial residence, was fixed during eleven centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice of the first Constantine was a copy, or rival, of ancient Rome; the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the wonders of the old world, [32] and in the tenth century, the Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins, by an unquestionable preeminence of strength, size, and magnificence. [33] But the toil and treasure of so many ages had produced a vast and irregular pile: each separate building was marked with the character of the times and of the founder; and the want of space might excuse the reigning monarch, who demolished, perhaps with secret satisfaction, the works of his predecessors. The economy of the emperor Theophilus allowed a more free and ample scope for his domestic luxury and splendor. A favorite ambassador, who had astonished the Abbassides themselves by his pride and liberality, presented on his return the model of a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently constructed on the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied and surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus [34] were accompanied with gardens, and with five churches, one of which was conspicuous for size and beauty: it was crowned with three domes, the roof of gilt brass reposed on columns of Italian marble, and the walls were incrusted with marbles of various colors. In the face of the church, a semicircular portico, of the figure and name of the Greek sigma, was supported by fifteen columns of Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of a similar construction. The square before the sigma was decorated with a fountain, and the margin of the basin was lined and encompassed with plates of silver. In the beginning of each season, the basin, instead of water, was replenished with the most exquisite fruits, which were abandoned to the populace for the entertainment of the prince. He enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle from a throne resplendent with gold and gems, which was raised by a marble staircase to the height of a lofty terrace. Below the throne were seated the officers of his guards, the magistrates, the chiefs of the factions of the circus; the inferior steps were occupied by the people, and the place below was covered with troops of dancers, singers, and pantomimes. The square was surrounded by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various offices of business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was named from the annual distribution of robes of scarlet and purple by the hand of the empress herself. The long series of the apartments was adapted to the seasons, and decorated with marble and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and mosaics, with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His fanciful magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists as the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have despised their frivolous and costly labors; a golden tree, with its leaves and branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds warbling their artificial notes, and two lions of massy gold, and of natural size, who looked and roared like their brethren of the forest. The successors of Theophilus, of the Basilian and Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of leaving some memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace most splendid and august was dignified with the title of the golden triclinium. [35] With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks aspired to imitate their sovereign, and when they passed through the streets on horseback, in their robes of silk and embroidery, they were mistaken by the children for kings. [36] A matron of Peloponnesus, [37] who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil the Macedonian, was excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the greatness of her adopted son. In a journey of five hundred miles from Patras to Constantinople, her age or indolence declined the fatigue of a horse or carriage: the soft litter or bed of Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten robust slaves; and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of three hundred were selected for the performance of this service. She was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence, and the honors of a queen; and whatever might be the origin of her wealth, her gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity. I have already described the fine and curious manufactures of Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and woollen; but the most acceptable of her presents consisted in three hundred beautiful youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs; [38] "for she was not ignorant," says the historian, "that the air of the palace is more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd's dairy to the flies of the summer." During her lifetime, she bestowed the greater part of her estates in Peloponnesus, and her testament instituted Leo, the son of Basil, her universal heir. After the payment of the legacies, fourscore villas or farms were added to the Imperial domain; and three thousand slaves of Danielis were enfranchised by their new lord, and transplanted as a colony to the Italian coast. From this example of a private matron, we may estimate the wealth and magnificence of the emperors. Yet our enjoyments are confined by a narrow circle; and, whatsoever may be its value, the luxury of life is possessed with more innocence and safety by the master of his own, than by the steward of the public, fortune.

[Footnote 31: For a copious and minute description of the Imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (l. ii. c. 4, p. 113-123) of Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never has laborious Germany produced two antiquarians more laborious and accurate than these two natives of lively France.]

[Footnote 32: The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood, the temple of Adrian at Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c., according to an epigram (Antholog. Graec. l. iv. p. 488, 489. Brodaei, apud Wechel) ascribed to Julian, ex-praefect of Egypt. Seventy-one of his epigrams, some lively, are collected in Brunck, (Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 493-510; but this is wanting.]

[Footnote 33: Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine solum, verum stiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram munitionibus praestat, (Liutprand, Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 465.)]

[Footnote 34: See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes, (p. 59, 61, 86,) whom I have followed in the neat and concise abstract of Le Beau, (Hint. du Bas Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436, 438.)]

[Footnote 35: In aureo triclinio quae praestantior est pars potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens caeteras partes (filiis) distribuerat, (Liutprand. Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 469.) For this last signification of Triclinium see Ducange (Gloss. Graec. et Observations sur Joinville, p. 240) and Reiske, (ad Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p. 7.)]

[Footnote 36: In equis vecti (says Benjamin of Tudela) regum filiis videntur persimiles. I prefer the Latin version of Constantine l'Empereur (p. 46) to the French of Baratier, (tom. i. p. 49.)]

[Footnote 37: See the account of her journey, munificence, and testament, in the life of Basil, by his grandson Constantine, (p. 74, 75, 76, p. 195-197.)]

[Footnote 38: Carsamatium. Graeci vocant, amputatis virilibus et virga, puerum eunuchum quos Verdunenses mercatores obinmensum lucrum facere solent et in Hispaniam ducere, (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 3, p. 470.)—The last abomination of the abominable slave-trade! Yet I am surprised to find, in the xth century, such active speculations of commerce in Lorraine.]

In an absolute government, which levels the distinctions of noble and plebeian birth, the sovereign is the sole fountain of honor; and the rank, both in the palace and the empire, depends on the titles and offices which are bestowed and resumed by his arbitrary will. Above a thousand years, from Vespasian to Alexius Comnenus, [39] the Caesar was the second person, or at least the second degree, after the supreme title of Augustus was more freely communicated to the sons and brothers of the reigning monarch. To elude without violating his promise to a powerful associate, the husband of his sister, and, without giving himself an equal, to reward the piety of his brother Isaac, the crafty Alexius interposed a new and supereminent dignity. The happy flexibility of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names of Augustus and Emperor (Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union produces the sonorous title of Sebastocrator. He was exalted above the Caesar on the first step of the throne: the public acclamations repeated his name; and he was only distinguished from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments of the head and feet. The emperor alone could assume the purple or red buskins, and the close diadem or tiara, which imitated the fashion of the Persian kings. [40] It was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk, almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels: the crown was formed by a horizontal circle and two arches of gold: at the summit, the point of their intersection, was placed a globe or cross, and two strings or lappets of pearl depended on either cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the Sebastocrator and Caesar were green; and on their open coronets or crowns, the precious gems were more sparingly distributed. Beside and below the Caesar the fancy of Alexius created the Panhypersebastos and the Protosebastos, whose sound and signification will satisfy a Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and a priority above the simple name of Augustus; and this sacred and primitive title of the Roman prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the Byzantine court. The daughter of Alexius applauds, with fond complacency, this artful gradation of hopes and honors; but the science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity; and this vain dictionary was easily enriched by the pride of his successors. To their favorite sons or brothers, they imparted the more lofty appellation of Lord or Despot, which was illustrated with new ornaments, and prerogatives, and placed immediately after the person of the emperor himself. The five titles of, 1. Despot; 2. Sebastocrator; 3. Caesar; 4. Panhypersebastos; and, 5. Protosebastos; were usually confined to the princes of his blood: they were the emanations of his majesty; but as they exercised no regular functions, their existence was useless, and their authority precarious.

[Footnote 39: See the Alexiad (l. iii. p. 78, 79) of Anna Comnena, who, except in filial piety, may be compared to Mademoiselle de Montpensier. In her awful reverence for titles and forms, she styles her father, the inventor of this royal art.]

[Footnote 40: See Reiske, and Ceremoniale, p. 14, 15. Ducange has given a learned dissertation on the crowns of Constantinople, Rome, France, &c., (sur Joinville, xxv. p. 289-303;) but of his thirty-four models, none exactly tally with Anne's description.]

But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must be divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and treasury, the fleet and army. The titles alone can differ; and in the revolution of ages, the counts and praefects, the praetor and quaestor, insensibly descended, while their servants rose above their heads to the first honors of the state. 1. In a monarchy, which refers every object to the person of the prince, the care and ceremonies of the palace form the most respectable department. The Curopalata, [41] so illustrious in the age of Justinian, was supplanted by the Protovestiare, whose primitive functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe. From thence his jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of pomp and luxury; and he presided with his silver wand at the public and private audience. 2. In the ancient system of Constantine, the name of Logothete, or accountant, was applied to the receivers of the finances: the principal officers were distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of the posts, the army, the private and public treasure; and the great Logothete, the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. [42] His discerning eye pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due subordination, by the eparch or praefect of the city, the first secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and the red or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor alone. [43] The introductor and interpreter of foreign ambassadors were the great Chiauss [44] and the Dragoman, [45] two names of Turkish origin, and which are still familiar to the Sublime Porte. 3. From the humble style and service of guards, the Domestics insensibly rose to the station of generals; the military themes of the East and West, the legions of Europe and Asia, were often divided, till the great Domestic was finally invested with the universal and absolute command of the land forces. The Protostrator, in his original functions, was the assistant of the emperor when he mounted on horseback: he gradually became the lieutenant of the great Domestic in the field; and his jurisdiction extended over the stables, the cavalry, and the royal train of hunting and hawking. The Stratopedarch was the great judge of the camp: the Protospathaire commanded the guards; the Constable, [46] the great Aeteriarch, and the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers, who, a the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the Byzantine armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of the great Duke; in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of the fleet; and, in his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of Saracen extraction, [47] but which has been naturalized in all the modern languages of Europe. Of these officers, and of many more whom it would be useless to enumerate, the civil and military hierarchy was framed. Their honors and emoluments, their dress and titles, their mutual salutations and respective preeminence, were balanced with more exquisite labor than would have fixed the constitution of a free people; and the code was almost perfect when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and servitude, was forever buried in the ruins of the empire. [48]

[Footnote 41: Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine pro rerum vocitatus Cura-Palati, says the African Corippus, (de Laudibus Justini, l. i. 136,) and in the same century (the vith) Cassiodorus represents him, who, virga aurea decoratus, inter numerosa obsequia primus ante pedes regis incederet (Variar. vii. 5.) But this great officer, (unknown,) exercising no function, was cast down by the modern Greeks to the xvth rank, (Codin. c. 5, p. 65.)]

[Footnote 42: Nicetas (in Manuel, l. vii. c. 1) defines him. Yet the epithet was added by the elder Andronicus, (Ducange, tom. i. p. 822, 823.)]

[Footnote 43: From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is still visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion and cinnabar, or purple. The emperor's guardians, who shared in this prerogative, always marked in green ink the indiction and the month. See the Dictionnaire Diplomatique, (tom. i. p. 511-513) a valuable abridgment.]

[Footnote 44: The sultan sent to Alexius, (Anna Comnena, l. vi. p. 170. Ducange ad loc.;) and Pachymer often speaks, (l. vii. c. 1, l. xii. c. 30, l. xiii. c. 22.) The Chiaoush basha is now at the head of 700 officers, (Rycaut's Ottoman Empire, p. 349, octavo edition.)]

[Footnote 45: Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter, (D'Herbelot, p. 854, 855;), says Codinus, (c. v. No. 70, p. 67.) See Villehardouin, (No. 96,) Bus, (Epist. iv. p. 338,) and Ducange, (Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Graec. et Latin)]

[Footnote 46: A corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the French Connetable. In a military sense, it was used by the Greeks in the eleventh century, at least as early as in France.]

[Footnote 47: It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the xiith century, Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the great officers.]

[Footnote 48: This sketch of honors and offices is drawn from George Cordinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of Constantinople by the Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work (de Officiis Ecclesiae et Aulae C. P.) has been illustrated by the notes of Goar, and the three books of Gretser, a learned Jesuit.]



Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.

The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted by flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with ourselves. The mode of adoration, [49] of falling prostrate on the ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, [50] asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne, the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte, and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with strangers or natives. At his first audience, he offered the gifts of his master, slaves, and golden vases, and costly armor. The ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed before his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a royal banquet, [51] in which the ambassadors of the nations were marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe of honor. [52] In the morning and evening of each day, his civil and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their labors were repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence. In his regular or extraordinary processions through the capital, he unveiled his person to the public view: the rites of policy were connected with those of religion, and his visits to the principal churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek calendar. On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout intention of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the most precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken hangings, were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a severe discipline restrained and silenced the tumult of the populace. The march was opened by the military officers at the head of their troops: they were followed in long order by the magistrates and ministers of the civil government: the person of the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and at the church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long life [53] and victory were the burden of every song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated in the Latin, [54] Gothic, Persian, French, and even English language, [55] by the mercenaries who sustained the real or fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery has been reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, [56] which the vanity of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the same acclamations were applied to every character and every reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he might remember, that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or conspired against the life, of his predecessor. [57]

[Footnote 49: The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare. See our learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942,) in his Titles of Honor. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be of Persian origin.]

[Footnote 50: The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople, all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly described by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471. Legatio ad Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479-489.)]

[Footnote 51: Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced, on his forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked, though cinctured, (campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed, stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At another repast a homily of Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non Latine, (p. 483.)]

[Footnote 52: Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p. 84.)]

[Footnote 53: It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom. i. p. 1199.)]

[Footnote 54: (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin 'V' obliged the Greeks to employ their 'beta'; nor do they regard quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange sentences might puzzle a professor.]

[Footnote 55: (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words, however corrupt, of their English acclamation.]

[Footnote 56: For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the rank of standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240, not. 131; the processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177-214, not. 9, 93, &c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not 109: much more information is scattered over the work.]

[Footnote 57: Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota adulatio, (Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]

The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine, without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood with the blood of the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman prince. [58] The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days of freedom and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian wife: [59] and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice. [60] This perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished, that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the impious prince who should stain the majesty of the purple was excluded from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three answers were prepared, which solved the difficulty and established the law. I.

The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and the people, disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached, both in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III. For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the fidelity and valor of the Franks; [61] and his prophetic spirit beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was the lineal descendant of Charlemagne; [62] and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele. [63] The daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years, the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance of her country. [64] In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighborhood of the Polar circle. [65] Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king of France, Henry I., sought a wife on the last borders of Europe and Christendom. [66]

[Footnote 58: The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of Ducange.]

[Footnote 59: Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid, viii. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

[Footnote 60: Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.]

[Footnote 61: Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers (Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with these compliments.]

[Footnote 62: Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp. c. 36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo. A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D. 925-946.]