the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. [93] In the
love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and
real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors,
which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of
Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives
of the Byzantine historian. [94] We have seen how the rising city was
adorned by the vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the
ruins of paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with the
relics of a better age. Several of these are described by Nicetas, [95]
in a florid and affected style; and from his descriptions I shall select
some interesting particulars. _1._ The victorious charioteers were cast
in bronze, at their own or the public charge, and fitly placed in the
hippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the
goal: the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of the
resemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have been
transported from the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and
crocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus,
a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_ Romans, but which
could really be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture.
_4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent in his talons, a domestic
monument of the Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist,
but to the magic power of the philosopher Apollonius, who, by this
talisman, delivered the city from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An
ass and his driver, which were erected by Augustus in his colony of
Nicopolis, to commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._
An equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for Joshua,
the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the course of the
descending sun. A more classical tradition recognized the figures of
Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed seemed to
mark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. _7._ A square
and lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety
of picturesque and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or
playing on their pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a
scene of fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female figure,
turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated _the wind's
attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to Venus the prize
of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The incomparable statue of Helen,
which is delineated by Nicetas in the words of admiration and love: her
well-turned feet, snowy arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming
eyes, arched eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her
drapery, and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that
might have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._ The
manly or divine form of Hercules, [96] as he was restored to life by the
masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was equal to
his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common man: [97] his chest ample,
his shoulders broad, his limbs strong and muscular, his hair curled, his
aspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion's skin
carelessly thrown over him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right
leg and arm stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting
his elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had once
adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke of oxen was
laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another colossus, of Pallas or
Minerva, thirty feet in height, and representing with admirable spirit
the attributes and character of the martial maid. Before we accuse the
Latins, it is just to remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the
first siege, by the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves.
[98] The other statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and
melted by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in smoke; and
the remnant of base metal was coined into money for the payment of the
troops. Bronze is not the most durable of monuments: from the marble
forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with stupid
contempt; [99] but unless they were crushed by some accidental injury,
those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals. [100] The most
enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of
their countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
search and seizure of the relics of the saints. [101] Immense was the
supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by
this revolution over the churches of Europe; and such was the increase
of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative
plunder was imported from the East. [102] Of the writings of antiquity,
many that still existed in the twelfth century, are now lost. But the
pilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an
unknown tongue: the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only
be preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the Greeks
had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without computing the extent
of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in
the triple fire of Constantinople. [103]
[Footnote 93: Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par agrammatoiV
BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud Fabric. Bibliot.
GrÊc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is true, applies most strongly
to their ignorance of Greek and of Homer. In their own language,
the Latins of the xiith and xiiith centuries were not destitute of
literature. See Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]
[Footnote 94: Nicetas was of ChonÊ in Phrygia, (the old ColossÊ of St.
Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge of the veil,
and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire, retired to Nice, and
composed an elaborate history from the death of Alexius Comnenus to the
reign of Henry.]
[Footnote 95: A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library contains
this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople, which fraud, or
shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the common editions. It
is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. GrÊc. tom. vi. p. 405--416,) and
immoderately praised by the late ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
(Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 5, p. 301--312.)]
[Footnote 96: To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris quotes
a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does not, however,
copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter, Hercules had not his
club, and his right leg and arm were extended.]
[Footnote 97: I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the boasted
taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and vanity.]
[Footnote 98: Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359. The
Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in his bombast
style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]
[Footnote 99: In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360. Fabric.
p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach of oi tou kalou
anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is clearly expressed.
Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four bronze horses from
Constantinople to the place of St. Mark, (Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii. p. 534.)]
[Footnote 100: Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art. tom. iii. p. 269, 270.]
[Footnote 101: See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting this booty, the
saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps broke his oath. (Compare
Wilken vol. v. p. 308.--M.)]
[Footnote 102: Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139--145.]
[Footnote 103: I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a modern
history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the Latins;
but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands. Paolo Ramusio, the
son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed by the senate of Venice to
write the history of the conquest: and this order, which he received
in his youth, he executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work,
de Bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or Rhamnusus,
transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS. of Villehardouin,
which he possessed; but he enriches his narrative with Greek and Latin
materials, and we are indebted to him for a correct state of the fleet,
the names of the fifty Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the
republic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice
of the doge for emperor.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part I.
Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,--Five
Latin Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.--
Their Wars Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.--Weakness And
Poverty Of The Latin Empire.--Recovery Of Constantinople By
The Greeks.--General Consequences Of The Crusades.
After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
their future possessions. [1] It was stipulated by treaty, that twelve
electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that a majority
should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if the votes were
equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the successful candidate.
To him, with all the titles and prerogatives of the Byzantine throne,
they assigned the two palaces of Boucoleon and BlachernÊ, with a fourth
part of the Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining
portions should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable exception
for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of homage and
military service to the supreme head of the empire; that the nation
which gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of a
patriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatience
to visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest and
defence of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople
by the Latins, the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and
most important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces, the
archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes,
Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom exercised in the
camp the office of pope's legate: their profession and knowledge were
respectable; and as _they_ could not be the objects, they were best
qualified to be the authors of the choice. The six Venetians were the
principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families of
Querini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors.
The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A
just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues
of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the most
youthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness and
age. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, and
fully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination
was overruled by the Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps
his friends, [2] represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs
that might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a
republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left
room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at their
names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis of
Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, by
the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of the Greeks; nor can
I believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea, could be seriously
apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps. [3] But the count
of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people: he was
valiant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was only
thirty-two years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the
king of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded
with reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these
barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision
of the twelve electors. It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, in
the name of his colleagues: "Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom we
should choose: by our unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and
Hainault is now your sovereign, and the emperor of the East." He was
saluted with loud applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through
the city by the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the
Greeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the cathedral,
and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the end of three weeks
he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of the patriarch; but the
Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia, seated Thomas
Morosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every art to
perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek
church. [4] Without delay the successor of Constantine instructed
Palestine, France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestine
he sent, as a trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of
the harbor; [5] and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or
customs best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony,
and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertile
land, which will reward the labors both of the priest and the soldier.
He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authority
in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presence
in a general council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the
disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
Innocent. [6] In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns the
vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will be
absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their
treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their
most sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience
and tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the
clergy, and from the clergy to the pope.
[Footnote 1: See the original treaty of partition, in the Venetian
Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326--330, and the subsequent election in
Ville hardouin, No. 136--140, with Ducange in his Observations, and the
book of his Histoire de Constantinople sous l'Empire des FranÁois.]
[Footnote 2: After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French
elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam
Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis probabili, &c.,
which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau.]
[Footnote 3: Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a Greek,
describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power. Dampardian de
oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy
which extended along the coast of Calabria?]
[Footnote 4: They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no
canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who had lived
ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was envious, the pope
disapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs of
Constantinople, only the first and the last were Venetians.]
[Footnote 5: Nicetas, p. 383.]
[Footnote 6: The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which
the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen Baluze) are
inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
p. l. c. 94--105.]
In the division of the Greek provinces, [7] the share of the Venetians
was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one fourth
was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder was
reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was distributed among the
adventures of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed
despot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple
buskins. He ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if
the prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors till
the middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. [8] The
doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from the helm of
the republic; but his place was supplied by the _bail_, or regent, who
exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians: they
possessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independent
tribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains
two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of the
Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment:
they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but
it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the
neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labor
and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury: they
abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and
contented themselves with the homage of their nobles, [9] for the
possessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce and
maintain. And thus it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy
of Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis of
Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of a
hundred cities; [10] but its improvement was stinted by the proud and
narrow spirit of an aristocracy; [11] and the wisest senators would
confess that the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St. Mark. In
the moiety of the adventurers the marquis Boniface might claim the most
liberal reward; and, besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the
throne was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond
the Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days' journey
from the capital, where he might be supported by the neighboring powers
of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by
the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the
proper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, [12] who
trod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless
eye the beauties of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious
step the straits of ThermopylÊ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes,
Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and
Napoli, [13] which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused,
with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and fortunes of a
great people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed in
the scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage of
the situation, and the ample on scanty supplies for the maintenance of
soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long-lost
dependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through
their imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his prize
the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. [14] I shall not descend
to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish
to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the
duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: [15] the principal fiefs were
held by the service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and
chief cook; and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office
of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights and
archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of his
share, and their first efforts were generally successful. But the public
force was weakened by their dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must
arise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword.
Within three months after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor
and the king of Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the
field; they were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of
the marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. [16]
[Footnote 7: In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted
by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map, suited to the
last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography.
But, alas D'Anville is no more!]
[Footnote 8: Their style was dominus quartÊ partis et dimidiÊ imperii
Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year of
1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of Constantinople, see
Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]
[Footnote 9: Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the conquests
made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of Candia, Corfu,
Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Syro, Cea, and
Lemnos.]
[Footnote 10: Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204.
See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how it could be
his mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor
Alexius.]
[Footnote 11: In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony to
Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their savage manners
and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicans
under the yoke of Genoa; and when I compare the accounts of Belon and
Tournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and
the Turkish island.]
[Footnote 12: Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173--177) and Nicetas (p.
387--394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface.
The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael,
archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a
saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be
published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. GrÊc. tom.
vi. p. 405,) and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries.]
[Footnote 13: Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport of
Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a
rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p.
227.)]
[Footnote 14: I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives
to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus post C. P.
expugnatam, p. 375--384.]
[Footnote 15: A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six leagues to
the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name
of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have
preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This
place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII.]