XLVI. "allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am CHAP. "not ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event "to God and my sword *." An expedition against the despot of Epirus was the first prelude of his arms. If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of the Comneni or Angeli survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign; the captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. The republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their naval wars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride and interest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople: their rivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and the alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the indignation of the Latin church. tinople re the Greeks, A. D. 1261, Intent on this great object, the emperor Michael Constanvisited in person and strengthened the troops and covered by fortifications in Thrace. The remains of the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted July 25. without success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron, who proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis. The next spring, his favourite general Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had decorated with the title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight hundred horse and some infantry, on a secret expedition. His instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacent territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated by a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertain in their allegiance, but inclined, by George Acropolita, c. 78. p. 89, 90. edit. Paris. XLVI. CHAP. language, religion, and present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the volunteers; and, by their free service, the army of Alexius, with the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, was augmented to the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardour of the volunteers, and by his own ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobey the precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that success would plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation of the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the most propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the best of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; and the remaining Latins were without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by the smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to second and support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the night with a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling ladders to the lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who would introduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into his house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through the golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would be in the heart of the city, before the Latins were conscious of their danger. After some debate the Cæsar resigned himself to the faith of the volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and, in de scribing the plan, I have already related the execution and success *. But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the golden gate, than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he deliberated; till the desperate volunteers urged him forward, by the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsar kept his regulars in firm array, the Comans dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and the air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victory to Michael and "John, the august emperors of the Romans!" Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the palace to the sea-shore, where he descried the welcome sails of the fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for the isle of Euboea, and afterward for Italy, where the royal fugitive was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to his death he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his restoration: the lesson had been familiar to his youth; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful than his * The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins: the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks; by Acropolita_(c. 85), Pachymer (1. ii. c. 26, 27), Nicephorus Gregoras (1. iv. c. 1, 2). See Ducange, Hist. de C. P. I. v. c. 19-27. CHAP. XLVI. XLVI. CHAP. three former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire; and the pretensions of his daughter Catharine were transported by her marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and oblivion. CHAP. XLVII. The Greek Emperors of Nice and Constantinople.—Elevation and Reign of Michael Palæologus.—Hostile Designs of Charles of Anjou.-Revolt of Sicily.-War of the Catalans in Asia and Greece.-Revolutions and present State of Athens.-Civil Wars, and Ruin of the Greek Empire Reigns of Andronicus, the Elder and Younger, and John Palæologus.-Regency, Revolt, Reign, and Abdication of John Cantacuzene.-Establishment of a Genoese Colony at Perd or Galata.-Their Wars with the Empire and City of Constantinople. XLVII. of the THE loss of Constantinople restored a momentary CHAP. vigour to the Greeks. From their palaces the princes and nobles were driven into the field; and the frag- Restoration ments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the Greek emhands of the most vigorous or the most skilful candi- pire. dates. In the long and barren pages of the Byzan-. tine annals*, it would not be an easy task to equal the two characters of Theodore Lascaris and John Theodore Lascaris, Ducas Vataces, who replanted and upheld the Roman A. D. 1204 standard at Nice in Bithynia. The difference of their -1222. virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded only three cities and two thousand soldiers his reign was the season of generous and active despair in every military operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies, of the Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and sub For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially of John Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita, is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer returned to Constantinople with the Greeks at the age of ninetéen (Hanckius, de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34. p. 564-578. Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 488-460). Yet the history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the fourteenth century, is a valuable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by |