Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5
by Edward Gibbon
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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[Footnote 71: I have perused, with much pleasure, Sir William
Jones's Latin Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, (London, 1774, in
octavo,) which was composed in the youth of that wonderful
linguist. At present, in the maturity of his taste and judgment,
he would perhaps abate of the fervent, and even partial, praise
which he has bestowed on the Orientals.]

[Footnote 72: Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been
accused of despising the religions of the Jews, the Christians,
and the Mahometans, (see his article in Bayle's Dictionary.) Each
of these sects would agree, that in two instances out of three,
his contempt was reasonable.]

[Footnote 73: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque, Orientale, p. 546.]
[Footnote 74: Cedrenus, p. 548, who relates how manfully the
emperor refused a mathematician to the instances and offers of
the caliph Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in
the same words by the continuator of Theophanes, (Scriptores post
Theophanem, p. 118.)]

     In the bloody conflict of the Ommiades and Abbassides, the
Greeks had stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and
enlarging their limits. But a severe retribution was exacted by
Mohadi, the third caliph of the new dynasty, who seized, in his
turn, the favorable opportunity, while a woman and a child, Irene
and Constantine, were seated on the Byzantine throne. An army of
ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs was sent from the Tigris
to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of Harun, ^75 or
Aaron, the second son of the commander of the faithful. His
encampment on the opposite heights of Chrysopolis, or Scutari,
informed Irene, in her palace of Constantinople, of the loss of
her troops and provinces. With the consent or connivance of
their sovereign, her ministers subscribed an ignominious peace;
and the exchange of some royal gifts could not disguise the
annual tribute of seventy thousand dinars of gold, which was
imposed on the Roman empire. The Saracens had too rashly
advanced into the midst of a distant and hostile land: their
retreat was solicited by the promise of faithful guides and
plentiful markets; and not a Greek had courage to whisper, that
their weary forces might be surrounded and destroyed in their
necessary passage between a slippery mountain and the River
Sangarius. Five years after this expedition, Harun ascended the
throne of his father and his elder brother; the most powerful and
vigorous monarch of his race, illustrious in the West, as the
ally of Charlemagne, and familiar to the most childish readers,
as the perpetual hero of the Arabian tales. His title to the
name of Al Rashid (the Just) is sullied by the extirpation of the
generous, perhaps the innocent, Barmecides; yet he could listen
to the complaint of a poor widow who had been pillaged by his
troops, and who dared, in a passage of the Koran, to threaten the
inattentive despot with the judgment of God and posterity. His
court was adorned with luxury and science; but, in a reign of
three-and-twenty years, Harun repeatedly visited his provinces
from Chorasan to Egypt; nine times he performed the pilgrimage of
Mecca; eight times he invaded the territories of the Romans; and
as often as they declined the payment of the tribute, they were
taught to feel that a month of depredation was more costly than a
year of submission. But when the unnatural mother of Constantine
was deposed and banished, her successor, Nicephorus, resolved to
obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of
the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the
game of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece.
"The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and
herself as a pawn. That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a
tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the
Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or
abide the determination of the sword." At these words the
ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the
throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his
cimeter, samsamah, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he
cut asunder the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the
edge, or endangering the temper, of his blade. He then dictated
an epistle of tremendous brevity: "In the name of the most
merciful God, Harun al Rashid, commander of the faithful, to
Nicephorus, the Roman dog. I have read thy letter, O thou son of
an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold,
my reply." It was written in characters of blood and fire on the
plains of Phrygia; and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could
only be checked by the arts of deceit and the show of repentance.

The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the
campaign, to his favorite palace of Racca on the Euphrates: ^76
but the distance of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the
season, encouraged his adversary to violate the peace. Nicephorus
was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of
the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of
Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted;
and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field
of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet
the emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was
resolved on victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand
regular soldiers received pay, and were inscribed in the military
roll; and above three hundred thousand persons of every
denomination marched under the black standard of the Abbassides.
They swept the surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and Ancyra,
and invested the Pontic Heraclea, ^77 once a flourishing state,
now a paltry town; at that time capable of sustaining, in her
antique walls, a month's siege against the forces of the East.
The ruin was complete, the spoil was ample; but if Harun had been
conversant with Grecian story, he would have regretted the statue
of Hercules, whose attributes, the club, the bow, the quiver, and
the lion's hide, were sculptured in massy gold. The progress of
desolation by sea and land, from the Euxine to the Isle of
Cyprus, compelled the emperor Nicephorus to retract his haughty
defiance. In the new treaty, the ruins of Heraclea were left
forever as a lesson and a trophy; and the coin of the tribute was
marked with the image and superscription of Harun and his three
sons. ^78 Yet this plurality of lords might contribute to remove
the dishonor of the Roman name. After the death of their father,
the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord, and the
conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was sufficiently engaged in the
restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign
science.

[Footnote 75: See the reign and character of Harun Al Rashid, in
the Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 431 - 433, under his proper title;
and in the relative articles to which M. D'Herbelot refers. That
learned collector has shown much taste in stripping the Oriental
chronicles of their instructive and amusing anecdotes.]

[Footnote 76: For the situation of Racca, the old Nicephorium,
consult D'Anville, (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 24 - 27.) The
Arabian Nights represent Harun al Rashid as almost stationary in
Bagdad. He respected the royal seat of the Abbassides: but the
vices of the inhabitants had driven him from the city, (Abulfed.
Annal. p. 167.)]

[Footnote 77: M. de Tournefort, in his coasting voyage from
Constantinople to Trebizond, passed a night at Heraclea or
Eregri. His eye surveyed the present state, his reading
collected the antiquities, of the city (Voyage du Levant, tom.
iii. lettre xvi. p. 23 - 35.) We have a separate history of
Heraclea in the fragments of Memnon, which are preserved by
Photius.]

[Footnote 78: The wars of Harun al Rashid against the Roman
empire are related by Theophanes, (p. 384, 385, 391, 396, 407,
408.) Zonaras, (tom. iii. l. xv. p. 115, 124,) Cedrenus, (p. 477,
478,) Eutycaius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 407,) Elmacin, (Hist.
Saracen. p. 136, 151, 152,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 147, 151,)
and Abulfeda, (p. 156, 166 - 168.)]

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.

Part IV.

     Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the
Stammerer at Constantinople, the islands of Crete ^79 and Sicily
were subdued by the Arabs. The former of these conquests is
disdained by their own writers, who were ignorant of the fame of
Jupiter and Minos, but it has not been overlooked by the
Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a clearer light on
the affairs of their own times. ^80 A band of Andalusian
volunteers, discontented with the climate or government of Spain,
explored the adventures of the sea; but as they sailed in no more
than ten or twenty galleys, their warfare must be branded with
the name of piracy. As the subjects and sectaries of the white
party, they might lawfully invade the dominions of the black
caliphs. A rebellious faction introduced them into Alexandria;
^81 they cut in pieces both friends and foes, pillaged the
churches and the moschs, sold above six thousand Christian
captives, and maintained their station in the capital of Egypt,
till they were oppressed by the forces and the presence of
Almamon himself. From the mouth of the Nile to the Hellespont,
the islands and sea-coasts both of the Greeks and Moslems were
exposed to their depredations; they saw, they envied, they tasted
the fertility of Crete, and soon returned with forty galleys to a
more serious attack. The Andalusians wandered over the land
fearless and unmolested; but when they descended with their
plunder to the sea-shore, their vessels were in flames, and their
chief, Abu Caab, confessed himself the author of the mischief.
Their clamors accused his madness or treachery. "Of what do you
complain?" replied the crafty emir. "I have brought you to a
land flowing with milk and honey. Here is your true country;
repose from your toils, and forget the barren place of your
nativity." "And our wives and children?" "Your beauteous captives
will supply the place of your wives, and in their embraces you
will soon become the fathers of a new progeny." The first
habitation was their camp, with a ditch and rampart, in the Bay
of Suda; but an apostate monk led them to a more desirable
position in the eastern parts; and the name of Candax, their
fortress and colony, has been extended to the whole island, under
the corrupt and modern appellation of Candia. The hundred cities
of the age of Minos were diminished to thirty; and of these, only
one, most probably Cydonia, had courage to retain the substance
of freedom and the profession of Christianity. The Saracens of
Crete soon repaired the loss of their navy; and the timbers of
Mount Ida were launched into the main. During a hostile period
of one hundred and thirty-eight years, the princes of
Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with fruitless
curses and ineffectual arms.
[Footnote 79: The authors from whom I have learned the most of
the ancient and modern state of Crete, are Belon, (Observations,
&c., c. 3 - 20, Paris, 1555,) Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom.
i. lettre ii. et iii.,) and Meursius, (Creta, in his works, tom.
iii. p. 343 - 544.) Although Crete is styled by Homer, by
Dionysius, I cannot conceive that mountainous island to surpass,
or even to equal, in fertility the greater part of Spain.]

[Footnote 80: The most authentic and circumstantial intelligence
is obtained from the four books of the Continuation of
Theophanes, compiled by the pen or the command of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, with the Life of his father Basil, the
Macedonian, (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 1 - 162, a Francisc.
Combefis, Paris, 1685.) The loss of Crete and Sicily is related,
l. ii. p. 46 - 52. To these we may add the secondary evidence of
Joseph Genesius, (l. ii. p. 21, Venet. 1733,) George Cedrenus,
(Compend. p. 506 - 508,) and John Scylitzes Curopalata, (apud
Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 827, No. 24, &c.) But the modern
Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a
plurality of names.]

[Footnote 81: Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251 - 256, 268
- 270) had described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in
Egypt, but has forgot to connect them with the conquest of
Crete.]

     The loss of Sicily ^82 was occasioned by an act of
superstitious rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from
her cloister, was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of
his tongue. Euphemius appealed to the reason and policy of the
Saracens of Africa; and soon returned with the Imperial purple, a
fleet of one hundred ships, and an army of seven hundred horse
and ten thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of
the ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse
^83 was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before
her walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity
of feeding on the flesh of their own horses. In their turn they
were relieved by a powerful reenforcement of their brethren of
Andalusia; the largest and western part of the island was
gradually reduced, and the commodious harbor of Palermo was
chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the
Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith which
she had sworn to Christ and to Caesar. In the last and fatal
siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which
had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They
stood above twenty days against the battering-rams and
catapultoe, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the
place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the Imperial
fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a
church to the Virgin Mary. The deacon Theodosius, with the bishop
and clergy, was dragged in chains from the altar to Palermo, cast
into a subterraneous dungeon, and exposed to the hourly peril of
death or apostasy. His pathetic, and not inelegant, complaint
may be read as the epitaph of his country. ^84 From the Roman
conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the
primitive Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. Yet the
relics were still precious; the plate of the cathedral weighed
five thousand pounds of silver; the entire spoil was computed at
one million of pieces of gold, (about four hundred thousand
pounds sterling,) and the captives must outnumber the seventeen
thousand Christians, who were transported from the sack of
Tauromenium into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion and
language of the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility
of the rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were
circumcised and clothed on the same day with the son of the
Fatimite caliph. The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbors of
Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of
Calabria and Campania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the
suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the Caesars and
apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen
an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But
the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the
Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their
emirs of Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of
conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatory
inroads. ^85

[Footnote 82: Theophanes, l. ii. p. 51. This history of the loss
of Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom.
vii. p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the
Italian chronicles.]

[Footnote 83: The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede
would adapt itself much better to this epoch, than to the date
(A.D. 1005) which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently
reproach the poet for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit
of modern knights and ancient republicans.]
[Footnote 84: The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is
transcribed and illustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 719,
&c.) Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil, c. 69, 70, p.
190 - 192) mentions the loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the
demons.]

[Footnote 85: The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily
are given in Abulfeda, (Annal' Moslem. p. 271 - 273,) and in the
first volume of Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de
Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some
important facts.]

     In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome
awakens a solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens
from the African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber,
and to approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was
revered as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and
ramparts were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and
temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the
suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their invisible
sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and
the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the
legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by
the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of
their costly offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the
shrine of St. Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left
entire, their deliverance must be imputed to the haste, rather
than the scruples, of the Saracens. In their course along the
Appian way, they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gayeta; but they had
turned aside from the walls of Rome, and by their divisions, the
Capitol was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The
same danger still impended on the heads of the Roman people; and
their domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African
emir. They claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign; but
the Carlovingian standard was overthrown by a detachment of the
Barbarians: they meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors;
but the attempt was treasonable, and the succor remote and
precarious. ^86 Their distress appeared to receive some
aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief;
but the pressing emergency superseded the forms and intrigues of
an election; and the unanimous choice of Pope Leo the Fourth ^87
was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born a
Roman; the courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in
his breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he stood erect,
like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads
above the fragments of the Roman forum. The first days of his
reign were consecrated to the purification and removal of relics,
to prayers and processions, and to all the solemn offices of
religion, which served at least to heal the imagination, and
restore the hopes, of the multitude. The public defence had been
long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the
distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of
his means and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the
ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen
towers, in the most accessible stations, were built or renewed;
two of these commanded on either side of the Tyber; and an iron
chain was drawn across the stream to impede the ascent of a
hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite by the
welcome news, that the siege of Gayeta had been raised, and that
a part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, had
perished in the waves.

[Footnote 86: One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magister
militum et Romani palatii superista) was accused of declaring,
Quia Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium praebent,
sed magis quae nostra sunt violenter tollunt. Quare non
advocamus Graecos, et cum eis foedus pacis componentes, Francorum
regem et gentem de nostro regno et dominatione expellimus?
Anastasius in Leone IV. p. 199.]

[Footnote 87: Voltaire (Hist. Generale, tom. ii. c. 38, p. 124)
appears to be remarkably struck with the character of Pope Leo
IV. I have borrowed his general expression, but the sight of the
forum has furnished me with a more distinct and lively image.]

     But the storm, which had been delayed, soon burst upon them
with redoubled violence. The Aglabite, ^88 who reigned in
Africa, had inherited from his father a treasure and an army: a
fleet of Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the
harbors of Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouth of the Tyber,
sixteen miles from the city: and their discipline and numbers
appeared to threaten, not a transient inroad, but a serious
design of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had
formed an alliance with the vassals of the Greek empire, the free
and maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalfi; and in the
hour of danger, their galleys appeared in the port of Ostia under
the command of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble
and valiant youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the
Saracens. With his principal companions, Caesarius was invited to
the Lateran palace, and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire
their errand, and to accept with joy and surprise their
providential succor. The city bands, in arms, attended their
father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous
deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with
martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the
same God who had supported St. Peter and St. Paul on the waves of
the sea, would strengthen the hands of his champions against the
adversaries of his holy name. After a similar prayer, and with
equal resolution, the Moslems advanced to the attack of the
Christian galleys, which preserved their advantageous station
along the coast. The victory inclined to the side of the allies,
when it was less gloriously decided in their favor by a sudden
tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the stoutest
mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbor,
while the Africans were scattered and dashed in pieces among the
rocks and islands of a hostile shore. Those who escaped from
shipwreck and hunger neither found, nor deserved, mercy at the
hands of their implacable pursuers. The sword and the gibbet
reduced the dangerous multitude of captives; and the remainder
was more usefully employed, to restore the sacred edifices which
they had attempted to subvert. The pontiff, at the head of the
citizens and allies, paid his grateful devotion at the shrines of
the apostles; and, among the spoils of this naval victory,
thirteen Arabian bows of pure and massy silver were suspended
round the altar of the fishermen of Galilee. The reign of Leo
the Fourth was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman
state. The churches were renewed and embellished: near four
thousand pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses
of St. Peter; and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of
gold of the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed
with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a
string of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects less glory
on the character of Leo than the paternal care with which he
rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria; and transported the
wandering inhabitants of Centumcellae to his new foundation of
Leopolis, twelve miles from the sea- shore. ^89 By his
liberality, a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children,
was planted in the station of Porto, at the mouth of the Tyber:
the falling city was restored for their use, the fields and
vineyards were divided among the new settlers: their first
efforts were assisted by a gift of horses and cattle; and the
hardy exiles, who breathed revenge against the Saracens, swore to
live and die under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the
West and North who visited the threshold of the apostles had
gradually formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican,
and their various habitations were distinguished, in the language
of the times, as the schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the
Lombards and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to
sacrilegious insult: the design of enclosing it with walls and
towers exhausted all that authority could command, or charity
would supply: and the pious labor of four years was animated in
every season, and at every hour, by the presence of the
indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly
passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which
he bestowed on the Vatican; yet the pride of the dedication was
tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was
trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and
ashes; the songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and
litanies; the walls were besprinkled with holy water; and the
ceremony was concluded with a prayer, that, under the guardian
care of the apostles and the angelic host, both the old and the
new Rome might ever be preserved pure, prosperous, and
impregnable. ^90

[Footnote 88: De Guignes, Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p.
363, 364. Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, sous la
Domination des Arabs, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I observe, and cannot
reconcile, the difference of these writers in the succession of
the Aglabites.]

[Footnote 89: Beretti (Chorographia Italiae Medii Evi, p. 106,
108) has illustrated Centumcellae, Leopolis, Civitas Leonina, and
the other places of the Roman duchy.]

[Footnote 90: The Arabs and the Greeks are alike silent
concerning the invasion of Rome by the Africans. The Latin
chronicles do not afford much instruction, (see the Annals of
Baronius and Pagi.) Our authentic and contemporary guide for the
popes of the ixth century is Anastasius, librarian of the Roman
church. His Life of Leo IV, contains twenty-four pages, (p. 175
- 199, edit. Paris;) and if a great part consist of superstitious
trifles, we must blame or command his hero, who was much oftener
in a church than in a camp.]

     The emperor Theophilus, son of Michael the Stammerer, was
one of the most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at
Constantinople during the middle age. In offensive or defensive
war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens,
formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and
defeats. In the last of these expeditions he penetrated into
Syria, and besieged the obscure town of Sozopetra; the casual
birthplace of the caliph Motassem, whose father Harun was
attended in peace or war by the most favored of his wives and
concubines. The revolt of a Persian impostor employed at that
moment the arms of the Saracen, and he could only intercede in
favor of a place for which he felt and acknowledged some degree
of filial affection. These solicitations determined the emperor
to wound his pride in so sensible a part. Sozopetra was levelled
with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were marked or mutilated
with ignominious cruelty, and a thousand female captives were
forced away from the adjacent territory. Among these a matron of
the house of Abbas invoked, in an agony of despair, the name of
Motassem; and the insults of the Greeks engaged the honor of her
kinsman to avenge his indignity, and to answer her appeal. Under
the reign of the two elder brothers, the inheritance of the
youngest had been confined to Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia, and
Circassia; this frontier station had exercised his military
talents; and among his accidental claims to the name of Octonary,
^91 the most meritorious are the eight battles which he gained or
fought against the enemies of the Koran. In this personal
quarrel, the troops of Irak, Syria, and Egypt, were recruited
from the tribes of Arabia and the Turkish hordes; his cavalry
might be numerous, though we should deduct some myriads from the
hundred and thirty thousand horses of the royal stables; and the
expense of the armament was computed at four millions sterling,
or one hundred thousand pounds of gold. From Tarsus, the place
of assembly, the Saracens advanced in three divisions along the
high road of Constantinople: Motassem himself commanded the
centre, and the vanguard was given to his son Abbas, who, in the
trial of the first adventures, might succeed with the more glory,
or fail with the least reproach. In the revenge of his injury,
the caliph prepared to retaliate a similar affront. The father
of Theophilus was a native of Amorium ^92 in Phrygia: the
original seat of the Imperial house had been adorned with
privileges and monuments; and, whatever might be the indifference
of the people, Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value
in the eyes of the sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium
was inscribed on the shields of the Saracens; and their three
armies were again united under the walls of the devoted city. It
had been proposed by the wisest counsellors, to evacuate Amorium,
to remove the inhabitants, and to abandon the empty structures to
the vain resentment of the Barbarians. The emperor embraced the
more generous resolution of defending, in a siege and battle, the
country of his ancestors. When the armies drew near, the front
of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely
planted with spears and javelins; but the event of the action was
not glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs
were broken, but it was by the swords of thirty thousand
Persians, who had obtained service and settlement in the
Byzantine empire. The Greeks were repulsed and vanquished, but
it was by the arrows of the Turkish cavalry; and had not their
bowstrings been damped and relaxed by the evening rain, very few
of the Christians could have escaped with the emperor from the
field of battle. They breathed at Dorylaeum, at the distance of
three days; and Theophilus, reviewing his trembling squadrons,
forgave the common flight both of the prince and people. After
this discovery of his weakness, he vainly hoped to deprecate the
fate of Amorium: the inexorable caliph rejected with contempt his
prayers and promises; and detained the Roman ambassadors to be
the witnesses of his great revenge. They had nearly been the
witnesses of his shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty- five
days were encountered by a faithful governor, a veteran garrison,
and a desperate people; and the Saracens must have raised the
siege, if a domestic traitor had not pointed to the weakest part
of the wall, a place which was decorated with the statues of a
lion and a bull. The vow of Motassem was accomplished with
unrelenting rigor: tired, rather than satiated, with destruction,
he returned to his new palace of Samara, in the neighborhood of
Bagdad, while the unfortunate ^93 Theophilus implored the tardy
and doubtful aid of his Western rival the emperor of the Franks.
Yet in the siege of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems had
perished: their loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty
thousand Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of
captives, who were treated as the most atrocious criminals.
Mutual necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of
prisoners: ^94 but in the national and religious conflict of the
two empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
Quarter was seldom given in the field; those who escaped the edge
of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude, or exquisite
torture; and a Catholic emperor relates, with visible
satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of Crete, who were
flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil. ^95 To a
point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two
hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same
caliph descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve
the distress of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had
tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect
with the most pleasure, when he was summoned by the angel of
death? ^96

[Footnote 91: The same number was applied to the following
circumstance in the life of Motassem: he was the eight of the
Abbassides; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days;
left eight sons, eight daughters, eight thousand slaves, eight
millions of gold.]

[Footnote 92: Amorium is seldom mentioned by the old geographers,
and to tally forgotten in the Roman Itineraries. After the vith
century, it became an episcopal see, and at length the metropolis
of the new Galatia, (Carol. Scto. Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p.
234.) The city rose again from its ruins, if we should read
Ammeria, not Anguria, in the text of the Nubian geographer. (p.
236.)]

[Footnote 93: In the East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan.
l. iii. p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his
ambassadors, in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de
victoriis, quas adversus exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat
assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian. apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 720.)]

[Footnote 94: Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 167, 168) relates one of
these singular transactions on the bridge of the River Lamus in
Cilicia, the limit of the two empires, and one day's journey
westward of Tarsus, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p.
91.) Four thousand four hundred and sixty Moslems, eight hundred
women and children, one hundred confederates, were exchanged for
an equal number of Greeks. They passed each other in the middle
of the bridge, and when they reached their respective friends,
they shouted Allah Acbar, and Kyrie Eleison. Many of the
prisoners of Amorium were probably among them, but in the same
year, (A. H. 231,) the most illustrious of them, the forty two
martyrs, were beheaded by the caliph's order.]
[Footnote 95: Constantin. Porphyrogenitus, in Vit. Basil. c. 61,
p. 186. These Saracens were indeed treated with peculiar severity
as pirates and renegadoes.]

[Footnote 96: For Theophilus, Motassem, and the Amorian war, see
the Continuator of Theophanes, (l. iii. p. 77 - 84,) Genesius (l.
iii. p. 24 - 34.) Cedrenus, (p. 528 - 532,) Elmacin, (Hist.
Saracen, p. 180,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 165, 166,) Abulfeda,
(Annal. Moslem. p. 191,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 639,
640.)]

     With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of
his family and nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had
spread themselves over the East, and were mingled with the
servile crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost
the freeborn and martial virtues of the desert. The courage of
the South is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice;
the active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the mercenary
forces of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the
North, of which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production.
Of the Turks ^97 who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the
robust youths, either taken in war or purchased in trade, were
educated in the exercises of the field, and the profession of the
Mahometan faith. The Turkish guards stood in arms round the
throne of their benefactor, and their chiefs usurped the dominion
of the palace and the provinces. Motassem, the first author of
this dangerous example, introduced into the capital above fifty
thousand Turks: their licentious conduct provoked the public
indignation, and the quarrels of the soldiers and people induced
the caliph to retire from Bagdad, and establish his own residence
and the camp of his Barbarian favorites at Samara on the Tigris,
about twelve leagues above the city of Peace. ^98 His son
Motawakkel was a jealous and cruel tyrant: odious to his
subjects, he cast himself on the fidelity of the strangers, and
these strangers, ambitious and apprehensive, were tempted by the
rich promise of a revolution. At the instigation, or at least in
the cause of his son, they burst into his apartment at the hour
of supper, and the caliph was cut into seven pieces by the same
swords which he had recently distributed among the guards of his
life and throne. To this throne, yet streaming with a father's
blood, Montasser was triumphantly led; but in a reign of six
months, he found only the pangs of a guilty conscience. If he
wept at the sight of an old tapestry which represented the crime
and punishment of the son of Chosroes, if his days were abridged
by grief and remorse, we may allow some pity to a parricide, who
exclaimed, in the bitterness of death, that he had lost both this
world and the world to come. After this act of treason, the
ensigns of royalty, the garment and walking-staff of Mahomet,
were given and torn away by the foreign mercenaries, who in four
years created, deposed, and murdered, three commanders of the
faithful. As often as the Turks were inflamed by fear, or rage,
or avarice, these caliphs were dragged by the feet, exposed naked
to the scorching sun, beaten with iron clubs, and compelled to
purchase, by the abdication of their dignity, a short reprieve of
inevitable fate. ^99 At length, however, the fury of the tempest
was spent or diverted: the Abbassides returned to the less
turbulent residence of Bagdad; the insolence of the Turks was
curbed with a firmer and more skilful hand, and their numbers
were divided and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations
of the East had been taught to trample on the successors of the
prophet; and the blessings of domestic peace were obtained by the
relaxation of strength and discipline. So uniform are the
mischiefs of military despotism, that I seem to repeat the story
of the praetorians of Rome. ^100

[Footnote 97: M. de Guignes, who sometimes leaps, and sometimes
stumbles, in the gulf between Chinese and Mahometan story, thinks
he can see, that these Turks are the Hoei-ke, alias the Kao-tche,
or high-wagons; that they were divided into fifteen hordes, from
China and Siberia to the dominions of the caliphs and Samanides,
&c., (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 1 - 33, 124 - 131.)]
[Footnote 98: He changed the old name of Sumera, or Samara, into
the fanciful title of Sermen-rai, that which gives pleasure at
first sight, (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 808.
D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre p. 97, 98.)]

[Footnote 99: Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz:
Correptum pedibus pertrahunt, et sudibus probe permulcant, et
spoliatum laceris vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo
aestu pedes alternos attollebat et demittebat. Adstantium
aliquis misero colaphos continuo ingerebat, quos ille objectis
manibus avertere studebat ..... Quo facto traditus tortori fuit,
totoque triduo cibo potuque prohibitus ..... Suffocatus, &c.
(Abulfeda, p. 206.) Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says, services ipsi
perpetuis ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus
conculcabant, (p. 208.)]
[Footnote 100: See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel,
Montasser, Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the
Bibliotheque of D'Herbelot, and the now familiar Annals of
Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda.]
     While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business,
the pleasure, and the knowledge, of the age, it burnt with
concentrated heat in the breasts of the chosen few, the congenial
spirits, who were ambitious of reigning either in this world or
in the next. How carefully soever the book of prophecy had been
sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes, and (if we may
profane the word) even the reason, of fanaticism might believe
that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, in the fulness of time,
would reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the two
hundred and seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, and in the
neighborhood of Cufa, an Arabian preacher, of the name of
Carmath, assumed the lofty and incomprehensible style of the
Guide, the Director, the Demonstration, the Word, the Holy Ghost,
the Camel, the Herald of the Messiah, who had conversed with him
in a human shape, and the representative of Mohammed the son of
Ali, of St. John the Baptist, and of the angel Gabriel. In his
mystic volume, the precepts of the Koran were refined to a more
spiritual sense: he relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and
pilgrimage; allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and forbidden
food; and nourished the fervor of his disciples by the daily
repetition of fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the
rustic crowd awakened the attention of the magistrates of Cufa; a
timid persecution assisted the progress of the new sect; and the
name of the prophet became more revered after his person had been
withdrawn from the world. His twelve apostles dispersed
themselves among the Bedoweens, "a race of men," says Abulfeda,
"equally devoid of reason and of religion;" and the success of
their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution.
The Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, since they disclaimed
the title of the house of Abbas, and abhorred the worldly pomp of
the caliphs of Bagdad. They were susceptible of discipline, since
they vowed a blind and absolute submission to their Imam, who was
called to the prophetic office by the voice of God and the
people. Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of
their substance and spoil; the most flagitious sins were no more
than the type of disobedience; and the brethren were united and
concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they
prevailed in the province of Bahrein, along the Persian Gulf: far
and wide, the tribes of the desert were subject to the sceptre,
or rather to the sword of Abu Said and his son Abu Taher; and
these rebellious imams could muster in the field a hundred and
seven thousand fanatics. The mercenaries of the caliph were
dismayed at the approach of an enemy who neither asked nor
accepted quarter; and the difference between, them in fortitude
and patience, is expressive of the change which three centuries
of prosperity had effected in the character of the Arabians.
Such troops were discomfited in every action; the cities of Racca
and Baalbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad
was filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the
veils of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu
Taher advanced to the gates of the capital with no more than five
hundred horse. By the special order of Moctader, the bridges had
been broken down, and the person or head of the rebel was
expected every hour by the commander of the faithful. His
lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised Abu Taher of
his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. "Your master," said
the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, "is at the head of
thirty thousand soldiers: three such men as these are wanting in
his host: " at the same instant, turning to three of his
companions, he commanded the first to plunge a dagger into his
breast, the second to leap into the Tigris, and the third to cast
himself headlong down a precipice. They obeyed without a murmur.

"Relate," continued the imam, "what you have seen: before the
evening your general shall be chained among my dogs." Before the
evening, the camp was surprised, and the menace was executed. The
rapine of the Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the
worship of Mecca: they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty
thousand devout Moslems were abandoned on the burning sands to a
death of hunger and thirst. Another year they suffered the
pilgrims to proceed without interruption; but, in the festival of
devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and trampled on the
most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty thousand
citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred
precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead
bodies; the well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; the golden
spout was forced from its place; the veil of the Caaba was
divided among these impious sectaries; and the black stone, the
first monument of the nation, was borne away in triumph to their
capital. After this deed of sacrilege and cruelty, they continued
to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and Egypt: but the vital
principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root. Their
scruples, or their avarice, again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca,
and restored the black stone of the Caaba; and it is needless to
inquire into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords
they were finally extirpated. The sect of the Carmathians may be
considered as the second visible cause of the decline and fall of
the empire of the caliphs. ^101

[Footnote 101: For the sect of the Carmathians, consult Elmacin,
(Hist. Sara cen, p. 219, 224, 229, 231, 238, 241, 243,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 179 - 182,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem.
p. 218, 219, &c., 245, 265, 274.) and D'Herbelot, (Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 256 - 258, 635.) I find some inconsistencies of
theology and chronology, which it would not be easy nor of much
importance to reconcile.

Note: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 44, &c.
- M.]

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.

Part V.

     The third and most obvious cause was the weight and
magnitude of the empire itself. The caliph Almamon might proudly
assert, that it was easier for him to rule the East and the West,
than to manage a chess-board of two feet square: ^102 yet I
suspect that in both those games he was guilty of many fatal
mistakes; and I perceive, that in the distant provinces the
authority of the first and most powerful of the Abbassides was
already impaired. The analogy of despotism invests the
representative with the full majesty of the prince; the division
and balance of powers might relax the habits of obedience, might
encourage the passive subject to inquire into the origin and
administration of civil government. He who is born in the purple
is seldom worthy to reign; but the elevation of a private man, of
a peasant, perhaps, or a slave, affords a strong presumption of
his courage and capacity. The viceroy of a remote kingdom
aspires to secure the property and inheritance of his precarious
trust; the nations must rejoice in the presence of their
sovereign; and the command of armies and treasures are at once
the object and the instrument of his ambition. A change was
scarcely visible as long as the lieutenants of the caliph were
content with their vicarious title; while they solicited for
themselves or their sons a renewal of the Imperial grant, and
still maintained on the coin and in the public prayers the name
and prerogative of the commander of the faithful. But in the
long and hereditary exercise of power, they assumed the pride and
attributes of royalty; the alternative of peace or war, of reward
or punishment, depended solely on their will; and the revenues of
their government were reserved for local services or private
magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the
successors of the prophet were flattered with the ostentatious
gift of an elephant, or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings,
or some pounds of musk and amber. ^103

[Footnote 102: Hyde, Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 57, in Hist.
Shahiludii.]
[Footnote 103: The dynasties of the Arabian empire may be studied
in the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, under the
proper years, in the dictionary of D'Herbelot, under the proper
names. The tables of M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i.)
exhibit a general chronology of the East, interspersed with some
historical anecdotes; but his attachment to national blood has
sometimes confounded the order of time and place.]
     After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual
supremacy of the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience
broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of
Aglab, the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed
to the dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and
power. The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the
injury and loss, and pursued only with poison the founder of the
Edrisites, ^104 who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the
shores of the Western ocean. ^105 In the East, the first dynasty
was that of the Taherites; ^106 the posterity of the valiant
Taher, who, in the civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served
with too much zeal and success the cause of Almamon, the younger
brother. He was sent into honorable exile, to command on the
banks of the Oxus; and the independence of his successors, who
reigned in Chorasan till the fourth generation, was palliated by
their modest and respectful demeanor, the happiness of their
subjects and the security of their frontier. They were
supplanted by one of those adventures so frequent in the annals
of the East, who left his trade of a brazier (from whence the
name of Soffarides) for the profession of a robber. In a
nocturnal visit to the treasure of the prince of Sistan, Jacob,
the son of Leith, stumbled over a lump of salt, which he unwarily
tasted with his tongue. Salt, among the Orientals, is the symbol
of hospitality, and the pious robber immediately retired without
spoil or damage. The discovery of this honorable behavior
recommended Jacob to pardon and trust; he led an army at first
for his benefactor, at last for himself, subdued Persia, and
threatened the residence of the Abbassides. On his march towards
Bagdad, the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience
in bed to the ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table
were exposed a naked cimeter, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch
of onions. "If I die," said he, "your master is delivered from
his fears. If I live, this must determine between us. If I am
vanquished, I can return without reluctance to the homely fare of
my youth." From the height where he stood, the descent would not
have been so soft or harmless: a timely death secured his own
repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the most lavish
concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces of
Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend,
too proud to forgive: they invited the powerful dynasty of the
Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse so poor,
that their stirrups were of wood: so brave, that they vanquished
the Soffarian army, eight times more numerous than their own.
The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a grateful offering to the
court of Bagdad; and as the victor was content with the
inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms of Persia
returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The
provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their
Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid. ^107 These
Barbarians, in religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet,
emerged from the bloody factions of the palace to a provincial
command and an independent throne: their names became famous and
formidable in their time; but the founders of these two potent
dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the vanity of
ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy of God
to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power: the second,
in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight thousand
slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he
attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of
kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by
the Abbassides during an interval of thirty years. In the
decline of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities
of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied by the Arabian princes of the
tribe of Hamadan. The poets of their court could repeat without
a blush, that nature had formed their countenances for beauty,
their tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and
valor: but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the
Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide.

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. ^* 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 *: 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.]

[Footnote 63: After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand
very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur,
earum nati ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv.
c. 6: ) for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v.
c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio
Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, l.
iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona
was a lover of scandal.]

[Footnote 64: Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset
satis utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical
writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and
principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc,
under the proper years.]

[Footnote 65: Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p.
221. Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud
Levesque, tom. ii. p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a
singular concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the
saints of the Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are
ignorant of her virtues.]

[Footnote 66: Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam,
filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into
Russia, and the father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit.
This event happened in the year 1051. See the passages of the
original chronicles in Bouquet's Historians of France, (tom. xi.
p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.) Voltaire might wonder at this
alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the
country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus - a name so conspicuous in
the Russian annals.]
     In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of
the ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which
regulated each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and
violated the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and
fortunes of millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest
minds, superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be
seduced by the more active pleasure of commanding their equals.
The legislative and executive powers were centred in the person
of the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the
senate were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher. ^67 A
lethargy of servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in
the wildest tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea
of a free constitution; and the private character of the prince
was the only source and measure of their public happiness.
Superstition rivetted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia
he was solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the
altar, they pledged their passive and unconditional obedience to
his government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as
much as possible from the capital punishments of death and
mutilation; his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand,
and he promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the
canons of the holy church. ^68 But the assurance of mercy was
loose and indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an
invisible judge; and except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy,
the ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the
indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of
their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the
subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the
bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished
with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or
influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the
establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of
Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal
greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless
despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.
In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire
is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In
proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are
ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite,
who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of
the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute
monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of
slaves; and experience has proved, that whatever is gained in the
extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power.

[Footnote 67: A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne
senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked
despotism.]
[Footnote 68: Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives
an idea of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the
people.]
     Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may
assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to
guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. From the age
of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook
the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the
three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and
the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a
comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their
obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals
in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to
the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike
qualifications.

     The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the
service of the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for
the protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their
enemies. ^69 A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of
Constantinople for the blood of Sclavonians and Turks, the
Bulgarians and Russians: their valor contributed to the victories
of Nicephorus and Zimisces; and if a hostile people pressed too
closely on the frontier, they were recalled to the defence of
their country, and the desire of peace, by the well-managed
attack of a more distant tribe. ^70 The command of the
Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the columns of
Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the
successors of Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval
stores and dexterous artificers: the situation of Greece and
Asia, the long coasts, deep gulfs, and numerous islands,
accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation; and the
trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen to the
Imperial fleet. ^71 Since the time of the Peloponnesian and Punic
wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the science
of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art of
constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three, or
six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind,
each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople,
as well as to the mechanicians of modern days. ^72 The Dromones,
^73 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire, were content with
two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five-and-twenty
benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied
their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add
the captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect
with his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and
two officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other
to point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The
whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double
service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with
defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they
used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed
through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the
ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and
the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners.
But for the most part they were of the light and manageable size;
and as the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with
its ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles
over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. ^74 The principles of
maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of
Thucydides: a squadron of galleys still advanced in a crescent,
charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks
against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for
casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the
midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by
a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of
signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the
moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and
colors of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night, the
same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break,
to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By
land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to
another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five
hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of
the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. ^75 Some estimate
may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious
and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the
reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys,
and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in
the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the seaports of
Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand
mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven
hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of
Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed at
thirty-four centenaries of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six
thousand pounds sterling. Our fancy is bewildered by the endless
recapitulation of arms and engines, of clothes and linen, of
bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and
utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a
petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a
flourishing colony. ^76
[Footnote 69: If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the
ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.
Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus
aggrediar, bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae
fluminibus sunt vicina redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat.
ad Nicephorum Phocam, in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,
tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He observes in another place, qui
caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani.]

[Footnote 70: Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus
est pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes
nationes super eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus,
(Liutprand in Legat. p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando
Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy.]

[Footnote 71: The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs.
Opera, tom. vi. p. 825 - 848,) which is given more correct from a
manuscript of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vi. p. 372 - 379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval
war.]

[Footnote 72: Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the
navy of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the
forty rows of Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating
palace, whose tonnage, according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of
Ancient Coins, &c., p. 231 - 236,) is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with
an English 100 gun ship.]

[Footnote 73: The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described
with two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of
Meursius and Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind
attachment to the classic appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine
historians are sometimes guilty of the same inaccuracy.]

[Footnote 74: Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p.
185. He calmly praises the stratagem; but the sailing round
Peloponnesus is described by his terrified fancy as a
circumnavigation of a thousand miles.]
[Footnote 75: The continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123)
names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus,
Mount Argaeus Isamus, Aegilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus,
Mocilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the
great palace. He affirms that the news were transmitted in an
indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by
saying too much, says nothing. How much more forcible and
instructive would have been the definition of three, or six, or
twelve hours!]
[Footnote 76: See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
l. ii. c. 44, p. 176 - 192. A critical reader will discern some
inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are
not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and
effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and
the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the
knowledge of these profitable mysteries.]

     The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gun
powder, produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these
liquid combustibles the city and empire of Constantine owed their
deliverance; and they were employed in sieges and sea-fights with
terrible effect. But they were either less improved, or less
susceptible of improvement: the engines of antiquity, the
catapultae, balistae, and battering-rams, were still of most
frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence of
fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the
quick and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were
fruitless to protect with armor against a similar fire of their
enemies. Steel and iron were still the common instruments of
destruction and safety; and the helmets, cuirasses, and shields,
of the tenth century did not, either in form or substance,
essentially differ from those which had covered the companions of
Alexander or Achilles. ^77 But instead of accustoming the modern
Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use
of this salutary weight, their armor was laid aside in light
chariots, which followed the march, till, on the approach of an
enemy, they resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual
encumbrance. Their offensive weapons consisted of swords,
battle-axes, and spears; but the Macedonian pike was shortened a
fourth of its length, and reduced to the more convenient measure
of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the Scythian and
Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors lament
the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and
recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth,
till the age of forty, should assiduously practise the exercise
of the bow. ^78 The bands, or regiments, were usually three
hundred strong; and, as a medium between the extremes of four and
sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed
eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the
reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not
be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the
ranks of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this
cautious array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the
troops, whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but
of whom only a chosen band would dare to encounter the spears and
swords of the Barbarians. The order of battle must have varied
according to the ground, the object, and the adversary; but their
ordinary disposition, in two lines and a reserve, presented a
succession of hopes and resources most agreeable to the temper as
well as the judgment of the Greeks. ^79 In case of a repulse, the
first line fell back into the intervals of the second; and the
reserve, breaking into two divisions, wheeled round the flanks to
improve the victory or cover the retreat. Whatever authority
could enact was accomplished, at least in theory, by the camps
and marches, the exercises and evolutions, the edicts and books,
of the Byzantine monarch. ^80 Whatever art could produce from the
forge, the loom, or the laboratory, was abundantly supplied by
the riches of the prince, and the industry of his numerous
workmen. But neither authority nor art could frame the most
important machine, the soldier himself; and if the ceremonies of
Constantine always suppose the safe and triumphal return of the
emperor, ^81 his tactics seldom soar above the means of escaping
a defeat, and procrastinating the war. ^82 Notwithstanding some
transient success, the Greeks were sunk in their own esteem and
that of their neighbors. A cold hand and a loquacious tongue was
the vulgar description of the nation: the author of the tactics
was besieged in his capital; and the last of the Barbarians, who
trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly
exhibit the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted
from the feeble sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their
government and character denied, might have been inspired in some
degree by the influence of religion; but the religion of the
Greeks could only teach them to suffer and to yield. The emperor
Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the discipline and glory of
the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the honors of martyrdom
on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the
infidels. But this political law was defeated by the opposition
of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators; and
they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were
polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated,
during three years, from the communion of the faithful. ^83
[Footnote 77: See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in
the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of
Constantine.]
[Footnote 78: (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such
were not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the
loose and distant practice of archery.]

[Footnote 79: Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and
721, and the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]

[Footnote 80: In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely
deplores the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times,
and repeats, without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches,
nor does it appear that the same censures were less deserved in
the next generation by the disciples of Constantine.]
[Footnote 81: See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the
form of the emperor's trampling on the necks of the captive
Saracens, while the singers chanted, "Thou hast made my enemies
my footstool!" and the people shouted forty times the kyrie
eleison.]

[Footnote 82: Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open
battle against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and
the remark is true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old
Romans, Leo had never reigned on the shores of the Thracian
Bosphorus.]

[Footnote 83: Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and
Cedrenus, (Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus,
most unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the
patriarch.]

     These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the
tears of the primitive Moslems when they were held back from
battle; and this contrast of base superstition and high-spirited
enthusiasm, unfolds to a philosophic eye the history of the rival
nations. The subjects of the last caliphs ^84 had undoubtedly
degenerated from the zeal and faith of the companions of the
prophet. Yet their martial creed still represented the Deity as
the author of war: ^85 the vital though latent spark of
fanaticism still glowed in the heart of their religion, and among
the Saracens, who dwelt on the Christian borders, it was
frequently rekindled to a lively and active flame. Their regular
force was formed of the valiant slaves who had been educated to
guard the person and accompany the standard of their lord: but
the Mussulman people of Syria and Cilicia, of Africa and Spain,
was awakened by the trumpet which proclaimed a holy war against
the infidels. The rich were ambitious of death or victory in the
cause of God; the poor were allured by the hopes of plunder; and
the old, the infirm, and the women, assumed their share of
meritorious service by sending their substitutes, with arms and
horses, into the field. These offensive and defensive arms were
similar in strength and temper to those of the Romans, whom they
far excelled in the management of the horse and the bow: the
massy silver of their belts, their bridles, and their swords,
displayed the magnificence of a prosperous nation; and except
some black archers of the South, the Arabs disdained the naked
bravery of their ancestors. Instead of wagons, they were
attended by a long train of camels, mules, and asses: the
multitude of these animals, whom they bedecked with flags and
streamers, appeared to swell the pomp and magnitude of their
host; and the horses of the enemy were often disordered by the
uncouth figure and odious smell of the camels of the East.
Invincible by their patience of thirst and heat, their spirits
were frozen by a winter's cold, and the consciousness of their
propensity to sleep exacted the most rigorous precautions against
the surprises of the night. Their order of battle was a long
square of two deep and solid lines; the first of archers, the
second of cavalry. In their engagements by sea and land, they
sustained with patient firmness the fury of the attack, and
seldom advanced to the charge till they could discern and oppress
the lassitude of their foes. But if they were repulsed and
broken, they knew not how to rally or renew the combat; and their
dismay was heightened by the superstitious prejudice, that God
had declared himself on the side of their enemies. The decline
and fall of the caliphs countenanced this fearful opinion; nor
were there wanting, among the Mahometans and Christians, some
obscure prophecies ^86 which prognosticated their alternate
defeats. The unity of the Arabian empire was dissolved, but the
independent fragments were equal to populous and powerful
kingdoms; and in their naval and military armaments, an emir of
Aleppo or Tunis might command no despicable fund of skill, and
industry, and treasure. In their transactions of peace and war
with the Saracens, the princes of Constantinople too often felt
that these Barbarians had nothing barbarous in their discipline;
and that if they were destitute of original genius, they had been
endowed with a quick spirit of curiosity and imitation. The
model was indeed more perfect than the copy; their ships, and
engines, and fortifications, were of a less skilful construction;
and they confess, without shame, that the same God who has given
a tongue to the Arabians, had more nicely fashioned the hands of
the Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks. ^87

[Footnote 84: The xviith chapter of the tactics of the different
nations is the most historical and useful of the whole collection
of Leo. The manners and arms of the Saracens (Tactic. p. 809 -
817, and a fragment from the Medicean Ms. in the preface of the
vith volume of Meursius) the Roman emperor was too frequently
called upon to study.]

[Footnote 85: Leon. Tactic. p. 809.]

[Footnote 86: Liutprand (p. 484, 485) relates and interprets the
oracles of the Greeks and Saracens, in which, after the fashion
of prophecy, the past is clear and historical, the future is
dark, enigmatical, and erroneous. From this boundary of light and
shade an impartial critic may commonly determine the date of the
composition.]

[Footnote 87: The sense of this distinction is expressed by
Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 2, 62, 101;) but I cannot recollect the
passage in which it is conveyed by this lively apothegm.]

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.

Part IV.

     A name of some German tribes between the Rhine and the Weser
had spread its victorious influence over the greatest part of
Gaul, Germany, and Italy; and the common appellation of Franks
^88 was applied by the Greeks and Arabians to the Christians of
the Latin church, the nations of the West, who stretched beyond
their knowledge to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The vast
body had been inspired and united by the soul of Charlemagne; but
the division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the
Imperial power, which would have rivalled the Caesars of
Byzantium, and revenged the indignities of the Christian name.
The enemies no longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer
trust, the application of a public revenue, the labors of trade
and manufactures in the military service, the mutual aid of
provinces and armies, and the naval squadrons which were
regularly stationed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the
Tyber. In the beginning of the tenth century, the family of
Charlemagne had almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken into
many hostile and independent states; the regal title was assumed
by the most ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long
subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every
province disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and
exercised perpetual hostilities against their equals and
neighbors. Their private wars, which overturned the fabric of
government, fomented the martial spirit of the nation. In the
system of modern Europe, the power of the sword is possessed, at
least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates; their operations
are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men who
devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art:
the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war
the tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the
change by the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In
the disorders of the tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant
was a soldier, and every village a fortification; each wood or
valley was a scene of murder and rapine; and the lords of each
castle were compelled to assume the character of princes and
warriors. To their own courage and policy they boldly trusted
for the safety of their family, the protection of their lands,
and the revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a
larger size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of
defensive war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by
the presence of danger and necessity of resolution: the same
spirit refused to desert a friend and to forgive an enemy; and,
instead of sleeping under the guardian care of a magistrate, they
proudly disdained the authority of the laws. In the days of
feudal anarchy, the instruments of agriculture and art were
converted into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful occupations
of civil and ecclesiastical society were abolished or corrupted;
and the bishop who exchanged his mitre for a helmet, was more
forcibly urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation
of his tenure. ^89
[Footnote 88: Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones
comprehendit, ludum habuit, (Liutprand in Legat ad Imp.
Nicephorum, p. 483, 484.) This extension of the name may be
confirmed from Constantine (de Administrando Imperio, l. 2, c.
27, 28) and Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 55, 56,) who both lived
before the Crusades. The testimonies of Abulpharagius (Dynast.
p. 69) and Abulfeda (Praefat. ad Geograph.) are more recent]

[Footnote 89: On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary
discipline, Father Thomassin, (tom. iii. l. i. c. 40, 45, 46, 47)
may be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemagne exempted
the bishops from personal service; but the opposite practice,
which prevailed from the ixth to the xvth century, is
countenanced by the example or silence of saints and doctors ....
You justify your cowardice by the holy canons, says Ratherius of
Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and yet - ]

     The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious
pride, by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks
with some degree of amazement and terror. "The Franks," says the
emperor Constantine, "are bold and valiant to the verge of
temerity; and their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt
of danger and death. In the field and in close onset, they press
to the front, and rush headlong against the enemy, without
deigning to compute either his numbers or their own. Their ranks
are formed by the firm connections of consanguinity and
friendship; and their martial deeds are prompted by the desire of
saving or revenging their dearest companions. In their eyes, a
retreat is a shameful flight; and flight is indelible infamy."
^90 A nation endowed with such high and intrepid spirit, must
have been secure of victory if these advantages had not been
counter-balanced by many weighty defects. The decay of their
naval power left the Greeks and Saracens in possession of the
sea, for every purpose of annoyance and supply. In the age which
preceded the institution of knighthood, the Franks were rude and
unskilful in the service of cavalry; ^91 and in all perilous
emergencies, their warriors were so conscious of their ignorance,
that they chose to dismount from their horses and fight on foot.
Unpractised in the use of pikes, or of missile weapons, they were
encumbered by the length of their swords, the weight of their
armor, the magnitude of their shields, and, if I may repeat the
satire of the meagre Greeks, by their unwieldy intemperance.
Their independent spirit disdained the yoke of subordination, and
abandoned the standard of their chief, if he attempted to keep
the field beyond the term of their stipulation or service. On
all sides they were open to the snares of an enemy less brave but
more artful than themselves. They might be bribed, for the
Barbarians were venal; or surprised in the night, for they
neglected the precautions of a close encampment or vigilant
sentinels. The fatigues of a summer's campaign exhausted their
strength and patience, and they sunk in despair if their
voracious appetite was disappointed of a plentiful supply of wine
and of food. This general character of the Franks was marked
with some national and local shades, which I should ascribe to
accident rather than to climate, but which were visible both to
natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of the great Otho
declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that the Saxons could
dispute with swords better than with pens, and that they
preferred inevitable death to the dishonor of turning their backs
to an enemy. ^92 It was the glory of the nobles of France, that,
in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the only pleasure,
the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected to deride the
palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the Italians, who
in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had degenerated from the
liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards. ^93

[Footnote 90: In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor
Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the
Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the
Lombards or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of
Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiae Medii Aevi.]

[Footnote 91: Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus)
equitandi ignari pedestris pugnae sunt inscii: scutorum
magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo galearumque
pondus neutra parte pugnare cossinit; ac subridens, impedit,
inquit, et eos gastrimargia, hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c.
Liutprand in Legat. p. 480 481]

[Footnote 92: In Saxonia certe scio .... decentius ensibus
pugnare quam calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga
dare, (Liutprand, p 482.)]
[Footnote 93: Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo
died A.D. 911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears
to have been composed in 910, by a native of Venetia,
discriminates in these verses the manners of Italy and France:

      - Quid inertia bello
     Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,
     O Itali? Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;
     Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis
     Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.
     Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:
     Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,
     Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis
     Sustentare -

(Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n.
in Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]

     By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from
Britain to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of
Romans, and their national sovereign might fix his occasional or
permanent residence in any province of their common country. In
the division of the East and West, an ideal unity was
scrupulously observed, and in their titles, laws, and statutes,
the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as
the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the joint
sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded by the
same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty
of the purple resided solely in the princes of Constantinople;
and of these, Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of
sixty years, regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted,
by the right of conquest, the august title of Emperor of the
Romans. ^94 A motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his
successors, Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian
Bosphorus, and to restore the pristine honors of the Tyber: an
extravagant project, (exclaims the malicious Byzantine,) as if he
had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or
rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit
matron. ^95 But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement
in Italy: he entered Rome not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive,
and, after a visit of twelve days, he pillaged, and forever
deserted, the ancient capital of the world. ^96 The final revolt
and separation of Italy was accomplished about two centuries
after the conquests of Justinian, and from his reign we may date
the gradual oblivion of the Latin tongue. That legislator had
composed his Institutes, his Code, and his Pandects, in a
language which he celebrates as the proper and public style of
the Roman government, the consecrated idiom of the palace and
senate of Constantinople, of the campus and tribunals of the
East. ^97 But this foreign dialect was unknown to the people and
soldiers of the Asiatic provinces, it was imperfectly understood
by the greater part of the interpreters of the laws and the
ministers of the state. After a short conflict, nature and habit
prevailed over the obsolete institutions of human power: for the
general benefit of his subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels
in the two languages: the several parts of his voluminous
jurisprudence were successively translated; ^98 the original was
forgotten, the version was studied, and the Greek, whose
intrinsic merit deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal,
as well as popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The
birth and residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the
Roman idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs, ^99 and Maurice by the
Italians, ^100 are distinguished as the first of the Greek
Caesars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent
revolution was accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and
the ruins of the Latin speech were darkly preserved in the terms
of jurisprudence and the acclamations of the palace. After the
restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos,
the names of Franks and Latins acquired an equal signification
and extent; and these haughty Barbarians asserted, with some
justice, their superior claim to the language and dominion of
Rome. They insulted the alien of the East who had renounced the
dress and idiom of Romans; and their reasonable practice will
justify the frequent appellation of Greeks. ^101 But this
contemptuous appellation was indignantly rejected by the prince
and people to whom it was applied. Whatsoever changes had been
introduced by the lapse of ages, they alleged a lineal and
unbroken succession from Augustus and Constantine; and, in the
lowest period of degeneracy and decay, the name of Romans adhered
to the last fragments of the empire of Constantinople. ^102

[Footnote 94: Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.
157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not
used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French
and German emperors of old Rome.]
[Footnote 95: Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his
barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras,
Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam
Imperium transferre, (l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the
Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori.)]

[Footnote 96: Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in
Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p.
141.]
[Footnote 97: Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec.
Medii Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]

[Footnote 98: (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the
latter by Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian,
(p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left
an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the
other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,)
cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius,
Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa.]

[Footnote 99: Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the
Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the
Arabs. A tempore Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius
Caesar spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P.
Patricii, et praecipua pars exercitus Romani: extra quod,
conciliarii, scribae et populus, omnes Graeci fuerunt: deinde
regnum etiam Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The
Christian and ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him
some advantage over the more ignorant Moslems.]

[Footnote 100: Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus
est; or according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c.
15, p. 443,) in Orasorum Imperio.]

[Footnote 101: Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit
Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis)
displicere Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum
Imperatorem Graecorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum
amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.)
     Note: Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of
Liutprand, (apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which
Gibbon refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which
rarely occurs in Gibbon's references, the rest of the quotation,
which as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear - M.]

[Footnote 102: By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last
siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p.
3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city
of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives,
who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The
kings of Constantinople, says the historian.]
     While the government of the East was transacted in Latin,
the Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor
could the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to
envy the borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman
disciples. After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and
Egypt, and the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and
Athens, the studies of the Greeks insensibly retired to some
regular monasteries, and above all, to the royal college of
Constantinople, which was burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian.
^103 In the pompous style of the age, the president of that
foundation was named the Sun of Science: his twelve associates,
the professors in the different arts and faculties, were the
twelve signs of the zodiac; a library of thirty-six thousand five
hundred volumes was open to their inquiries; and they could show
an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll of parchment one
hundred and twenty feet in length, the intestines, as it was
fabled, of a prodigious serpent. ^104 But the seventh and eight
centuries were a period of discord and darkness: the library was
burnt, the college was abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented
as the foes of antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of
letters has disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian
dynasties. ^105

[Footnote 103: See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150,
151,) who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at
least of Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,)
Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After
refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum, p. 99 - 111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt
or deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library.]
[Footnote 104: According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,)
this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be
renewed - But on a serpent's skin? Most strange and incredible!]

[Footnote 105: The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong
words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]

     In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the
restoration of science. ^106 After the fanaticism of the Arabs
had subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather
than the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity
rekindled the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from
their ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the
philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the
pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of
letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused
his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was
sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a
school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of
Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At
their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica:
his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired
by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was
magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend,
the celebrated Photius, ^107 renounced the freedom of a secular
and studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was
alternately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East
and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or
science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar,
who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent
in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire or
captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph
of Bagdad. ^108 The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of
confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two
hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers,
theologians, are reviewed without any regular method: he abridges
their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and
character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a
discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of
the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his
own education, intrusted to the care of Photius his son and
successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most
prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their
munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the
Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates,
they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might
amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the
public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of
husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,
were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece
and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which
two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped
the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might
contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or
warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate,
the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the
works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the
ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance and
gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may
still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of
Stobaeus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the
Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in
twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of
Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of
plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred
writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of
scholiasts and critics, ^109 some estimate may be formed of the
literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was
enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle
and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches,
we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history
of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of
Menander, ^110 and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent
labor of illustration attests not only the existence, but the
popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general knowledge of the
age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the
empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated,
in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. ^111 The
vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more
correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at
least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes
affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.

[Footnote 106: See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus,
(p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been
transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so
undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly
ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in
Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]

[Footnote 107: The ecclesiastical and literary character of
Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus
Byzant. p. 269, 396) and Fabricius.]

[Footnote 108: It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs
and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and
instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so
numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with
his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however
incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself. Camusat
(Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87 - 94) gives a good account of
the Myriobiblon.]
[Footnote 109: Of these modern Greeks, see the respective
articles in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius - a laborious
work, yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements;
of Eustathius, (tom. i. p. 289 - 292, 306 - 329,) of the Pselli,
(a diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v., of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486 - 509) of John Stobaeus, (tom.
viii., 665 - 728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p. 620 - 827,) John
Tzetzes, (tom. xii. p. 245 - 273.) Mr. Harris, in his
Philological Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of
this Byzantine learning, (p. 287 - 300.)]
[Footnote 110: From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard
Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael
Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at
Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with
the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the
categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has probably been
confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the
comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty
plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of
Aristophanes.]

[Footnote 111: Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and
Zonaras her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with
truth. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of
Plato; and had studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry,
arithmetic, and music, (see he preface to the Alexiad, with
Ducange's notes)]

     In our modern education, the painful though necessary
attainment of two languages, which are no longer living, may
consume the time and damp the ardor of the youthful student. The
poets and orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects
of our Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their
genius, without precept or example, was abandoned to the rule and
native powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of
Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar
speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the
sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of
nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the
reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their
lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting
the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony:
they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls
seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution
of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the
dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea
has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a
succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic
teachers of the next servile generation. Not a single composition
of history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from
oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of
original fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the
least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from
censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the
orators, most eloquent ^112 in their own conceit, are the
farthest removed from the models whom they affect to emulate. In
every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of
gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology,
the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable
ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to
astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the
smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to
the vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below
the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric
muses, were silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople
seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they
forgot even the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer
yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and
syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of
political or city verses. ^113 The minds of the Greek were bound
in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition which extends
her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their
understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in
the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles
of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiates by the homilies
of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture.
Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the
abuse of superior talents: the leaders of the Greek church were
humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor
did the schools of pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of
Athanasius and Chrysostom. ^114

[Footnote 112: To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat.
Gloss. Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius,
Jerom, Petronius George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once
the precept and the example.]
[Footnote 113: The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as,
from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually
consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine
Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p.
i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762.)]
[Footnote 114: As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John
Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of
the Greek, church.]
     In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the
emulation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring
of the efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of
ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and
independence, which is repeated on a larger scale, but in a
looser form, by the nations of modern Europe; the union of
language, religion, and manners, which renders them the
spectators and judges of each other's merit; ^115 the
independence of government and interest, which asserts their
separate freedom, and excites them to strive for preeminence in
the career of glory. The situation of the Romans was less
favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic, which fixed the
national character, a similar emulation was kindled among the
states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and sciences, they
aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters. The empire of
the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and progress of the
human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some scope for
domestic competition; but when it was gradually reduced, at first
to the East and at last to Greece and Constantinople, the
Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and languid temper,
the natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. From
the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes of Barbarians,
to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of men. The
language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an
insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conquerors of
Europe were their brethren in the Christian faith; but the speech
of the Franks or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and
they were rarely connected, in peace or war, with the successors
of Heraclius. Alone in the universe, the self-satisfied pride of
the Greeks was not disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit;
and it is no wonder if they fainted in the race, since they had
neither competitors to urge their speed, nor judges to crown
their victory. The nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by
the expeditions to the Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian
dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and military virtue
was rekindled in the Byzantine empire. [Footnote 115: Hume's
Essays, vol. i. p. 125]

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.

Part I.

     Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians. - Their Persecution
By The Greek Emperors. - Revolt In Armenia &c. - Transplantation
Into Thrace. - Propagation In The West. - The Seeds, Character,
And Consequences Of The Reformation.

     In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national
characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria
and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative
devotion: Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and
the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the
disputes of metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible
mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding
their silent submission, were agitated in vehement and subtile
controversies, which enlarged their faith at the expense,
perhaps, of their charity and reason. From the council of Nice
to the end of the seventh century, the peace and unity of the
church was invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did
they affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the
historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to
explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this busy
period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of the
eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the
sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was exhausted,
zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six councils, the
articles of the Catholic faith had been irrevocably defined. The
spirit of dispute, however vain and pernicious, requires some
energy and exercise of the mental faculties; and the prostrate
Greeks were content to fast, to pray, and to believe in blind
obedience to the patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of
superstition, the Virgin and the Saints, their visions and
miracles, their relics and images, were preached by the monks,
and worshipped by the people; and the appellation of people might
be extended, without injustice, to the first ranks of civil
society. At an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian emperors
attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects: under their
influence reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater
number was swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world
embraced or deplored their visible deities, and the restoration
of images was celebrated as the feast of orthodoxy. In this
passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical rulers were
relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure, of
persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent
and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote
hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and
Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian
caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of
Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny;
their patience was at length exasperated to despair and
rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West the seeds
of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry
into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; ^1 and, as they
cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify
the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by
their adversaries.

[Footnote 1: The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are
weighed, with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned
Mosheim, (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his
original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and
Peter Siculus, (Hist. Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts
has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers,
I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca
Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754 - 764,) from the edition of the Jesuit
Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.)

     Note: Compare Hallam's Middle Ages, p. 461 - 471. Mr.
Hallam justly observes that this chapter "appears to be accurate
as well as luminous, and is at least far superior to any modern
work on the subject." - M.]
     The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed
by the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of
emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the
Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of
the East and West, and confined to the villages and mountains
along the borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the
Marcionites may be detected in the fifth century; ^2 but the
numerous sects were finally lost in the odious name of the
Manichaeans; and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the
doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by the two
religions with equal and unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson
of Heraclius, in the neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for
the birth of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a
reformer arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen
messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis,
Constantine entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian
captivity, and received the inestimable gift of the New
Testament, which was already concealed from the vulgar by the
prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. ^3
These books became the measure of his studies and the rule of his
faith; and the Catholics, who dispute his interpretation,
acknowledge that his text was genuine and sincere. But he
attached himself with peculiar devotion to the writings and
character of St. Paul: the name of the Paulicians is derived by
their enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but I am
confident that they gloried in their affinity to the apostle of
the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus,
were represented by Constantine and his fellow-laborers: the
names of the apostolic churches were applied to the congregations
which they assembled in Armenia and Cappadocia; and this innocent
allegory revived the example and memory of the first ages. In
the Gospel, and the Epistles of St. Paul, his faithful follower
investigated the Creed of primitive Christianity; and, whatever
might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the
spirit, of the inquiry. But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians
were pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two
Epistles of St. Peter, ^4 the apostle of the circumcision, whose
dispute with their favorite for the observance of the law could
not easily be forgiven. ^5 They agreed with their Gnostic
brethren in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, the
books of Moses and the prophets, which have been consecrated by
the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness, and
doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus,
disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid
volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; ^6 the
fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of
the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the
first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of
Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty
generations, or aeons, which had been created by the fruitful
fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the
memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple
votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.
[Footnote 2: In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in
Syria, contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were
inhabited by Arians and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom
the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin,
Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom. iv. p. 81, 82.)]
[Footnote 3: Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non
licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a
Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p.
761.)]

[Footnote 4: In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the
Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the
ancients and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist.
Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked
the Apocalypse, (Petr. Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not
imputed as a crime, the Greeks of the ixth century must have been
careless of the credit and honor of the Revelations.]

[Footnote 5: This contention, which has not escaped the malice of
Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the
apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented
as a sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles
and the correction of the Jews, (Middleton's Works, vol. ii. p. 1
- 20.)]

[Footnote 6: Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may
consult the researches of Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 305 - 437.) Even in Africa, St. Austin
could describe the Manichaean books, tam multi, tam grandes, tam
pretiosi codices, (contra Faust. xiii. 14;) but he adds, without
pity, Incendite omnes illas membranas: and his advice had been
rigorously followed.]

     Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by
the Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they
reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must
bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics
had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and
against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they
were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by the silence
of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been
transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of
the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made
without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to
whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their
merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones and
ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps,
with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and
vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber, the body
and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts
of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was
degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and
the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the
laborious office of meditation in heaven, and ministry upon
earth. In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the
sacraments, the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible
objects of worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their
judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful. They
indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation of
Scripture: and as often as they were pressed by the literal
sense, they could escape to the intricate mazes of figure and
allegory. Their utmost diligence must have been employed to
dissolve the connection between the Old and the New Testament;
since they adored the latter as the oracles of God, and abhorred
the former as the fabulous and absurd invention of men or
daemons. We cannot be surprised, that they should have found in
the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the Trinity: but, instead of
confessing the human nature and substantial sufferings of Christ,
they amused their fancy with a celestial body that passed through
the virgin like water through a pipe; with a fantastic
crucifixion, that eluded the vain and important malice of the
Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual was not adapted to the
genius of the times; ^7 and the rational Christian, who might
have been contented with the light yoke and easy burden of Jesus
and his apostles, was justly offended, that the Paulicians should
dare to violate the unity of God, the first article of natural
and revealed religion. Their belief and their trust was in the
Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the invisible world.

But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and
rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle of an
active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises
his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.
^8 The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the
two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the
East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various
swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the
nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a
subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect
malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the
power, of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the
line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal
proportion from the other. ^9

[Footnote 7: The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined
by Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]

[Footnote 8: Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia;
Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et
princi pem, et alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]

[Footnote 9: Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii.
iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various
systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.]
     The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied
the number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual
ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the
Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many
Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he
preached with success in the regions of Pontus ^10 and
Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the religion of
Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by
their Scriptural names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims,
by the austerity of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the
credit of some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they
were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth
and honors of the Catholic prelacy; such anti- Christian pride
they bitterly censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters
was condemned as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new
sect was loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the
westward of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations
represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his
epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the
neighborhood of Colonia, ^11 in the same district of Pontus which
had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona ^12 and the miracles
of Gregory. ^13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus,
who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell
a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws of the pious
emperors, which seldom touched the lives of less odious heretics,
proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and
the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans: the books were
delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete
such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an
ignominious death. ^14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and
military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and
to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of
cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of
his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon
and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual
father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones
dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only
one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by
the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This
apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his
unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St.
Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle,
he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,
renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the
Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not
ambitious of martyrdom, ^15 but in a calamitous period of one
hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal
could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the
obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood
and ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and
congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities,
they found leisure for domestic quarrels: they preached, they
disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues,
of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are
reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. ^16 The native
cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause;
and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the
name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity,
their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes
might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they
themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they
chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the
accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the
clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity
of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor
of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the
rigid Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution;
but the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary
devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental
church. Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the
Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed
that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were
extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or
merit has perhaps been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but
if the account be allowed, it must be presumed that many simple
Iconoclasts were punished under a more odious name; and that some
who were driven from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the
bosom of heresy.

[Footnote 10: The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys
were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c.
103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race
of the Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French
supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.)]

[Footnote 11: Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest
of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is
named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a
strong country, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34.
Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]

[Footnote 12: The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a
powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was
respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal
office had been occupied by his mother's family, Strabo (l. xii.
p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with peculiar complacency on the
temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated
every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and
character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]

[Footnote 13: Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240 - 265,)
surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years
afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by
Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the
great St. Basil.]

[Footnote 14: Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque
orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque
capitali puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in
loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem
occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici,
ejusque bona in fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more
could bigotry and persecution desire?]

[Footnote 15: It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed
themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation;
till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions, which
reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr.
Sicul. p. 760.)]

[Footnote 16: The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p. 579 -
763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa persolvit.
See likewise Cedrenus, (p. 432 - 435.)]

     The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries
of a religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy
cause they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the
justice of their arms hardens them against the feelings of
humanity; and they revenge their fathers' wrongs on the children
of their tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the
Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the
Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. ^17 They were
first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who
exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the
heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected
their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming
flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt
of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the
general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic
inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his
desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united
by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of
anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the
caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to
the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between
Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice,
^18 which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and
the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives,
who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During
more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of
foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples
of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful
Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered
into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant
spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so
intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son
of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the
Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the
Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had
condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same
banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive
generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either released
by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and
ambition of Chrysocheir, ^19 his successor, embraced a wider
circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful
Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops
of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the
edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and
Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John
protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of
Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the
Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and
abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe
the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which had
disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil,
the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom
for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation
and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians,
and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and
silk garments. "If the emperor," replied the insolent fanatic,
"be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign
without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of
the Lord will precipitate him from the throne." The reluctant
Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his
army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and
sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the
same calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had
explored the strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the
Barbarians, and the ample magazines of arms and provisions, he
desisted with a sigh from the hopeless siege. On his return to
Constantinople, he labored, by the foundation of convents and
churches, to secure the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael
the archangel and the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer
that he might live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of
his impious adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was
accomplished: after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was
surprised and slain in his retreat; and the rebel's head was
triumphantly presented at the foot of the throne. On the
reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called for his
bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and accepted the
applause of the court, who hailed the victory of the royal
archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and
withered: ^20 on the second expedition of the emperor, the
impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the heretics, who sued for
mercy or escaped to the borders. The city was ruined, but the
spirit of independence survived in the mountains: the Paulicians
defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested
the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with
the enemies of the empire and the gospel.

[Footnote 17: Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764,) the continuator of
Theophanes, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 541, 542,
545,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 156,) describe the revolt
and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.]

[Footnote 18: Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is
probably the only Frank who has visited the independent
Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately
escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.]
[Footnote 19: In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p.
67 - 70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37 - 43, p. 166 -
171) has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p.
570 - 573) is without their passions or their knowledge.]

[Footnote 20: How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth
of Cedrenus!]

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.

Part II.

     About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed
Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition
into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and
Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred
heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from
the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by
this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in
Europe. ^21 If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled
with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep
root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the
storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with
their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their
preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith
of the Bulgarians. ^22 In the tenth century, they were restored
and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces ^23
transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount
Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the
destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the
Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their
valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with
mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians
of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would
be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a
free toleration: the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis
and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the
Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of
villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native
Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy.
As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation,
their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the
empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever
thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost
with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit
rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily
provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often
violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.
In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred
Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, ^24 and
retired to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of
revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and
punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation,
and baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook the
pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his
winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth
apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole
days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were
fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards
which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,
surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified
with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the residence of
his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was
wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured
in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives
were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an
emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt
alive before the church of St. Sophia. ^25 But the proud hope of
eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by
the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or
refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they
soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of
the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest
corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and
Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial congregations
of Italy and France. ^26 From that aera, a minute scrutiny might
prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the
last age, the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount
Haemus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently
tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The
modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their
religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the
practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported
from the wilds of Tartary. ^27
[Footnote 21: Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus says
Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes.]

[Footnote 22: Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice
(A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of
their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the
Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians,
(p. 754.)]

[Footnote 23: The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted
by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned
by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad,
l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)]
[Footnote 24: The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi.
p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450 - 457, with the Annotations of
Ducange) records the transactions of her apostolic father with
the Manichaeans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of
refuting.]

[Footnote 25: Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a
sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l.
xv. p. 486 - 494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.)]

[Footnote 26: Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of
our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note
on Villehardouin (No. 208,) who found the Paulicians at
Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians.]

[Footnote 27: See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio
Ottomano, p. 24.]
     In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology
had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince.
The favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,
discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the
church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism
odious; less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of
saints and images, her innovations were more rapid and
scandalous: she had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine
of transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more
corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of
the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who
wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three
different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of
Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who
visited Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube:
in their journey and return they passed through Philippopolis;
and the sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might
accompany the French or German caravans to their respective
countries. The trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast
of the Adriatic, and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to
foreigners of every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine
standard, the Paulicians were often transported to the Greek
provinces of Italy and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely
conversed with strangers and natives, and their opinions were
silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the
Alps. ^28 It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of
every rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean
heresy; and the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans
was the first act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, ^29
a name so innocent in its origin, so odious in its application,
spread their branches over the face of Europe. United in common
hatred of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of
episcopal and presbyterian government; their various sects were
discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but
they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the
Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the
cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and
blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was
their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations
were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who
practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of
the Albigeois, ^30 in the southern provinces of France, that the
Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes
of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the
neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth
century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern
emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of
Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:
Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It
was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of
the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by
the founders of the Inquisition; ^31 an office more adapted to
confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The
visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were
extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by
flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible
spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the
Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the
cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of
St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the
Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the
visions of the Gnostic theology. ^* The struggles of Wickliff in
England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but
the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with
gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

[Footnote 28: The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and
France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81 - 152) and Mosheim, (p. 379 -
382, 419 - 422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of
William the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle
between the Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 256: )

     Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error
     Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.]

But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of
Sabellians or Patripassians.]

[Footnote 29: Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,
has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers
and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made
to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l'Avocat
Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.
Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise
named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]
[Footnote 30: Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the
Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,
(p. 477 - 481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical
historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and
amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]
[Footnote 31: The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of
Tholouse (A.D. 1307 - 1323) have been published by Limborch,
(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition
in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor.
As we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will
observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio
pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the
secular arm.]

[Footnote *: The popularity of "Milner's History of the Church"
with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that his
attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of Gnosticism
or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in ignorance, of all
the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it appears, was not
acquainted with the work of Photius, "Contra Manicheos
Repullulantes," the first book of which was edited by Montfaucon,
Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the whole by Wolf,
in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a very sensible
tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G. Dowling, M. A.
London, 1835. - M.]

     A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and
the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what
articles of faith, above or against our reason, they have
enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is
doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with truth and
piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be surprised by
the timidity, than scandalized by the freedom, of our first
reformers. ^32 With the Jews, they adopted the belief and defence
of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the
garden of Eden to the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they
were bound, like the Catholics, to justify against the Jews the
abolition of a divine law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity
and Incarnation the reformers were severely orthodox: they freely
adopted the theology of the four, or the six first councils; and
with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation
of all who did not believe the Catholic faith.
Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine
into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the
power of argument and pleasantry; but instead of consulting the
evidence of their senses, of their sight, their feeling, and
their taste, the first Protestants were entangled in their own
scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in the institution of
the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real,
presence of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of
Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual communion, a
simple memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches.
^33 But the loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the
stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace,
and predestination, which have been strained from the epistles of
St. Paul. These subtile questions had most assuredly been
prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final improvement
and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers, who
enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation.
Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the
Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a
wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

[Footnote 32: The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are
exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but
the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so
steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran
brethren.]

[Footnote 33: Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and
perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of
England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real
presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the
people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet's History of
the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]

     Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and
important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these
fearless enthusiasts. ^34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of
superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of
the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both
sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and
labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of
imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their
temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial
happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;
and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the
daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of
Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer
and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of
the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime
simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the
vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be
inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and
indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which
restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave
from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,
were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;
and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the
Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,
however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the
Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding
the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal
rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of
the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or
personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus ^35 the guilt
of his own rebellion; ^36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which
he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists
by the zeal of Cranmer. ^37 The nature of the tiger wa s the
same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A
spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman
pontiff; the Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank,
without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by
the antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and
disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to
private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity
and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret
reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the
reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and
the disciples of Erasmus ^38 diffused a spirit of freedom and
moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a
common benefit, an inalienable right: ^39 the free governments of
Holland ^40 and England ^41 introduced the practice of
toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been
enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the
exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and
the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer
satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are
overspread with cobwebs: the doctrine of a Protestant church is
far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members;
and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed
with a sigh, or a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends
of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry
and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are
accomplished: the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians,
Arians, and Socinians, whose number must not be computed from
their separate congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are
shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance
of religion, who indulge the license without the temper of
philosophy. ^42 ^*
[Footnote 34: "Had it not been for such men as Luther and
myself," said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, "you
would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred."]

[Footnote 35: The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique
of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this
shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d'Artigny, Nouveaux
Memoires d'Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55 - 154.]

[Footnote 36: I am more deeply scandalized at the single
execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in
the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin
seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps
envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the
judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred
trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was
not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state.
In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger,
who neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A
Catholic inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires,
but Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done
by; a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in
Nicocle, tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before
the publication of the Gospel.

     Note: Gibbon has not accurately rendered the sense of this
passage, which does not contain the maxim of charity Do unto
others as you would they should do unto you, but simply the maxim
of justice, Do not to others the which would offend you if they
should do it to you. - G.]

[Footnote 37: See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84 - 86. The sense and
humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the
primate.]
[Footnote 38: Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational
theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by
the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in
England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,
(Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261 - 268, octavo
edition.) Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]

[Footnote 39: I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of
the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly
defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and
philosophers.]

[Footnote 40: See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on
the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with
Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in
12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only
condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]
[Footnote 41: Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.
53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the
Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the
Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if
the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred
statutes.]

[Footnote 42: I shall recommend to public animadversion two
passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of
his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of
Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second
(vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]

[Footnote *: There is something ludicrous, if it were not
offensive, in Gibbon holding up to "public animadversion" the
opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his
creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the
effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is
mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be
compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole
religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed
since Gibbon wrote. - M.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.

Part I.

     The Bulgarians. - Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians. - Their Inroads In The East And West. - The Monarchy
Of Russia. - Geography And Trade. - Wars Of The Russians Against
The Greek Empire. - Conversion Of The Barbarians.

     Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius,
the ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often
restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of
Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their
unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were
occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa,
the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of
defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account
of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and
original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will
hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the
West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and
in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity:
the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be
imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold
the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the
same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages,
who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from
the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual
emigration. ^1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful,
their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor
brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was
neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty
of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly
attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared
without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the
despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan
under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of,
I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall
content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be
remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy
of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable
Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and
empire of Constantine.

[Footnote 1: All the passages of the Byzantine history which
relate to the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and
transcribed, in a Latin version, by the laborious John Gotthelf
Stritter, in his "Memoriae Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum
Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum, Mare Caspium, et inde Magis
ad Septemtriones incolentium." Petropoli, 1771 - 1779; in four
tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has not enhanced
the price of these raw materials.]

     I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric ^2 the Ostrogoth had
trampled on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the
name and the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it
may be suspected that the same or a similar appellation was
revived by strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or
the Volga. A king of the ancient Bulgaria, bequeathed to his
five sons a last lesson of moderation and concord. It was
received as youth has ever received the counsels of age and
experience: the five princes buried their father; divided his
subjects and cattle; forgot his advice; separated from each
other; and wandered in quest of fortune till we find the most
adventurous in the heart of Italy, under the protection of the
exarch of Ravenna. ^4 But the stream of emigration was directed
or impelled towards the capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the
southern banks of the Danube, was stamped with the name and image
which it has retained to the present hour: the new conquerors
successively acquired, by war or treaty, the Roman provinces of
Dardania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus; ^5 the ecclesiastical
supremacy was translated from the native city of Justinian; and,
in their prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or
Achrida, was honored with the throne of a king and a patriarch.
^6 The unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of
the Bulgarians from the original stock of the Sclavonian, or more
properly Slavonian, race; ^7 and the kindred bands of Servians,
Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians, ^8 &c., followed
either the standard or the example of the leading tribe. From
the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives, or
subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the Greek empire, they
overspread the land; and the national appellation of the slaves
^9 has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification
of glory to that of servitude. ^10 Among these colonies, the
Chrobatians, ^11 or Croats, who now attend the motions of an
Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty people, the
conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime cities, and
of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the aid and
instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by the
magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their
fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual
tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom
of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and
their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one
hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious
harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of
the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to
the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the
Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians:
one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a
respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of
ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war.
They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of
commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and
dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century
that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually
vindicated by the Venetian republic. ^12 The ancestors of these
Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of
navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland
regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days' journey,
according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.

[Footnote 2: Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]

[Footnote 3: Theophanes, p. 296 - 299. Anastasius, p. 113.
Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria
on the banks of the Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of
all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine
Sea.]

[Footnote 4: Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p.
881, 882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian
and the above- mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo
Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the
Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti,
(Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c. This Bulgarian
colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and learned
the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]

[Footnote 5: These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are
assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and
Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]

[Footnote 6: The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida,
are clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an
archbishop or patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and
at length to Ternovo, has produced some perplexity in the ideas
or language of the Greeks, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p.
14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19,
23;) and a Frenchman (D'Anville) is more accurately skilled in
the geography of their own country, (Hist. de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]

[Footnote 7: Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the
identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians,
Bulgarians, Poles, (de Rebus Turcicis, l. x. p. 283,) and
elsewhere of the Bohemians, (l. ii. p. 38.) The same author has
marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians.
     Note: The Slavonian languages are no doubt Indo-European,
though an original branch of that great family, comprehending the
various dialects named by Gibbon and others. Shafarik, t. 33. -
M. 1845.]

[Footnote 8: See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de
Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonae, 1745, in four parts, or two
volumes in folio. His collections and researches are useful to
elucidate the antiquities of Bohemia and the adjacent countries;
but his plan is narrow, his style barbarous, his criticism
shallow, and the Aulic counsellor is not free from the prejudices
of a Bohemian.

     Note: We have at length a profound and satisfactory work on
the Slavonian races. Shafarik, Slawische Alterthumer. B. 2,
Leipzig, 1843. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 9: Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable
derivation from Slava, laus, gloria, a word of familiar use in
the different dialects and parts of speech, and which forms the
termination of the most illustrious names, (de Originibus
Sclavicis, pars. i. p. 40, pars. iv. p. 101, 102)]
[Footnote 10: This conversion of a national into an appellative
name appears to have arisen in the viiith century, in the
Oriental France, where the princes and bishops were rich in
Sclavonian captives, not of the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but
of Sorabian race. From thence the word was extended to the
general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of
the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries and
Ducange.) The confusion of the Servians with the Latin Servi, was
still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant. Porphyr. de
Administrando, Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)]
[Footnote 11: The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most
accurate for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages,
describes the Sclavonians of Dalmatia, (c. 29 - 36.)]

[Footnote 12: See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century,
ascribed to John Sagorninus, (p. 94 - 102,) and that composed in
the xivth by the Doge Andrew Dandolo, (Script. Rerum. Ital. tom.
xii. p. 227 - 230,) the two oldest monuments of the history of
Venice.]

     The glory of the Bulgarians ^13 was confined to a narrow
scope both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries,
they reigned to the south of the Danube; but the more powerful
nations that had followed their emigration repelled all return to
the north and all progress to the west. Yet in the obscure
catalogue of their exploits, they might boast an honor which had
hitherto been appropriated to the Goths: that of slaying in
battle one of the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The
emperor Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his
life in the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced
with boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt
the royal court, which was probably no more than an edifice and
village of timber. But while he searched the spoil and refused
all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and
their forces: the passes of retreat were insuperably barred; and
the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim, "Alas, alas!
unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to
escape." Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of
despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians
surprised the camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers
of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of
Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was
exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often
replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the
dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment
of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured
with the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but they were
softened before the end of the same century by a peaceful
intercourse with the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated
region, and the introduction of the Christian worship. The
nobles of Bulgaria were educated in the schools and palace of
Constantinople; and Simeon, ^14 a youth of the royal line, was
instructed in the rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of
Aristotle. He relinquished the profession of a monk for that of
a king and warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years,
Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth.
The Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint
consolation from indulging themselves in the reproaches of
perfidy and sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan
Turks; but Simeon, in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the
first, at a time when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms
of that formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made
captive and dispersed; and those who visited the country before
their restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants,
without women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence
from the chase. On classic ground, on the banks of Achelous, the
greeks were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of
the Barbaric Hercules. ^15 He formed the siege of Constantinople;
and, in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed
the conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous
precautions: the royal gallery was drawn close to an artificial
and well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was
emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. "Are you a Christian?"
said the humble Romanus: "it is your duty to abstain from the
blood of your fellow- Christians. Has the thirst of riches
seduced you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open
your hand, and I will satiate the utmost measure of your
desires." The reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance;
the freedom of trade was granted or restored; the first honors of
the court were secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the
ambassadors of enemies or strangers; ^16 and her princes were
dignified with the high and invidious title of Basileus, or
emperor. But this friendship was soon disturbed: after the death
of Simeon, the nations were again in arms; his feeble successors
were divided and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the
eleventh century, the second Basil, who was born in the purple,
deserved the appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His
avarice was in some measure gratified by a treasure of four
hundred thousand pounds sterling, (ten thousand pounds' weight of
gold,) which he found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty
inflicted a cool and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand
captives who had been guilty of the defence of their country.
They were deprived of sight; but to one of each hundred a single
eye was left, that he might conduct his blind century to the
presence of their king. Their king is said to have expired of
grief and horror; the nation was awed by this terrible example;
the Bulgarians were swept away from their settlements, and
circumscribed within a narrow province; the surviving chiefs
bequeathed to their children the advice of patience and the duty
of revenge.

[Footnote 13: The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found,
under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras.
The Byzantine materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoriae
Populorum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 441 - 647;) and the series of
their kings is disposed and settled by Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p.
305 - 318.)

[Footnote 14: Simeonem semi-Graecum esse aiebant, eo quod a
pueritia Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis
syllogismos didicerat, (Liutprand, l. iii. c. 8.) He says in
another place, Simeon, fortis bella tor, Bulgariae praeerat;
Christianus, sed vicinis Graecis valde inimicus, (l. i. c. 2.)]
[Footnote 15: -     Rigidum fera dextera cornu
                    Dum tenet, infregit, truncaque a fronte
revellit.
Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1 - 100) has boldly painted the combat of
the river god and the hero; the native and the stranger.]

[Footnote 16: The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek
excuses, cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus
conjugem duceret, Symphona, id est consonantia scripto juramento
firmata sunt, ut omnium gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes
nos Bulgarorum Apostoli praeponantur, honorentur, diligantur,
(Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.) See the Ceremoniale of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom. ii. p. 429, 430,
434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of Reiske.]

     II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over
Europe, above nine hundred years after the Christian aera, they
were mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of
the Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the
world. ^17 Since the introduction of letters, they have explored
their own antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of
patriotic curiosity. ^18 Their rational criticism can no longer
be amused with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they
complain that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar
war; that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long
since forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle ^19
must be painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign
intelligence of the imperial geographer. ^20 Magiar is the
national and oriental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among
the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under
the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that
mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the
Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade
and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia and
after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the
missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their
ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were
hospitably entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who
still bore the name of Hungarians; conversed in their native
tongue, recollected a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and
listened with amazement to the marvellous tale of their new
kingdom and religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the
interest of consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their
princes had formed the generous, though fruitless, design of
replenishing the solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony
from the heart of Tartary. ^21 From this primitive country they
were driven to the West by the tide of war and emigration, by the
weight of the more distant tribes, who at the same time were
fugitives and conquerors. ^* Reason or fortune directed their
course towards the frontiers of the Roman empire: they halted in
the usual stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in
the territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have
been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and
various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion
of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or
sullied by the mixture of a foreign race: from a motive of
compulsion, or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were
associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced
the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior
renown the most honorable place in the front of battle. The
military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven
equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of
thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the
proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and
requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels
were directed by seven vayvods, or hereditary chiefs; but the
experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple
and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre,
which had been declined by the modest Lebedias, was granted to
the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority
of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of
the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the
prince to consult their happiness and glory.

[Footnote 17: A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted his opinion to a
reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog
were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies
the root, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from
the root, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once
commanded the respect of mankind, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi.
p. 594, &c.)]

[Footnote 18: The two national authors, from whom I have derived
the mos assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales
veterum Hun garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen
Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis
Arpadianae, Paestini, 1778 - 1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first
embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his
learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a
critical historian.

     Note: Compare Engel Geschichte des Ungrischen Reichs und
seiner Neben lander, Halle, 1797, and Mailath, Geschichte der
Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix to the latter work will be
found a brief abstract of the speculations (for it is difficult
to consider them more) which have been advanced by the learned,
on the origin of the Magyar and Hungarian names. Compare vol. vi.
p. 35, note. - M.]

[Footnote 19: The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary
of King Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and
defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This
rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records,
since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis
rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the xvth century,
these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the
Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist.
Critica Ducum, p. 7 - 33.]
[Footnote 20: See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4,
13, 38 - 42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work
to the years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4 - 7.) The critical historian
(p. 34 - 107) endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the
actions, of a first duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is
tacitly rejected by Constantine.]

[Footnote 21: Pray (Dissert. p. 37 - 39, &c.) produces and
illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries,
Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]

[Footnote *: In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan have
been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves the
residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions. Precis
de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353. - G.

     This is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi.
Madschar, (he states) in old Tartar, means "stone building." This
was a Tartar city mentioned by the Mahometan writers. - M.]

     With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the
penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger
prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language
stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian
dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms
of the Fennic race, ^22 of an obsolete and savage race, which
formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. ^* The
genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western
confines of China; ^23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish
is attested by Tartar evidence; ^24 a similar name and language
are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; ^25 and the
remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered
from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. ^26 The
consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the
powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent;
the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are
intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched
fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.

Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the
unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by
nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. ^27 Extreme
cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of
the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of
men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy
ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their
peace! ^28

[Footnote 22: Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de
Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have
drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the
Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists
are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the
learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that
although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras
voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]

[Footnote *: The connection between the Magyar language and that
of the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth, Asia
Polyglotta, p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c. - M.]

[Footnote 23: In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and
minutely described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du
Grand Gengiscan, 13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31,
&c.)]

[Footnote 24: Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi
Bahadur Khan partie ii. p. 90 - 98.]

[Footnote 25: In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives
(Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920,
921) and Bell (Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the
neighborhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological
art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the
circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and
of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the
Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20 - 30. Pray. Dissert. ii.
p. 31 - 34.)]

[Footnote 26: The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described
in the curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la
Domination de la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361 - 561.)]

[Footnote 27: This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is
chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796 - 801, and the
Latin Annals, which are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori,
A.D. 889, &c.]

[Footnote 28: Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6, in 12mo.
Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment
of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et
pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and
attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy
their brutal ignorance.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.

Part II.

     It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics,
^29 that all the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their
pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same
means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of
destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and
Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each
other in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and
government: their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his
friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture
may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of
the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military
prowess, all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and
contemptible to these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was
stimulated by the consciousness of numbers and freedom. The
tents of the Hungarians were of leather, their garments of fur;
they shaved their hair, and scarified their faces: in speech they
were slow, in action prompt, in treaty perfidious; and they
shared the common reproach of Barbarians, too ignorant to
conceive the importance of truth, too proud to deny or palliate
the breach of their most solemn engagements. Their simplicity
has been praised; yet they abstained only from the luxury they
had never known; whatever they saw they coveted; their desires
were insatiate, and their sole industry was the hand of violence
and rapine. By the definition of a pastoral nation, I have
recalled a long description of the economy, the warfare, and the
government that prevail in that state of society; I may add, that
to fishing, as well as to the chase, the Hungarians were indebted
for a part of their subsistence; and since they seldom cultivated
the ground, they must, at least in their new settlements, have
sometimes practised a slight and unskilful husbandry. In their
emigrations, perhaps in their expeditions, the host was
accompanied by thousands of sheep and oxen which increased the
cloud of formidable dust, and afforded a constant and wholesale
supply of milk and animal food. A plentiful command of forage
was the first care of the general, and if the flocks and herds
were secure of their pastures, the hardy warrior was alike
insensible of danger and fatigue. The confusion of men and
cattle that overspread the country exposed their camp to a
nocturnal surprise, had not a still wider circuit been occupied
by their light cavalry, perpetually in motion to discover and
delay the approach of the enemy. After some experience of the
Roman tactics, they adopted the use of the sword and spear, the
helmet of the soldier, and the iron breastplate of his steed: but
their native and deadly weapon was the Tartar bow: from the
earliest infancy their children and servants were exercised in
the double science of archery and horsemanship; their arm was
strong; their aim was sure; and in the most rapid career, they
were taught to throw themselves backwards, and to shoot a volley
of arrows into the air. In open combat, in secret ambush, in
flight, or pursuit, they were equally formidable; an appearance
of order was maintained in the foremost ranks, but their charge
was driven forwards by the impatient pressure of succeeding
crowds. They pursued, headlong and rash, with loosened reins and
horrific outcries; but, if they fled, with real or dissembled
fear, the ardor of a pursuing foe was checked and chastised by
the same habits of irregular speed and sudden evolution. In the
abuse of victory, they astonished Europe, yet smarting from the
wounds of the Saracen and the Dane: mercy they rarely asked, and
more rarely bestowed: both sexes were accused is equally
inaccessible to pity, and their appetite for raw flesh might
countenance the popular tale, that they drank the blood, and
feasted on the hearts of the slain. Yet the Hungarians were not
devoid of those principles of justice and humanity, which nature
has implanted in every bosom. The license of public and private
injuries was restrained by laws and punishments; and in the
security of an open camp, theft is the most tempting and most
dangerous offence. Among the Barbarians there were many, whose
spontaneous virtue supplied their laws and corrected their
manners, who performed the duties, and sympathized with the
affections, of social life.

[Footnote 29: Leo has observed, that the government of the Turks
was monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous,
(Tactic. p. 896) Rhegino (in Chron. A.D. 889) mentions theft as a
capital crime, and his jurisprudence is confirmed by the original
code of St. Stephen, (A.D. 1016.) If a slave were guilty, he was
chastised, for the first time, with the loss of his nose, or a
fine of five heifers; for the second, with the loss of his ears,
or a similar fine; for the third, with death; which the freeman
did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first penalty was
the loss of liberty, (Katona, Hist. Regum Hungar tom. i. p. 231,
232.)]

     After a long pilgrimage of flight or victory, the Turkish
hordes approached the common limits of the French and Byzantine
empires. Their first conquests and final settlements extended on
either side of the Danube above Vienna, below Belgrade, and
beyond the measure of the Roman province of Pannonia, or the
modern kingdom of Hungary. ^30 That ample and fertile land was
loosely occupied by the Moravians, a Sclavonian name and tribe,
which were driven by the invaders into the compass of a narrow
province. Charlemagne had stretched a vague and nominal empire as
far as the edge of Transylvania; but, after the failure of his
legitimate line, the dukes of Moravia forgot their obedience and
tribute to the monarchs of Oriental France. The bastard Arnulph
was provoked to invite the arms of the Turks: they rushed through
the real or figurative wall, which his indiscretion had thrown
open; and the king of Germany has been justly reproached as a
traitor to the civil and ecclesiastical society of the
Christians. During the life of Arnulph, the Hungarians were
checked by gratitude or fear; but in the infancy of his son Lewis
they discovered and invaded Bavaria; and such was their Scythian
speed, that in a single day a circuit of fifty miles was stripped
and consumed. In the battle of Augsburgh the Christians
maintained their advantage till the seventh hour of the day, they
were deceived and vanquished by the flying stratagems of the
Turkish cavalry. The conflagration spread over the provinces of
Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia; and the Hungarians ^31 promoted
the reign of anarchy, by forcing the stoutest barons to
discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of
walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period; nor could any
distance be secure against an enemy, who, almost at the same
instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and
the city of Bremen, on the shores of the northern ocean. Above
thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the
ignominy of tribute; and resistance was disarmed by the menace,
the serious and effectual menace of dragging the women and
children into captivity, and of slaughtering the males above the
age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow
the Hungarians beyond the Rhine; but I must observe with
surprise, that the southern provinces of France were blasted by
the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished
at the approach of these formidable strangers. ^32 The vicinity
of Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on
the Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength
and populousness of the new discovered country. They requested
leave to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the
Italian king; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid
the forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of
the West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendor;
and the preeminence of Rome itself was only derived from the
relics of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in
flames; forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the
massacre of the people, they spared about two hundred wretches
who had gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague
exaggeration) from the smoking ruins of their country. In these
annual excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and
Capua, the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful
litany: "O, save and deliver us from the arrows of the
Hungarians!" But the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the
torrent rolled forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land
of Calabria. ^33 A composition was offered and accepted for the
head of each Italian subject; and ten bushels of silver were
poured forth in the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the natural
antagonist of violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in
the numbers of the assessment and the standard of the metal. On
the side of the East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful
conflict by the equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade
an alliance with the Pagans, and whose situation formed the
barrier of the Byzantine empire. The barrier was overturned; the
emperor of Constantinople beheld the waving banners of the Turks;
and one of their boldest warriors presumed to strike a battle-axe
into the golden gate. The arts and treasures of the Greeks
diverted the assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in their
retreat, that they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of
Bulgaria and the majesty of the Caesars. ^34 The remote and rapid
operations of the same campaign appear to magnify the power and
numbers of the Turks; but their courage is most deserving of
praise, since a light troop of three or four hundred horse would
often attempt and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of
Thessalonica and Constantinople. At this disastrous aera of the
ninth and tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple
scourge from the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the
Hungarian, and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of
desolation; and these savage foes might have been compared by
Homer to the two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled
stag. ^35 [Footnote 30: See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321 -
352.]

[Footnote 31: Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae
saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who
frequently expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l.
i. c. 5, l. ii. c. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v. c.
8, 15, in Legat. p. 485. His colors are glaring but his
chronology must be rectified by Pagi and Muratori.]
[Footnote 32: The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and
Toxus, are critically illustrated by Katona, (Hist. Ducum, &c. p.
107 - 499.) His diligence has searched both natives and
foreigners; yet to the deeds of mischief, or glory, I have been
able to add the destruction of Bremen, (Adam Bremensis, i. 43.)]

[Footnote 33: Muratori has considered with patriotic care the
danger and resources of Modena. The citizens besought St.
Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the
rabies, flagellum, &c.

     Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi,
     Ab Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.

The bishop erected walls for the public defence, not contra
dominos serenos, (Antiquitat. Ital. Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat.
i. p. 21, 22,) and the song of the nightly watch is not without
elegance or use, (tom. iii. dis. xl. p. 709.) The Italian
annalist has accurately traced the series of their inroads,
(Annali d' Italia, tom. vii. p. 365, 367, 398, 401, 437, 440,
tom. viii. p. 19, 41, 52, &c.)]

[Footnote 34: Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose, that
they besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople, (Pray,
dissertat. x. p. 239. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354 - 360;) and
the fact is almost confessed by the Byzantine historians, (Leo
Grammaticus, p. 506. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629: ) yet, however
glorious to the nation, it is denied or doubted by the critical
historian, and even by the notary of Bela. Their scepticism is
meritorious; they could not safely transcribe or believe the
rusticorum fabulas: but Katona might have given due attention to
the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque daecorum
tributariam fecerant, (Hist. l. ii. c. 4, p. 435.)]

[Footnote 35: - Iliad, xvi. 756.]

     The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by
the Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in
two memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians.
^36 The valiant Henry was roused from a bed of sickness by the
invasion of his country; but his mind was vigorous and his
prudence successful. "My companions," said he, on the morning of
the combat, "maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the
first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by
the equal and rapid career of your lances." They obeyed and
conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh
expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who,
in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the
perpetuity of his name. ^37 At the end of twenty years, the
children of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the
empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest
estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by
domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously
unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse,
into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho
dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that
unless they were true to each other, their religion and country
were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in
the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight
legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the
first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth,
of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command
of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and
the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of
the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified
by the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve
the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were
purified with a fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of
saints and martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the
sword of Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of
Charlemagne, and waved the banner of St. Maurice, the praefect of
the Thebaean legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in
the holy lance, ^38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the
cross, and which his father had extorted from the king of
Burgundy, by the threats of war, and the gift of a province. The
Hungarians were expected in the front; they secretly passed the
Lech, a river of Bavaria that falls into the Danube; turned the
rear of the Christian army; plundered the baggage, and disordered
the legion of Bohemia and Swabia. The battle was restored by the
Franconians, whose duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an
arrow as he rested from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the
eyes of their king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and
importance, the triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss
of the Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the
action; they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their
past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three
captive princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of
prisoners was slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed
to appear in the face of their country, were condemned to
everlasting poverty and disgrace. ^39 Yet the spirit of the
nation was humbled, and the most accessible passes of Hungary
were fortified with a ditch and rampart. Adversity suggested the
counsels of moderation and peace: the robbers of the West
acquiesced in a sedentary life; and the next generation was
taught, by a discerning prince, that far more might be gained by
multiplying and exchanging the produce of a fruitful soil. The
native race, the Turkish or Fennic blood, was mingled with new
colonies of Scythian or Sclavonian origin; ^40 many thousands of
robust and industrious captives had been imported from all the
countries of Europe; ^41 and after the marriage of Geisa with a
Bavarian princess, he bestowed honors and estates on the nobles
of Germany. ^42 The son of Geisa was invested with the regal
title, and the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the
kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled
by the lustre of the diadem, and the people asserted their
indefeasible right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the
hereditary servant of the state.

[Footnote 36: They are amply and critically discussed by Katona,
(Hist. Dacum, p. 360 - 368, 427 - 470.) Liutprand (l. ii. c. 8,
9) is the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal.
Saxon. l. iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will
not even overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be
preserved at Jaz-berid.]

[Footnote 37: Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria dignum,
ad Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per Zeus, id est,
picturam, notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam
verisimilem videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand, l. ii. c. 9.)
Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by
the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla
saecula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat.
Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our
domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original
imperfection (Mr. Walpole's lively words) are of a much more
recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]

[Footnote 38: See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 929, No. 2 - 5.
The lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand,
(l. iv. c. 12,) Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the
other military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum
post Bedam, l. ii. c. 8.]

[Footnote 39: Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariae, p. 500, &c.]

[Footnote 40: Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The
Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march,
(Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109.) 2. The
Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the
last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were
intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who,
like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal
porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956) were
invited, cum magna multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of those
Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and
Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who
had spread to the Lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000
Cumans, A.D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of
Hungary, who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation,
(Pray, Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109 - 173. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p.
95 - 99, 259 - 264, 476, 479 - 483, &c.)]

[Footnote 41: Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui
ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the
language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary,
A.D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.]

[Footnote 42: The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in
old charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a
fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely
magnified by the Italian Ranzanus, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p, 667 -
681.)]

     III. The name of Russians ^43 was first divulged, in the
ninth century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East,
to the emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The
Greeks were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or
chagan, or czar, of the Russians. In their journey to
Constantinople, they had traversed many hostile nations; and they
hoped to escape the dangers of their return, by requesting the
French monarch to transport them by sea to their native country.
A closer examination detected their origin: they were the
brethren of the Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious
and formidable in France; and it might justly be apprehended,
that these Russian strangers were not the messengers of peace,
but the emissaries of war. They were detained, while the Greeks
were dismissed; and Lewis expected a more satisfactory account,
that he might obey the laws of hospitality or prudence, according
to the interest of both empires. ^44 This Scandinavian origin of
the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed
and illustrated by the national annals ^45 and the general
history of the North. The Normans, who had so long been
concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst
forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast,
and, as it is said, the populous regions of Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway, were crowded with independent chieftains and desperate
adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in
the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the
glory, and the virtue, of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a
bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet,
grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels,
and explored every coast that promised either spoil or
settlement. The Baltic was the first scene of their naval
achievements they visited the eastern shores, the silent
residence of Fennic and Sclavonic tribes, and the primitive
Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white
squirrels, to these strangers, whom they saluted with the title
of Varangians ^46 or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms,
discipline, and renown, commanded the fear and reverence of the
natives. In their wars against the more inland savages, the
Varangians condescended to serve as friends and auxiliaries, and
gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained the dominion of a
people whom they were qualified to protect. Their tyranny was
expelled, their valor was again recalled, till at length Ruric, a
Scandinavian chief, became the father of a dynasty which reigned
above seven hundred years. His brothers extended his influence:
the example of service and usurpation was imitated by his
companions in the southern provinces of Russia; and their
establishments, by the usual methods of war and assassination,
were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy.

[Footnote 43: Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a
singular form, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful
etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure
and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ.
Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p. 388 - 436) by Theophilus Sigefrid
Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labors in the
service of Russia. A geographical tract of D'Anville, de
l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris,
1772, in 12mo.,) has likewise been of use.

     Note: The later antiquarians of Russia and Germany appear to
aquiesce in the authority of the monk Nestor, the earliest
annalist of Russia, who derives the Russians, or Vareques, from
Scandinavia. The names of the first founders of the Russian
monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman. Their language (according to
Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat. Imper. c. 9) differed
essentially from the Sclavonian. The author of the Annals of St.
Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos) in the year 839 of
his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their country. So Liutprand
calls the Russians the same people as the Normans. The Fins,
Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the Swedes, to the present day,
Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue. See Thunman, Untersuchungen
uber der Geschichte des Estlichen Europaischen Volker, p. 374.
Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient. Gotting. xiii. p. 126.
Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de 'Europe, vol. i. p.
60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p. 378. - M.]
[Footnote 44: See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut
aureis in tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum,
(in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839,
twenty-two years before the aera of Ruric. In the xth century,
Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans
as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.]
[Footnote 45: My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M.
Leveque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these
ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning
of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was
published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. xvi. Coxe's Travels, vol. ii. p. 184.

     Note: The late M. Schlozer has translated and added a
commentary to the Annals of Nestor;" and his work is the mine
from which henceforth the history of the North must be drawn. -
G.]

[Footnote 46: Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is
differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv.
p. 275 - 311.]
     As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as
aliens and conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians,
distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and
supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the
Baltic coast. ^47 But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a
deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the
Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first
Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these
foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his
riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they
listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a
more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should
embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk
and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same
time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to
disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous
children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the
introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day
they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled
at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their
strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen
from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague
appellation of Thule is applied to England; and the new
Varangians were a colony of English and Danes who fled from the
yoke of the Norman conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy
had approximated the countries of the earth; these exiles were
entertained in the Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the
last age of the empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and
the use of the Danish or English tongue. With their broad and
double-edged battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the
Greek emperor to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he
slept and feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the
palace, the treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and
faithful hands of the Varangians. ^48
[Footnote 47: Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were
still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et
maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of
Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the
Germans to enlist in a foreign service.]
[Footnote 48: Ducange has collected from the original authors the
state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople, (Glossar.
Med. et Infimae Graecitatis, sub voce. Med. et Infimae
Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Annae Comnenae, p.
256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296 - 299.) See
likewise the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulae
Byzant. of Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo Grammaticus
affirms that they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till
the fifteenth century in the use of their native English.]

     In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended
far beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of
the Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of
Constantine. ^49 The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious
province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on
that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in
those early days was enlarged to the Baltic Sea and the country
of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the
sixtieth degree of latitude over the Hyperborean regions, which
fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal
darkness. To the south they followed the course of the
Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighborhood of
the Euxine Sea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this
ample circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly
blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a
dialect of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two
modes of speech were different from each other; and, as the
Sclavonian prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the
original Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the
Varangian chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the
emigration, union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the
loose and indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has
continually shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords
some places which still retain their name and position; and the
two capitals, Novogorod ^50 and Kiow, ^51 are coeval with the
first age of the monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the
epithet of great, nor the alliance of the Hanseatic League, which
diffused the streams of opulence and the principles of freedom.
Kiow could not yet boast of three hundred churches, an
innumerable people, and a degree of greatness and splendor which
was compared with Constantinople by those who had never seen the
residence of the Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were
no more than camps or fairs, the most convenient stations in
which the Barbarians might assemble for the occasional business
of war or trade. Yet even these assemblies announce some
progress in the arts of society; a new breed of cattle was
imported from the southern provinces; and the spirit of
commercial enterprise pervaded the sea and land, from the Baltic
to the Euxine, from the mouth of the Oder to the port of
Constantinople. In the days of idolatry and barbarism, the
Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and enriched by the
Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of purchase and
exchange. ^52 From this harbor, at the entrance of the Oder, the
corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to the eastern
shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were intermingled,
and the holy groves of Curland are said to have been decorated
with Grecian and Spanish gold. ^53 Between the sea and Novogorod
an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer, through a
gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter season, over
the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From the
neighborhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams
that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree,
were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the
spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the
whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the
magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of
the departure of the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed
into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and
they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as
the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed,
and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow
falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper
cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their
vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in
this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. ^54 At the
first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the
festival of their escape: at a second, near the mouth of the
river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and
more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the
coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could
reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of
Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the
strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a
rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece,
and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the
capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the
persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. ^55

[Footnote 49: The original record of the geography and trade of
Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
(de Administrat. Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59 - 61, c.
13, p. 63 - 67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and
illustrated by the diligence of Bayer, (de Geographia Russiae
vicinarumque Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ.
Petropol. tom. ix. p. 367 - 422, tom. x. p. 371 - 421,) with the
aid of the chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]

[Footnote 50: The haughty proverb, "Who can resist God and the
great Novogorod?" is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
i. p. 60) even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In
the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic,
which was suppressed A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252 - 266.) That
accurate traveller Adam Olearius describes (in 1635) the remains
of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein
ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123 - 129.]

[Footnote 51: In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus
trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam
ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p.
412.) He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon
annalist, Cujus (Russioe) metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri
Constantinopolitani, quae est clarissimum decus Graeciae. The
fame of Kiow, especially in the xith century, had reached the
German and Arabian geographers.]

[Footnote 52: In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes,
nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis
qui sunt in circuitu, praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium
quas Europa claudit civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p.
19;) a strange exaggeration even in the xith century. The trade
of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic League, are carefully treated in
Anderson's Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our
language, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory.
     Note: The book of authority is the "Geschichte des
Hanseatischen Bundes," by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or
rather the later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols.
4to., Hamburgh, 1830. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 53: According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p.
58,) the old Curland extended eight days' journey along the
coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is
defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia.
Aurum ibi plurimum, (says Adam,) divinis auguribus atque
necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae .... a toto orbe ibi
responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est
regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to
the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect
conversion, if they still consulted the wizards of Curland,
(Bayer, tom. x. p. 378, 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist.
Goth. p. 99.)]

[Footnote 54: Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which
he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are
enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had
surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper, or
Borysthenes, (Description de l'Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin
quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]

[Footnote 55: Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
78 - 80. From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to
Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where?
when? The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between
Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was
still used in the xith century, (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.

Part III.

     But the same communication which had been opened for the
benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period
of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts
to plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was
various, but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same
in these naval expeditions. ^56 The Russian traders had seen the
magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars.
A marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of
their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which
their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they
were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the
Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure,
and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt
in the northern isles of the ocean. ^57 The image of their naval
armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the
Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same
seas for a similar purpose. ^58 The Greek appellation of
monoxyla, or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom
of their vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech
or willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and
continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length
of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were
built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move
with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men,
with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The
first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but
when the national force was exerted, they might arm against
Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet
was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was
magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real
proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors
been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent,
perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of
the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia
to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of
six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the
capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province
escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The
storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at
length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen
miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been
stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their
first enterprise ^59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed
without opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in
the absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus.
Through a crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and
immediately repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. ^60 By the
advice of the patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn
from the sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable
tempest, which determined the retreat of the Russians, was
devoutly ascribed to the mother of God. ^61 The silence of the
Greeks may inspire some doubt of the truth, or at least of the
importance, of the second attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the
sons of Ruric. ^62 A strong barrier of arms and fortifications
defended the Bosphorus: they were eluded by the usual expedient
of drawing the boats over the isthmus; and this simple operation
is described in the national chronicles, as if the Russian fleet
had sailed over dry land with a brisk and favorable gale. The
leader of the third armament, Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen
a moment of weakness and decay, when the naval powers of the
empire were employed against the Saracens. But if courage be not
wanting, the instruments of defence are seldom deficient.
Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against
the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually
planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were
abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers
were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand
Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into
the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were
inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third
of the canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring
Igor was again prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his
revenge. ^63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great grandson of
Igor, resumed the same project of a naval invasion. A fleet,
under the command of his son, was repulsed at the entrance of the
Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But in the rashness of
pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was encompassed by an
irresistible multitude of boats and men; their provision of fire
was probably exhausted; and twenty- four galleys were either
taken, sunk, or destroyed. ^64
[Footnote 56: The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth,
xth, and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals,
especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their
testimonies are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii.
pars ii. p. 939 - 1044.]

[Footnote 57: Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

[Footnote 58: See Beauplan, (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54 -
61: ) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except
the circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for
modern Cosacks.]

[Footnote 59: It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265 - 391.) After
disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the
years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts
and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque's history.]
[Footnote 60: When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the
conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently
ripe.]

[Footnote 61: Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini
Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon
Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus,
tom. ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]
[Footnote 62: See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque's Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. 74 - 80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75 - 79) uses his
advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the
siege of Kiow by the Hungarians.]
[Footnote 63: Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p.
263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588,
589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and
Liutprand, l. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his
father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corrects
the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 64: I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758,
759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more
weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]

     Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more
frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval
hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks;
their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no
spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the
hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an
opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse
with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and
inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of
the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest
and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the
hoary sages. "Be content," they said, "with the liberal offers
of Caesar; it is not far better to obtain without a combat the
possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our
desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with
the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of
water, and a common death hangs over our heads." ^65 The memory
of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar
circle left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By
the vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an
equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed
with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should
become masters of Constantinople. ^66 In our own time, a Russian
armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has
circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital
has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of
war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering
artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as
those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet
behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare
prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date
unquestionable.
[Footnote 65: Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
87.]
[Footnote 66: This brazen statue, which had been brought from
Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to
represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See
Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P.
p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri,
Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100.
They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]
     By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and
as they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions
must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the
Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and
imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to
the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed
the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the
Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, ^67
the son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of
his mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military
and savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept
on the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was
coarse and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, ^68 his meat
(it was often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals.
The exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army;
and it may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to
transcend the luxury of his chief. By an embassy from
Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, he was moved to undertake the
conquest of Bulgaria; and a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of
gold was laid at his feet to defray the expense, or reward the
toils, of the expedition. An army of sixty thousand men was
assembled and embarked; they sailed from the Borysthenes to the
Danube; their landing was effected on the Maesian shore; and,
after a sharp encounter, the swords of the Russians prevailed
against the arrows of the Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king
sunk into the grave; his children were made captive; and his
dominions, as far as Mount Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the
northern invaders. But instead of relinquishing his prey, and
performing his engagements, the Varangian prince was more
disposed to advance than to retire; and, had his ambition been
crowned with success, the seat of empire in that early period
might have been transferred to a more temperate and fruitful
climate. Swatoslaus enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of
his new position, in which he could unite, by exchange or rapine,
the various productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he
might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and
hydromed: Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the
spoils of the West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and
the foreign luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain.
The bands of Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the
standard of victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed
his trust, assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new
allies the treasures of the Eastern world. From the banks of the
Danube the Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople;
a formal summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed
with contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that
Constantinople might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a
master.

[Footnote 67: The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or
Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M.
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94 - 107.)]

[Footnote 68: This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth
book of the Iliad, (205 - 221,) in the minute detail of the
cookery of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would
disgrace his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses
are harmonious - a dead language can seldom appear low or
familiar; and at the distance of two thousand seven hundred
years, we are amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]

     Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had
introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John
Zimisces, ^69 who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and
abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants
deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of
whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt,
or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand
Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been
recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the
return of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike
prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the
injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left
unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was
formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian
style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand five
hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and
cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first
exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or
Peristhlaba, ^70 in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls
were scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the
sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an
ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After
these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of
Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was pursued by an enemy
who alternately employed the arms of celerity and delay. The
Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed a
line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed,
assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and
city. Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate
sallies were attempted; nor was it till after a siege of
sixty-five days that Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune.
The liberal terms which he obtained announce the prudence of the
victor, who respected the valor, and apprehended the despair, of
an unconquered mind. The great duke of Russia bound himself, by
solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile designs; a safe
passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade and
navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to
each of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand
measures attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians.
After a painful voyage, they again reached the mouth of the
Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was
unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they
could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and
oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks
entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. ^71 Far
different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his
capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome.
But the merit of the victory was attributed by the pious emperor
to the mother of God; and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the
divine infant in her arms, was placed on a triumphal car, adorned
with the spoils of war, and the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty.
Zimisces made his public entry on horseback; the diadem on his
head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and Constantinople was
astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her sovereign. ^72

[Footnote 69: This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian
language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I
may be indulged in the question in the play, "Pray, which of you
is the interpreter?" From the context, they seem to signify
Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar.
Graec. p. 1570.)

     Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives another
derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag, which means
a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the East. He
was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written in
Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo
Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist. - M.]

[Footnote 70: In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba
implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena,
(Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus
and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least
the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or
Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ.
Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne,
tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]

[Footnote 71: The political management of the Greeks, more
especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first
chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]

[Footnote 72: In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud
Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968 - 973) is more authentic and
circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660 - 683) and Zonaras,
(tom. ii. p. 205 - 214.) These declaimers have multiplied to
308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the
contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]
     Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was
equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek
church on the conversion of the Russians. ^73 Those fierce and
bloody Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and
religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian
missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends
and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the
various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian
chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of
baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might
administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a
congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel
was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts
were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of
Russian Christianity. ^74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin,
who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her
husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues
which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment
of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to
Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has
described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception
in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the
salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted
to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the
superior majesty of the purple. ^75 In the sacrament of baptism,
she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her
conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two
interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a
lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four
Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess
Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly
persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation
of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family
and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of
their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn
and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir
devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments
of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still
propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a
citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater;
and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife,
was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult.
Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep,
though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people:
the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to
baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the
idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of
Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of
St. Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches
of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp
and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate
succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it
difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each
day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. ^76
But the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by
his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city
of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by
the Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil,
the brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported,
as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church
as a trophy of his victory and faith. ^77 At his despotic
command, Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored,
was dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy
Barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was
indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict
of Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites
of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their
prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands
of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence
of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his
boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were
finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died
without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and
sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.

[Footnote 73: Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut.
It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the
Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it
become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian
idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]
[Footnote 74: M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and
modern researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion
of the Slavi, and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. 35 - 54, 59, 92, 92, 113 - 121, 124 - 129, 148, 149,
&c.)]

[Footnote 75: See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15,
p. 343 - 345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of
Barbarians the Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an
Athenian magistrate, with a female termination, which would have
astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]
[Footnote 76: See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri,
(Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione
Russorum.]
[Footnote 77: Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein
(apud Pagi tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir's baptism
and marriage; and both the tradition and the gates are still
preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports
the brazen gates from Magdeburgh in Germany, (Coxe's Travels into
Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which
seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not
confound this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula,
with a new city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth
of the Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable
interview of the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]

     In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian
aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over
Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,
Poland, and Russia. ^78 The triumphs of apostolic zeal were
repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and
eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion, more different
in theory than in practice, from the worship of their native
idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and
Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the Barbarians: poverty,
hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries;
their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and
meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of
their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the
fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the
proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first
conversions were free and spontaneous: a holy life and an
eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the
domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced by the miracles and
visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper of the chiefs
was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The
leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and
saints, ^79 held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith
on their subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from
Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard
of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the
conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and
candor must acknowledge, that the conversion of the North
imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new
Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species,
could not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and
peace; and the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every
age the calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of
the Barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society
delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the
Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare
their brethren and cultivate their possessions. ^80 The
establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of
the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced
into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the
Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the
Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the
dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the
churches of Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were
translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble
youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the
college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have
derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar
connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which at
that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the
Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty
decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the
Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and
Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the
divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of
Tartar servitude. ^81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms,
which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed,
it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of
the popes; ^82 but they were united in language and religious
worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free
and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually
shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.
[Footnote 78: Consult the Latin text, or English version, of
Mosheim's excellent History of the Church, under the first head
or section of each of these centuries.]

[Footnote 79: In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen
received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a
diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke
of Poland: but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too
barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown.
(Katona, Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae, tom. i. p. 1 -
20.)]

[Footnote 80: Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D.
1080,) of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa
ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio ..... jamdudum novit in Dei
laudibus Alleluia resonare ..... Ecce populus ille piraticus
..... suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis
semper inaccessa propter cultum idolorum ... praedicatores
veritatis ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c., (de Situ Daniae,
&c., p. 40, 41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original prospect of
the north of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]

[Footnote 81: The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which
was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of
empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of
Levesque's History, and Mr. Coxe's Travels into the North, tom.
i. p. 241, &c.]

[Footnote 82: The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the
reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam,
&c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and
the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of
the pope and the independence of the crown, (Katona, Hist.
Critica, tom. i. p. 20 - 25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.)]

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part I.

     The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy. - First
Adventures And Settlement Of The Normans. - Character And
Conquest Of Robert Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia - Deliverance Of
Sicily By His Brother Roger. - Victories Of Robert Over The
Emperors Of The East And West. - Roger, King Of Sicily, Invades
Africa And Greece. - The Emperor Manuel Comnenus. - Wars Of The
Greeks And Normans. - Extinction Of The Normans.

     The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the
Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre
of Italy. ^1 The southern provinces, which now compose the
kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part, to the
Lombard dukes and princes of Beneventum; ^2 so powerful in war,
that they checked for a moment the genius of Charlemagne; so
liberal in peace, that they maintained in their capital an
academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division
of this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of
Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or
revenge of the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of
their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two
hundred years, Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds, which
the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and
tranquility of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost
annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo, and were
entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples:
the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coast;
and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist
or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution of
human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine Forks,
the fields of Cannae were bedewed a second time with the blood of
the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome again attacked or
defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A colony of Saracens
had been planted at Bari, which commands the entrance of the
Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the
resentment, and conciliated the union of the two emperors. An
offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian,
the first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson of
Charlemagne; ^3 and each party supplied the deficiencies of his
associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch
to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian
campaign; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient if his
superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The
fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and
by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of
four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis,
who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This
important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East
and West; but their recent amity was soon imbittered by the
mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as
their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph;
extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride
the intemperance and sloth of the handful of Barbarians who
appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply
is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: "We
confess the magnitude of your preparation," says the great-
grandson of Charlemagne. "Your armies were indeed as numerous as
a cloud of summer locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings,
and, after a short flight, tumble weary and breathless to the
ground. Like them, ye sunk after a feeble effort; ye were
vanquished by your own cowardice; and withdrew from the scene of
action to injure and despoil our Christian subjects of the
Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why were we few?
Because, after a tedious expectation of your arrival, I had
dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band of warriors to
continue the blockade of the city. If they indulged their
hospitable feasts in the face of danger and death, did these
feasts abate the vigor of their enterprise? Is it by your fasting
that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did not these
valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and fatigue,
intercept and vanish the three most powerful emirs of the
Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of the
city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be
delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may
be rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother,"
accelerate (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,)
"accelerate your naval succors, respect your allies, and distrust
your flatterers." ^4
[Footnote 1: For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth
centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books
of Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works,
Milan, 1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi;
the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di
Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo
edition) of the Annali d' Italia of Muratori, and the 2d volume
of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which,
under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and
industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit for
saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as
often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and
that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first
volumes of Muratori's great collection of the Scriptores Rerum
Italicarum.]
[Footnote 2: Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last
century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum,
in his two books Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the
Scriptores of Muratori tom. ii. pars i. p. 221 - 345, and tom. v.
p 159 - 245.]

[Footnote 3: See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, l. ii. c
xi. in Vit Basil. c. 55, p. 181.]

[Footnote 4: The oriental epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the
emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published
by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51 - 71,) from the
Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian
of Salerno.] These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the
death of Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and
whoever might deserve the honor, the Greek emperors, Basil, and
his son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari The
Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to
acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount
Garganus to the Bay of Salerno, leaves the far greater part of
the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire.
Beyond that line, the dukes or republics of Amalfi ^5 and Naples,
who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in
the neighborhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was
enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of
Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua,
^6 were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world,
and too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The
city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis of the
new theme or province of Lombardy: the title of patrician, and
afterwards the singular name of Catapan, ^7 was assigned to the
supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was
modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople.
As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy,
their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or
eluded the forces of Germany, which descended from the Alps under
the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of
those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of
Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and
barons, escaped with honor from the bloody field of Crotona. On
that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the
valor of the Saracens. ^8 These corsairs had indeed been driven
by the Byzantine fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy;
but a sense of interest was more prevalent than superstition or
resentment, and the caliph of Egypt had transported forty
thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The
successors of Basil amused themselves with the belief, that the
conquest of Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved
by the justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and
the gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and
oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth
into the palace of Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery
were dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman
adventurers.
[Footnote 5: See an excellent Dissertation de Republica
Amalphitana, in the Appendix (p. 1 - 42) of Henry Brencman's
Historia Pandectarum, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.)]

[Footnote 6: Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and
protection prinminibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos
oppugnare dispono .... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum
patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt, (Liutprand, in
Legat. p. 484.) Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed
his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script.
Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this
change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational
ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted
the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria.]

[Footnote 7: See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange
(catapanus,) and his notes on the Alexias, (p. 275.) Against the
contemporary notion, which derives it from juxta omne, he treats
it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc
has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924)
that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles
of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy.]

[Footnote 8: (the Lombards), (Leon. Tactic. c. xv. p. 741.) The
little Chronicle of Beneventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a
far different character of the Greeks during the five years (A.D.
891 - 896) that Leo was master of the city.]

     The revolution of human affairs had produced in Apulia and
Calabria a melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and
the tenth century of the Christian aera. At the former period,
the coast of Great Greece (as it was then styled) was planted
with free and opulent cities: these cities were peopled with
soldiers, artists, and philosophers; and the military strength of
Tarentum; Sybaris, or Crotona, was not inferior to that of a
powerful kingdom. At the second aera, these once flourishing
provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny,
and depopulated by Barbarian war nor can we severely accuse the
exaggeration of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district
was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth
after the general deluge. ^9 Among the hostilities of the Arabs,
the Franks, and the Greeks, in the southern Italy, I shall select
two or three anecdotes expressive of their national manners. 1.
It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to
pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno,
a Mussulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on
that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian
nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof
was accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the
death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ,
which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful
spouse. ^10 2. The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum and
Capua: after a vain appeal to the successors of Charlemagne, the
Lombards implored the clemency and aid of the Greek emperor. ^11
A fearless citizen dropped from the walls, passed the
intrenchments, accomplished his commission, and fell into the
hands of the Barbarians as he was returning with the welcome
news. They commanded him to assist their enterprise, and deceive
his countrymen, with the assurance that wealth and honors should
be the reward of his falsehood, and that his sincerity would be
punished with immediate death. He affected to yield, but as soon
as he was conducted within hearing of the Christians on the
rampart, "Friends and brethren," he cried with a loud voice, "be
bold and patient, maintain the city; your sovereign is informed
of your distress, and your deliverers are at hand. I know my
doom, and commit my wife and children to your gratitude." The
rage of the Arabs confirmed his evidence; and the self-devoted
patriot was transpierced with a hundred spears. He deserves to
live in the memory of the virtuous, but the repetition of the
same story in ancient and modern times, may sprinkle some doubts
on the reality of this generous deed. ^12 3. The recital of a
third incident may provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war.
Theobald, marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, ^13 supported the
rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty was not incompatible
in that age with the character of a hero. His captives of the
Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and the
outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present
the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments
of the Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been
defeated in a sally, and the prisoners were sentenced to the
customary operation. But the sacrifice was disturbed by the
intrusion of a frantic female, who, with bleeding cheeks
dishevelled hair, and importunate clamors, compelled the marquis
to listen to her complaint. "Is it thus," she cried, 'ye
magnanimous heroes, that ye wage war against women, against women
who have never injured ye, and whose only arms are the distaff
and the loom?" Theobald denied the charge, and protested that,
since the Amazons, he had never heard of a female war. "And how,"
she furiously exclaimed, "can you attack us more directly, how
can you wound us in a more vital part, than by robbing our
husbands of what we most dearly cherish, the source of our joys,
and the hope of our posterity? The plunder of our flocks and
herds I have endured without a murmur, but this fatal injury,
this irreparable loss, subdues my patience, and calls aloud on
the justice of heaven and earth." A general laugh applauded her
eloquence; the savage Franks, inaccessible to pity, were moved by
her ridiculous, yet rational despair; and with the deliverance of
the captives, she obtained the restitution of her effects. As
she returned in triumph to the castle, she was overtaken by a
messenger, to inquire, in the name of Theobald, what punishment
should be inflicted on her husband, were he again taken in arms.
"Should such," she answered without hesitation, "be his guilt and
misfortune, he has eyes, and a nose, and hands, and feet. These
are his own, and these he may deserve to forfeit by his personal
offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare what his little
handmaid presumes to claim as her peculiar and lawful property."
^14
[Footnote 9: Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter se divisam
reperientes funditus depopulati sunt, (or depopularunt,) ita ut
deserta sit velut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or
Erchempert, according to the two editions of Carraccioli (Rer.
Italic. Script. tom. v. p. 23) and of Camillo Pellegrino, tom.
ii. pars i. p. 246.) Both were extremely scarce, when they were
reprinted by Muratori.]

[Footnote 10: Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn
this story from a Ms. of Erchempert, who died at Capua only
fifteen years after the event. But the cardinal was deceived by
a false title, and we can only quote the anonymous Chronicle of
Salerno, (Paralipomena, c. 110,) composed towards the end of the
xth century, and published in the second volume of Muratori's
Collection. See the Dissertations of Camillo Pellegrino, tom.
ii. pars i. p. 231 - 281, &c.]

[Footnote 11: Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 58,
p. 183) is the original author of this story. He places it under
the reigns of Basil and Lewis II.; yet the reduction of
Beneventum by the Greeks is dated A.D. 891, after the decease of
both of those princes.]

[Footnote 12: In the year 663, the same tragedy is described by
Paul the Deacon, (de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 7, 8, p. 870,
871, edit. Grot.,) under the walls of the same city of
Beneventum. But the actors are different, and the guilt is
imputed to the Greeks themselves, which in the Byzantine edition
is applied to the Saracens. In the late war in Germany, M.
D'Assas, a French officer of the regiment of Auvergne, is said to
have devoted himself in a similar manner. His behavior is the
more heroic, as mere silence was required by the enemy who had
made him prisoner, (Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. c. 33, tom. ix.
p. 172.)]

[Footnote 13: Theobald, who is styled Heros by Liutprand, was
properly duke of Spoleto and marquis of Camerino, from the year
926 to 935. The title and office of marquis (commander of the
march or frontier) was introduced into Italy by the French
emperors, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 545 - 732 &c.)]

[Footnote 14: Liutprand, Hist. l. iv. c. iv. in the Rerum Italic.
Script. tom. i. pars i. p. 453, 454. Should the licentiousness
of the tale be questioned, I may exclaim, with poor Sterne, that
it is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a bishop
could write without scruple What if I had translated, ut viris
certetis testiculos amputare, in quibus nostri corporis
refocillatio, &c.?]

     The establishment of the Normans in the kingdoms of Naples
and Sicily ^15 is an event most romantic in its origin, and in
its consequences most important both to Italy and the Eastern
empire. The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and
Saracens, were exposed to every invader, and every sea and land
were invaded by the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian
pirates. After a long indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair
and ample territory was accepted, occupied, and named, by the
Normans of France: they renounced their gods for the God of the
Christians; ^16 and the dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves
the vassals of the successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The
savage fierceness which they had brought from the snowy mountains
of Norway was refined, without being corrupted, in a warmer
climate; the companions of Rollo insensibly mingled with the
natives; they imbibed the manners, language, ^17 and gallantry,
of the French nation; and in a martial age, the Normans might
claim the palm of valor and glorious achievements. Of the
fashionable superstitions, they embraced with ardor the
pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy Land. ^! In this active
devotion, the minds and bodies were invigorated by exercise:
danger was the incentive, novelty the recompense; and the
prospect of the world was decorated by wonder, credulity, and
ambitious hope. They confederated for their mutual defence; and
the robbers of the Alps, who had been allured by the garb of a
pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm of a warrior. In one of
these pious visits to the cavern of Mount Garganus in Apulia,
which had been sanctified by the apparition of the archangel
Michael, ^18 they were accosted by a stranger in the Greek habit,
but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a fugitive, and a
mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was Melo; a noble
citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt, was compelled
to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The bold
appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited his
confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more to
the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth
demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the
inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed
by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy, they kindled
a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely
associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps
by separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the
neighborhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who
supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly
led them to the field of action. In the first conflict, their
valor prevailed; but in the second engagement they were
overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks,
and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy. ^* The
unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of
Germany: his Norman followers, excluded from their native and
their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of
Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that
formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and
Naples, alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the
superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the
side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the
balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state
should render their aid less important, and their service less
profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of
the marshes of Campania: but they were soon endowed by the
liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and
permanent seat. Eight miles from his residence, as a bulwark
against Capua, the town of Aversa was built and fortified for
their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the
meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of
their success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and
soldiers: the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited
by hope; and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were
impatient of ease and ambitious of renown. The independent
standard of Aversa afforded shelter and encouragement to the
outlaws of the province, to every fugitive who had escaped from
the injustice or justice of his superiors; and these foreign
associates were quickly assimilated in manners and language to
the Gallic colony. The first leader of the Normans was Count
Rainulf; and, in the origin of society, preeminence of rank is
the reward and the proof of superior merit. ^19 ^*

[Footnote 15: The original monuments of the Normans in Italy are
collected in the vth volume of Muratori; and among these we may
distinguish the poems of William Appulus (p. 245 - 278) and the
history of Galfridus (Jeffrey) Malaterra, (p. 537 - 607.) Both
were natives of France, but they wrote on the spot, in the age of
the first conquerors (before A.D. 1100,) and with the spirit of
freemen. It is needless to recapitulate the compilers and
critics of Italian history, Sigonius, Baronius, Pagi, Giannone,
Muratori, St. Marc, &c., whom I have always consulted, and never
copied.

     Note: M. Goutier d'Arc has discovered a translation of the
Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the
first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his
Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its
contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was
supposed to have been entirely lost. - M.]

[Footnote 16: Some of the first converts were baptized ten or
twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at
this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries
for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one
hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national
change was pure and general.]

[Footnote 17: The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans
of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was
already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem
(Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae
principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica,
suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm.
Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit.
Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the
Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640 - 1656)
has given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians
and lawyers.]

[Footnote !: A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had
rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet
of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to
retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They
answered, "We fight for our religion, and not for money." Gaimar
entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This
seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans
with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier
d'Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830. - M.]

[Footnote 18: See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d'Italia, p. 250)
and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the
temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the
soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics
(on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of
their superstition.]

[Footnote *: Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique
d'Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d'Arc, p. 42. - M.]

[Footnote 19: See the first book of William Appulus. His words
are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters: -

     Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos
     Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant:
     Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant
     Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una.

And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy: -

     Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae:
     Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]

[Footnote *: This account is not accurate. After the retreat of
the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of
Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in
the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when
Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by
surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the
republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which
he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a
foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the
assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to
their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the
rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to
attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and
reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in
the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into
a count's fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist.
des Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]

     Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian
emperors had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but
their efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the
distance and the sea. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of
success, added new pages of calamity and disgrace to the
Byzantine annals: twenty thousand of their best troops were lost
in a single expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the
policy of a nation which intrusted eunuchs not only with the
custody of their women, but with the command of their men ^20
After a reign of two hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by
their divisions. ^21 The emir disclaimed the authority of the
king of Tunis; the people rose against the emir; the cities were
usurped by the chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his
village or castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored
the friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the
Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or
warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and
interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces,
governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were
reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the
island was guarded to the water's edge. The Normans led the van
and the Arabs of Messina felt the valor of an untried foe. In a
second action the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced
by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third engagement,
his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand
Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labor of the
pursuit: a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the
historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It
is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of
Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of
Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military
fame was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of
the spoils, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten;
and neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this
injurious treatment. They complained by the mouth of their
interpreter: their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter
was scourged; the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment
belonged to those whose sentiments he had delivered. Yet they
dissembled till they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to
the Italian continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathized in
their indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the
forfeit of the debt. ^22 Above twenty years after the first
emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven
hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the
Byzantine legions ^23 from the Sicilian war, their numbers are
magnified to the amount of threescore thousand men. Their herald
proposed the option of battle or retreat; "of battle," was the
unanimous cry of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors,
with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the
Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult
was concealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive
battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their
adversaries. In the plains of Cannae, the Asiatics fled before
the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made
prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four
places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone
saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this aera
we may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon
eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts ^24 were
chosen by the popular suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were
the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar
districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected
a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his
vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of
Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the
republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of
the twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by
this military senate. The first of his peers, their president
and general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was
conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the
age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel
in council. ^25 The manners of his countrymen are fairly
delineated by a contemporary and national historian. ^26 "The
Normans," says Malaterra, "are a cunning and revengeful people;
eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary
qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed
by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of
nature and passion. Their princes affect the praises of popular
munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blond the
extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and in their eager thirst
of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and
hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress,
the exercises of hunting and hawking ^27 are the delight of the
Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with
incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil
and absence of a military life." ^28
[Footnote 20: Liutprand, in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has
illustrated this event from the Ms. history of the deacon Leo,
(tom. iv. A.D. 965, No. 17 - 19.)]

[Footnote 21: See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori,
Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253.]

[Footnote 22: Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war,
and the conquest of Apulia, (l. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 19.) The same
events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741 - 743, 755,
756) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 237, 238;) and the Greeks are so
hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial
enough.]

[Footnote 23: Lydia: consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4,
with Delisle's map.]

[Footnote 24: Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores,
               Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et aetas,  

            Elegere duces. Provectis ad comitatum
               His alii parent. Comitatus nomen honoris
               Quo donantur erat. Hi totas undique terras      

       Divisere sibi, ni sors inimica repugnet;
               Singula proponunt loca quae contingere sorte      

        Cuique duci debent, et quaeque tributa locorum.
And after speaking of Melphi, William Appulus adds,

               Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas,      

        Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe.
Leo Ostiensis (l. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the
Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat.]

[Footnote 25: Gulielm. Appulus, l. ii. c 12, according to the
reference of Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p.
31,) which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises
indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus; and
declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his
merits, (l. i. p. 258, l. ii. p. 259.) He was bewailed by the
Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum, (says Malaterra, l. i.
c. 12, p. 552,) tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum,
affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant.]

[Footnote 26: The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix ....
adulari sciens .... eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra, (l. i.
c. 3, p. 550,) are expressive of the popular and proverbial
character of the Normans.]

[Footnote 27: The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the
descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import
from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons.]

[Footnote 28: We may compare this portrait with that of William
of Malmsbury, (de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 101, 102,) who
appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues
of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the
conquest.]

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part II.

     The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge of the two
empires; and, according to the policy of the hour, they accepted
the investiture of their lands, from the sovereigns of Germany or
Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was
the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were
neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was
mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with
hatred and resentment. Every object of desire, a horse, a woman,
a garden, tempted and gratified the rapaciousness of the
strangers; ^29 and the avarice of their chiefs was only colored
by the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve
counts were sometimes joined in the league of injustice: in their
domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the
virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his
brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valor,
than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of
Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of
the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this
adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians; ^30
and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with
the most lofty titles ^31 and the most ample commission. The
memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he
had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt
of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It
was the design of Constantine to transplant the warlike colony
from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of
Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of
Greece, as the first-fruits of the Imperial bounty. But his arts
were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia:
his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they
unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their
hopes for the distant prospect of Asiatic fortune. After the
means of persuasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to compel or to
destroy: the Latin powers were solicited against the common
enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the
two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was
occupied by Leo the Ninth, a simple saint, ^32 of a temper most
apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable
character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures
least compatible with the practice of religion. His humanity was
affected by the complaints, perhaps the calumnies, of an injured
people: the impious Normans had interrupted the payment of
tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed
against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the censures
of the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo
had free access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry
the Third; and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal
transported him from Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the
Tyber. During these hostile preparations, Argyrus indulged
himself in the use of secret and guilty weapons: a crowd of
Normans became the victims of public or private revenge; and the
valiant Drogo was murdered in a church. But his spirit survived
in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The
assassins were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and
wounded, was driven from the field, to hide his shame behind the
walls of Bari, and to await the tardy succor of his allies.

[Footnote 29: The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom
on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem
Normannorum, crudeli et inaudita rabie, et plusquam Pagana
impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos
trucidare, &c., (Wibert, c. 6.) The honest Apulian (l. ii. p.
259) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia.]

[Footnote 30: The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c.,
must be collected from Cedrenus, (tom. ii. p. 757, 758,) William
Appulus, (l. i. p 257, 258, l. ii. p. 259,) and the two
Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata, (Muratori, Script. Ital.
tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44,) and an anonymous writer, (Antiquitat,
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. i. p 31 - 35.) This last is a fragment
of some value.]

[Footnote 31: Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of
Bari, Imperial letters, Foederatus et Patriciatus, et Catapani et
Vestatus. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426) very
properly reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos
or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Ducange to
make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe.]
[Footnote 32: A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the
passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert,
printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the
Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori.
The public and private history of that pope is diligently treated
by M. de St. Marc. (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 140 - 210, and p. 25 -
95, second column.)]

     But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish
war; the mind of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope,
instead of repassing the Alps with a German army, was accompanied
only by a guard of seven hundred Swabians and some volunteers of
Lorraine. In his long progress from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile
and promiscuous multitude of Italians was enlisted under the holy
standard: ^33 the priest and the robber slept in the same tent;
the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front; and the
martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of
march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could
muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a
handful of infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted
their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of
fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the
hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or
reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was
inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive
stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that
death or exile was their only alternative. Flight they
disdained, and, as many of them had been three days without
tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and
honorable death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended
into the plain, and charged in three divisions the army of the
pope. On the left, and in the centre, Richard count of Aversa,
and Robert the famous Guiscard, attacked, broke, routed, and
pursued the Italian multitudes, who fought without discipline,
and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved for the
valor of Count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right wing.
The Germans ^34 have been described as unskillful in the
management of the horse and the lance, but on foot they formed a
strong and impenetrable phalanx; and neither man, nor steed, nor
armor, could resist the weight of their long and two-handed
swords. After a severe conflict, they were encompassed by the
squadrons returning from the pursuit; and died in the ranks with
the esteem of their foes, and the satisfaction of revenge. The
gates of Civitella were shut against the flying pope, and he was
overtaken by the pious conquerors, who kissed his feet, to
implore his blessing and the absolution of their sinful victory.
The soldiers beheld in their enemy and captive the vicar of
Christ; and, though we may suppose the policy of the chiefs, it
is probable that they were infected by the popular superstition.
In the calm of retirement, the well-meaning pope deplored the
effusion of Christian blood, which must be imputed to his
account: he felt, that he had been the author of sin and scandal;
and as his undertaking had failed, the indecency of his military
character was universally condemned. ^35 With these dispositions,
he listened to the offers of a beneficial treaty; deserted an
alliance which he had preached as the cause of God; and ratified
the past and future conquests of the Normans. By whatever hands
they had been usurped, the provinces of Apulia and Calabria were
a part of the donation of Constantine and the patrimony of St.
Peter: the grant and the acceptance confirmed the mutual claims
of the pontiff and the adventurers. They promised to support
each other with spiritual and temporal arms; a tribute or
quitrent of twelve pence was afterwards stipulated for every
ploughland; and since this memorable transaction, the kingdom of
Naples has remained above seven hundred years a fief of the Holy
See. ^36

[Footnote 33: See the expedition of Leo XI. against the Normans.
See William Appulus (l. ii. p. 259 - 261) and Jeffrey Malaterra
(l. i. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 253.) They are impartial, as the
national is counterbalanced by the clerical prejudice]

[Footnote 34: Teutonici, quia caesaries et forma decoros
               Fecerat egregie proceri corporis illos
               Corpora derident Normannica quae breviora
               Esse videbantur.

The verses of the Apulian are commonly in this strain, though he
heats himself a little in the battle. Two of his similes from
hawking and sorcery are descriptive of manners.]

[Footnote 35: Several respectable censures or complaints are
produced by M. de St. Marc, (tom. ii. p. 200 - 204.) As Peter
Damianus, the oracle of the times, has denied the popes the right
of making war, the hermit (lugens eremi incola) is arraigned by
the cardinal, and Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1053, No. 10 -
17) most strenuously asserts the two swords of St. Peter.]
[Footnote 36: The origin and nature of the papal investitures are
ably discussed by Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
p. 37 - 49, 57 - 66,) as a lawyer and antiquarian. Yet he vainly
strives to reconcile the duties of patriot and Catholic, adopts
an empty distinction of "Ecclesia Romana non dedit, sed accepit,"
and shrinks from an honest but dangerous confession of the
truth.]

     The pedigree of Robert of Guiscard ^37 is variously deduced
from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy: from the peasants,
by the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; ^38 from the
dukes, by the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. ^39
His genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order
of private nobility. ^40 He sprang from a race of valvassors or
bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the Lower Normandy:
the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat: his father
Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke; and
his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights.
Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the
father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial
tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was
insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw
around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and
resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance.
Two only remained to perpetuate the race, and cherish their
father's age: their ten brothers, as they successfully attained
the vigor of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps,
and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were
prompted by native spirit; their success encouraged their younger
brethren, and the three first in seniority, William, Drogo, and
Humphrey, deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the
founders of the new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven
sons of the second marriage; and even the reluctant praise of his
foes has endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a
statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army:
his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and
gracefulness; and to the decline of life, he maintained the
patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form.
His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and
beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with
fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress
obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder
ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of
the poet or historians: they may observe that Robert, at once,
and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his
sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he
was thrice unhorsed; and that in the close of that memorable day
he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the
warriors of the two armies. ^41 His boundless ambition was
founded on the consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of
greatness, he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and
seldom moved by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible
of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined
only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard ^42 was
applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often
confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and
Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning
of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were
disguised by an appearance of military frankness: in his highest
fortune, he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers;
and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he
affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion
of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
distribute with a liberal, hand: his primitive indigence had
taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not
below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow
and unfeeling cruelty, to force a discovery of their secret
treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy
with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet
even this allowance appears too bountiful: the sixth son of
Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim; and his first
military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His
brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia;
but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the
aspiring youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria,
and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives, it
is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To
surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to
plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the
obscure labors which formed and exercised the powers of his mind
and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard;
and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name
and character of Normans.
[Footnote 37: The birth, character, and first actions of Robert
Guiscard, may be found in Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, 4, 11,
16, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40,) William Appulus, (l. ii. p. 260 - 262,)
William Gemeticensis, or of Jumieges, (l. xi. c. 30, p. 663, 664,
edit. Camden,) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. i. p. 23 - 27, l.
vi. p. 165, 166,) with the annotations of Ducange, (Not. in
Alexiad, p. 230 - 232, 320,) who has swept all the French and
Latin Chronicles for supplemental intelligence.]

[Footnote 38: (a Greek corruption), and elsewhere, (l. iv. p.
84,). Anna Comnena was born in the purple; yet her father was no
more than a private though illustrious subject, who raised
himself to the empire.]
[Footnote 39: Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 2) forgets all his original
authors, and rests this princely descent on the credit of
Inveges, an Augustine monk of Palermo in the last century. They
continue the succession of dukes from Rollo to William II. the
Bastard or Conqueror, whom they hold (communemente si tiene) to
be the father of Tancred of Hauteville; a most strange and
stupendous blunder! The sons of Tancred fought in Apulia, before
William II. was three years old, (A.D. 1037.)]

[Footnote 40: The judgment of Ducange is just and moderate: Certe
humilis fuit ac tenuis Roberti familia, si ducalem et regium
spectemus apicem, ad quem postea pervenit; quae honesta tamen et
praeter nobilium vulgarium statum et conditionem illustris habita
est, "quae nec humi reperet nec altum quid tumeret." (Wilhem.
Malmsbur. de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 107. Not. ad Alexiad. p.
230.)]

[Footnote 41: I shall quote with pleasure some of the best lines
of the Apulian, (l. ii. p. 270.)

     Pugnat utraque manu, nec lancea cassa, nec ensis
     Cassus erat, quocunque manu deducere vellet.
     Ter dejectus equo, ter viribus ipse resumptis
     Major in arma redit: stimulos furor ipse ministrat.
     Ut Leo cum frendens, &c.
     -    -    -    -    -    -    -
     Nullus in hoc bello sicuti post bella probatum est
     Victor vel victus, tam magnos edidit ictus.]

[Footnote 42: The Norman writers and editors most conversant with
their own idiom interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by Callidus, a
cunning man. The root (wise) is familiar to our ear; and in the
old word Wiseacre, I can discern something of a similar sense and
termination. It is no bad translation of the surname and
character of Robert.]

     As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he
awakened the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a
transient quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty
restrained. After the death of Humphrey, the tender age of his
sons excluded them from the command; they were reduced to a
private estate, by the ambition of their guardian and uncle; and
Guiscard was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia
and general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of
force, he resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a
rank that should raise him forever above the heads of his equals.

By some acts of rapine or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal
excommunication; but Nicholas the Second was easily persuaded
that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their
mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of
the Holy See; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince
than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred
bishops was convened at Melphi; and the count interrupted an
important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees
of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on
Robert and his posterity the ducal title, ^43 with the
investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy
and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic
Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens. ^44 This apostolic sanction
might justify his arms; but the obedience of a free and
victorious people could not be transferred without their consent;
and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign
had been illustrated by the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In
the hour of triumph, he assembled his troops, and solicited the
Normans to confirm by their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of
Christ: the soldiers hailed with joyful acclamations their
valiant duke; and the counts, his former equals, pronounced the
oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation.
After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, "By the grace of
God and St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of
Sicily;" and it was the labor of twenty years to deserve and
realize these lofty appellations. Such sardy progress, in a
narrow space, may seem unworthy of the abilities of the chief and
the spirit of the nation; but the Normans were few in number;
their resources were scanty; their service was voluntary and
precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes
opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons: the twelve
counts of popular election conspired against his authority; and
against their perfidious uncle, the sons of Humphrey demanded
justice and revenge. By his policy and vigor, Guiscard
discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished
the guilty with death or exile: but in these domestic feuds, his
years, and the national strength, were unprofitably consumed.
After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards,
and Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and
populous cities of the sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of
fortification and defence; the Normans were accustomed to serve
on horseback in the field, and their rude attempts could only
succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The resistance of
Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege or blockade
of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman duke
was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and
most patient. As he pressed the citadel of Salerno, a huge stone
from the rampart shattered one of his military engines; and by a
splinter he was wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari,
he lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry
branches, and thatched with straw; a perilous station, on all
sides open to the inclemency of the winter and the spears of the
enemy. ^45

[Footnote 43: The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert
Guiscard is a nice and obscure business. With the good advice of
Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavored to form a
consistent and probable narrative.]
[Footnote 44: Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1059, No. 69) has
published the original act. He professes to have copied it from
the Liber Censuum, a Vatican Ms. Yet a Liber Censuum of the
xiith century has been printed by Muratori, (Antiquit. Medii
Aevi, tom. v. p. 851 - 908;) and the names of Vatican and
Cardinal awaken the suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a
philosopher.]

[Footnote 45: Read the life of Guiscard in the second and third
books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra.]

     The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits
of the present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by his
arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred
years. ^46 The monarchy has been composed of the Greek provinces
of Calabria and Apulia, of the Lombard principality of Salerno,
the republic of Amalphi, and the inland dependencies of the large
and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were
exempted from the common law of subjection; the first forever,
the two last till the middle of the succeeding century. The city
and immediate territory of Benevento had been transferred, by
gift or exchange, from the German emperor to the Roman pontiff;
and although this holy land was sometimes invaded, the name of
St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans.
Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua;
and her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace
of their fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis,
maintained the popular freedom, under the shadow of the Byzantine
empire. Among the new acquisitions of Guiscard, the science of
Salerno, ^47 and the trade of Amalphi, ^48 may detain for a
moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties,
jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and
property; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full
light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must
alike implore the assistance of physic; and, if our diseases are
inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be
more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of
Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of
Africa, Spain, and Sicily; and in the intercourse of peace and
war, a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at
Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and
the women beautiful. ^49 A school, the first that arose in the
darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art: the
conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary
and lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients, of the most
eminent rank, and most distant climates, invited or visited the
physicians of Salerno. They were protected by the Norman
conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the
merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of
thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned
from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the
Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons,
and the writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of
medicine has long slept in the name of a university; but her
precepts are abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in
the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century. ^50
II. Seven miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty to the south
of Naples, the obscure town of Amalphi displayed the power and
rewards of industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow
extent; but the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants
first assumed the office of supplying the western world with the
manufactures and productions of the East; and this useful traffic
was the source of their opulence and freedom. The government was
popular, under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of
the Greek emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the
walls of Amalphi; nor was any city more abundantly provided with
gold, silver, and the objects of precious luxury. The mariners
who swarmed in her port, excelled in the theory and practice of
navigation and astronomy: and the discovery of the compass, which
has opened the globe, is owing to their ingenuity or good
fortune. Their trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to
the commodities, of Africa, Arabia, and India: and their
settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and
Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. ^51
After three hundred years of prosperity, Amalphi was oppressed by
the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but
the poverty of one thousand ^* fisherman is yet dignified by the
remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal
merchants.

[Footnote 46: The conquests of Robert Guiscard and Roger I., the
exemption of Benevento and the xii provinces of the kingdom, are
fairly exposed by Giannone in the second volume of his Istoria
Civile, l. ix. x. xi and l. xvii. p. 460 - 470. This modern
division was not established before the time of Frederic II.]

[Footnote 47: Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119 - 127,) Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Medii Aevi, tom. iii. dissert. xliv. p. 935, 936,)
and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,) have given
an historical account of these physicians; their medical
knowledge and practice must be left to our physicians.]
[Footnote 48: At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry
Brenckmann, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.,) the
indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations, de Republica
Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, which are built on
the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has
forgotten two most important passages of the embassy of
Liutprand, (A.D. 939,) which compare the trade and navigation of
Amalphi with that of Venice.]
[Footnote 49: Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,
               Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde   

          Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,      

        Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.
               Gulielmus Appulus, l. iii. p. 367]

[Footnote 50: Muratori carries their antiquity above the year
(1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to
whom they are addressed. Nor is this date affected by the
opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier (Recherches de la France,
l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange, (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of
rhyming, as early as the viith century, was borrowed from the
languages of the North and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii.
dissert. xl. p. 686 - 708.)]

[Footnote 51: The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian,
(l. iii. p. 267,) contains much truth and some poetry, and the
third line may be applied to the sailor's compass: -

     Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro
     Partibus innumeris: hac plurimus urbe moratur
     Nauta maris Caelique vias aperire peritus.
     Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
     Regis, et Antiochi. Gens haec freta plurima transit.     

     His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
     Haec gens est totum proore nobilitata per orbem,
     Et mercando forens, et amans mercata referre.]

[Footnote *: Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the
commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by
Brenckmann, (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c. 23.) At
present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p.
304. - G.]

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part III.

     Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been
long detained in Normandy by his own and his father' age. He
accepted the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and
deserved at first the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his
elder brother. Their valor and ambition were equal; but the
youth, the beauty, the elegant manners, of Roger engaged the
disinterested love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his
allowance for himself and forty followers, that he descended from
conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft; and so
loose were the notions of property, that, by his own historian,
at his special command, he is accused of stealing horses from a
stable at Melphi. ^52 His spirit emerged from poverty and
disgrace: from these base practices he rose to the merit and
glory of a holy war; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by
the zeal and policy of his brother Guiscard. After the retreat
of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach of the
Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions; but the
deliverance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of
the Eastern empire, was achieved by a small and private band of
adventurers. ^53 In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open
boat, the real and fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis;
landed with only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the
Saracens to the gates of Messina and safely returned with the
spoils of the adjacent country. In the fortress of Trani, his
active and patient courage were equally conspicuous. In his old
age he related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege,
himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced to a single
cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately; that in a sally his
horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens;
but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated
with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be
left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani,
three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the
island. In the field of Ceramio, fifty thousand horse and foot
were overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers,
without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the
foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were
reserved for the successor of St. Peter; and had these barbaric
spoils been exposed, not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they
might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These
insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their
knights, the soldiers of honorable and equestrian rank, each of
whom was attended by five or six followers in the field; ^54 yet,
with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair
allowance on the side of valor, arms, and reputation, the
discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to
the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily
derived a frequent and powerful succor from their countrymen of
Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted
by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of
the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible
emulation. After a war of thirty years, ^55 Roger, with the
title of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and
most fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration
displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his
age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
enjoyment of their religion and property: ^56 a philosopher and
physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the
conqueror, and was invited to court; his geography of the seven
climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent
perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the
Grecian Ptolemy. ^57 A remnant of Christian natives had promoted
the success of the Normans: they were rewarded by the triumph of
the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the
Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities;
and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches
and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of
the civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of
benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal
claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged, by
the singular bull, which declares the princes of Sicily
hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See. ^58

[Footnote 52: Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis
sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed
ipso ita praecipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi
sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quanta angustia
a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris
attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (l. i. c. 25) to the
horse-stealing. From the moment (l. i. c. 19) that he has
mentioned his patron Roger, the elder brother sinks into the
second character. Something similar in Velleius Paterculus may
be observed of Augustus and Tiberius.]
[Footnote 53: Duo sibi proficua deputans animae scilicet et
corporis si terran: Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret,
(Galfrid Malaterra, l. ii. c. 1.) The conquest of Sicily is
related in the three last books, and he himself has given an
accurate summary of the chapters, (p. 544 - 546.)]
[Footnote 54: See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of
Ducange.]
[Footnote 55: Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that
the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (l. i. c.
33) and of carrier- pigeons, (c. 42;) and that the bite of the
tarantula provokes a windy disposition, quae per anum inhoneste
crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole
Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an
etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messana is divided
from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were
sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)]

[Footnote 56: See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l.
ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of
the Saracens, (tom ii. p. 72.)]

[Footnote 57: John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus,
c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This
philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa,
A. H. 516, A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance
to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia
Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily,
A. H. 541, A.D. 1153, (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
786. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 188. Petit de la Croix,
Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536. Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan.
tom. ii. p. 9 - 13;) and I am afraid of some mistake.]

[Footnote 58: Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics,
(l. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (l. iv. c.
29.) Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the
tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95 - 102;) and
St. Marc (Abrege, tom. iii. p. 217 - 301, 1st column) labors the
case with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.]
     To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious
than beneficial: the possession of Apulia and Calabria was
inadequate to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create
the first occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman
empire of the East. ^59 From his first wife, the partner of his
humble fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of
consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate,
rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife
of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger;
their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, ^60 and
one of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a
beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael. ^61 But
the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the
Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the
cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his
daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled
himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and
related the adventures of his fall and flight. That unfortunate
friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with the pomp
and titles of Imperial dignity: in his triumphal progress through
Apulia and Calabria, Michael ^62 was saluted with the tears and
acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory the Seventh exhorted
the bishops to preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious
work of his restoration. His conversations with Robert were
frequent and familiar; and their mutual promises were justified
by the valor of the Normans and the treasures of the East. Yet
this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a
pageant and an impostor; a monk who had fled from his convent, or
a domestic who had served in the palace. The fraud had been
contrived by the subtle Guiscard; and he trusted, that after this
pretender had given a decent color to his arms, he would sink, at
the nod of the conqueror, into his primitive obscurity. But
victory was the only argument that could determine the belief of
the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins was much inferior to
their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest
of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known
and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new
levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the
terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of
violence might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were
pressed without distinction into the service of their unrelenting
prince. After two years' incessant preparations the land and
naval forces were assembled at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme
promontory, of Italy; and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who
fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of
the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights ^63 of Norman race
or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be
swelled to thirty thousand ^64 followers of every denomination.
The men, the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers,
covered with raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and
fifty vessels: the transports had been built in the ports of
Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the
republic of Ragusa.

[Footnote 59: In the first expedition of Robert against the
Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth
books of the Alexiad,) William Appulus, (l. ivth and vth, p.
270-275,) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 13, 14, 24 - 29,
39.) Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of
them were eye-witnesses of the war.]

[Footnote 60: One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo,
or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble,
(Gulielm. Appul. l. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose
ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical
industry of Leibnitz and Muratori. From the two elder sons of
the marquis Azzo are derived the illustrious lines of Brunswick
and Este. See Muratori, Antichita Estense.]

[Footnote 61: Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and
bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric
nuptials, (l. i. p. 23,) was betrothed as her husband. (p. 27.)
Elsewhere she describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk's
eyes, &c., l. iii. p. 71.]

[Footnote 62: Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. l.
iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580.
Malaterra is more cautious in his style; but the Apulian is bold
and positive. - Mentitus se Michaelem Venerata Danais quidam
seductor ad illum.

As Gr