THE

HISTORY

OF THE

DECLINE AND FALL

OF

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

CHAPTER LIII.

State 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 pomp and 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, hc rcvcals the secrets of the Byzantine

(1) The epithet of Пoppupoyεvnтos, 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. (2) A splendid MS. of Constantine, de Cæremoniis Aulæ et Ecclesiæ Byzantine, wandered from Constantinople to Buda, Frankfort, and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid edition by Leich and Reiske (A. D. 1751, folio), with such slavish praise as editors never fail to bestow on the worthy or worthless object of their toil.

(3) See, in the first volume of Banduri's Imperium Orientale, Constantinius 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 Cassaubon had formerly scen (Epist. ad Polybium, p. 10), and the sense is illustrated by two maps of William Delisle, the prince of geographers, till the appearance of the greater d'Anville.

(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. Græc. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.

VOL. IV.-B

policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labours of the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honour of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics,(5) the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the first three reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The act 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.

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 has 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 the 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

(5) On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 425–514,) and Heineccius (Hist. Juris Romana, 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 Fabrottus (Paris, 1647), in seven tomes, folio; four other books have since been 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 cx novels, or now laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis.

(6) I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics (by Nicholas Niclas, Lipsiæ, 1781, 2 vols. 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, folio (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc, tom. vi. p. 493-50C).

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

(8) The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankins (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.

(9) According to the first book of the Cyropædia, 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.

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 the successful invasion of the Franks or Latins.

After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany overspread 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 harbours 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, was superseded by the institution of the themes,(12) or military governments, which prevailed under the successors of

(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:

Καππαδοκήν ποτ' ηχιόνα κακη δακεν, αλλά και αυτή
Κατθανε, γευσαμενη α ιματος ιοβόλα.

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. Brunk, Analect. Græc. tom. ii. p. 56, Brodæi Anthologia, 1. ii. p. 244).

(11) The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephorum Phocam, is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i.

(12) See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p. 1-30, who owns, that the word is k zaλaia. Ocpa is used by Maurice (Stratagem. I. ii. c. 2,) for a legion, from whence the name was easily

Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the twentynine 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 prætor of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the dutchy 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 Cesar: 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 neighbourhood 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 adventurers; 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, Trepizond, 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 Ægean or Holy Sea;(13) and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms.

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

transferred to its post or province (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 487, 488). Some etymologies are attempted for the Opsician, Optimatian, Thracesian, themes.

(13) Aytos meλayos, as 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 Grece, 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, ayos a slight alteration from the original ayatos, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of ayes, or goats, to the bounding waves (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 829).

(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. i. c. 5, p. 46).

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 moveable 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.

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 the last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the prætor 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 for ever devoted to the service and vassalage of the Metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes in the neighbourhood of Helos and Lacedæmon, 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 rights and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milegni, 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

πασα

(15) Es-Oraßa On de waoɑ n xwpa kaι yeyovε Bapẞapos, says Constantine (Thematibus, 1. ii. c. 6, p. 25), in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms as usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomiser of Strabo likewise observes, και νυν δε πασαν Ηπειρον, και Ελλάδασχεδον και Μακεδονίαν, και Πελοπόνησον Exvbai Exdaßo veμovrai (1. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson): 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.