health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy to the
Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by the exercise
of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names of Arians and
Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of _four_ gods to those who
separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a place of worship, or
rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit missionaries. Their skill
in the liberal and mechanic arts, their theological learning, and the
decency of their manners, inspired a barren esteem; but they were
not endowed with the gift of miracles, and they vainly solicited a
reÎnforcement of European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty
years at length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors
of Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and
everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal converts
lost his crown and his life; and the rebel army was sanctified by
the _abuna_, who hurled an anathema at the apostate, and absolved his
subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate of Zadenghel was revenged
by the courage and fortune of Susneus, who ascended the throne under the
name of Segued, and more vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of
his kinsman. After the amusement of some unequal combats between the
Jesuits and his illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a
proselyte to the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and
people would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The
liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under pain of
death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the Abyssinians were
enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath; and Segued, in the face of
Europe and Africa, renounced his connection with the Alexandrian church.
A Jesuit, Alphonso Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of ∆thiopia, accepted,
in the name of Urban VIII., the homage and abjuration of the penitent.
"I confess," said the emperor on his knees, "I confess that the pope is
the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, and the sovereign of
the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his feet I offer
my person and kingdom." A similar oath was repeated by his son, his
brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the ladies of the court:
the Latin patriarch was invested with honors and wealth; and his
missionaries erected their churches or citadels in the most convenient
stations of the empire. The Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal
indiscretion of their chief, who forgot the mildness of the gospel and
the policy of his order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of
Rome and the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice
of circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first
invented in the climate of ∆thiopia. A new baptism, a new ordination,
was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with horror when
the most holy of the dead were torn from their graves, when the most
illustrious of the living were excommunicated by a foreign priest. In
the defense of their religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms,
with desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were extinguished
in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were slain in battle, whole
legions were slaughtered in the field, or suffocated in their caverns;
and neither merit, nor rank, nor sex, could save from an ignominious
death the enemies of Rome. But the victorious monarch was finally
subdued by the constancy of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and
of his most faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity,
of reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience
instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On the death
of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch, and restored
to the wishes of the nation the faith and the discipline of Egypt. The
Monophysite churches resounded with a song of triumph, "that the sheep
of ∆thiopia were now delivered from the hyÊnas of the West;" and the
gates of that solitary realm were forever shut against the arts, the
science, and the fanaticism of Europe.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.--Part I.
Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.--Succession And Characters Of
The Greek Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of
Heraclius To The Latin Conquest.
I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine to
Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and faithfully
exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their reigns. Five
centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have already elapsed;
but a period of more than eight hundred years still separates me from
the term of my labors, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Should
I persevere in the same course, should I observe the same measure, a
prolix and slender thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would
the patient reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement.
At every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose a more
ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue to repeat a
tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the natural connection
of causes and events would be broken by frequent and hasty transitions,
and a minute accumulation of circumstances must destroy the light and
effect of those general pictures which compose the use and ornament of
a remote history. From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is
contracted and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by
the laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all sides
from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our inquiries,
is reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely suburbs of
Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has been compared to
that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the sands, before its waters
can mingle with the ocean. The scale of dominion is diminished to our
view by the distance of time and place; nor is the loss of external
splendor compensated by the nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the
last moments of her decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and
populous than Athens at her most flourishing Êra, when a scanty sum of
six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling was
possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult age. But each
of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to assert the liberty of his
thoughts, words, and actions, whose person and property were guarded by
equal law; and who exercised his independent vote in the government
of the republic. Their numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and
various discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on
the wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level of
the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some chosen spirits
soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the chances of superior
merit in a great and populous kingdom, as they are proved by experience,
would excuse the computation of imaginary millions. The territories of
Athens, Sparta, and their allies, do not exceed a moderate province of
France or England; but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea,
they expand in our fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been
trampled under the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of
the Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of Greeks
and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices, which are neither
softened by the weakness of humanity, nor animated by the vigor of
memorable crimes. The freemen of antiquity might repeat with generous
enthusiasm the sentence of Homer, "that on the first day of his
servitude, the captive is deprived of one half of his manly virtue."
But the poet had only seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor
could he foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated
by the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but even
the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke, the Greeks
were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the tyrant, a law of
eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of his subjects; and on the
throne, in the camp, in the schools, we search, perhaps with fruitless
diligence, the names and characters that may deserve to be rescued from
oblivion. Nor are the defects of the subject compensated by the skill
and variety of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four
first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some faint
and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the emperors, from
Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone been the theme of a
separate work; and the absence, or loss, or imperfection of contemporary
evidence, must be poorly supplied by the doubtful authority of more
recent compilers. The four last centuries are exempt from the reproach
of penury; and with the Comnenian family, the historic muse of
Constantinople again revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are
without elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers,
treads in each other's footsteps in the same path of servitude and
superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or
corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still ignorant
of the causes of events, the characters of the actors, and the manners
of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The observation which
has been applied to a man, may be extended to a whole people, that the
energy of the sword is communicated to the pen; and it will be found by
experience, that the tone of history will rise or fall with the spirit
of the age.
From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret the
Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not reflected that the
fate of the Byzantine monarchy is _passively_ connected with the most
splendid and important revolutions which have changed the state of the
world. The space of the lost provinces was immediately replenished with
new colonies and rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war
deserted from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in
their origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that
we must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches and
variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of design
and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman of Fez or Delhi
still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca, the historian's eye
shall be always fixed on the city of Constantinople. The excursive line
may embrace the wilds of Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be
ultimately reduced to the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.
On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two volumes
of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a regular
series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during a period of
six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the Latin conquest;
a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a _general_ appeal to the
order and text of the original historians. In this introduction, I
shall confine myself to the revolutions of the throne, the succession
of families, the personal characters of the Greek princes, the mode
of their life and death, the maxims and influence of their domestic
government, and the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the
downfall of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve
to illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and each
circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will adapt itself
in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The internal state of the
empire, and the dangerous heresy of the Paulicians, which shook the East
and enlightened the West, will be the subject of two separate chapters;
but these inquiries must be postponed till our further progress shall
have opened the view of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of
the Christian area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the
following nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the
space to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree
of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The Franks; a
general appellation which includes all the Barbarians of France, Italy,
and Germany, who were united by the sword and sceptre of Charlemagne.
The persecution of images and their votaries separated Rome and Italy
from the Byzantine throne, and prepared the restoration of the Roman
empire in the West. II. The Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will
be devoted to this curious and interesting object. In the first, after
a picture of the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate
the character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the
prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of Syria,
Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor can I check
their victorious career till they have overthrown the monarchies of
Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how Constantinople and
Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the division and decay, of
the empire of the caliphs. A single chapter will include, III. The
Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and, V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by
land the provinces and the capital; but the last of these, so important
in their present greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin
and infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of that
warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and Sicily,
shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the trophies of chivalry,
and almost realized the wonders of romance. VII. The Latins; the
subjects of the pope, the nations of the West, who enlisted under the
banner of the cross for the recovery or relief of the holy sepulchre.
The Greek emperors were terrified and preserved by the myriads of
pilgrims who marched to Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers
of Christendom. The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of
the first: Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred
years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and finally
expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these memorable
crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were diverted from
Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the capital, they
subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of Latin princes was seated
near threescore years on the throne of Constantine. VIII. The Greeks
themselves, during this period of captivity and exile, must be
considered as a foreign nation; the enemies, and again the sovereigns of
Constantinople. Misfortune had rekindled a spark of national virtue;
and the Imperial series may be continued with some dignity from their
restoration to the Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the
arms of Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to
Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell, and
the CÊsars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour suspended
above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine empire. X. I have
already noticed the first appearance of the Turks; and the names of
the fathers, of _Seljuk_ and _Othman_, discriminate the two successive
dynasties of the nation, which emerged in the eleventh century from
the Scythian wilderness. The former established a splendid and potent
kingdom from the banks of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first
crusade was provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of
Constantinople. From an humble origin, the _Ottomans_ arose, the scourge
and terror of Christendom. Constantinople was besieged and taken by
Mahomet II., and his triumph annihilates the remnant, the image, the
title, of the Roman empire in the East. The schism of the Greeks will be
connected with their last calamities, and the restoration of learning in
the Western world. I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the
ruins of ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme,
will shed a ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.
The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his throne; and
the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the transient conquest, and
irreparable loss, of the Eastern provinces. After the death of Eudocia,
his first wife, he disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by
his second marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the
Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the father and
the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an illegitimate birth
is sufficient to distract the choice, and loosen the obedience, of the
people: the ambition of Martina was quickened by maternal love, and
perhaps by the envy of a step-mother; and the aged husband was too
feeble to withstand the arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine,
his eldest son, enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the
weakness of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and
he yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire. The
senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the association
of Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of the diadem was
consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the patriarch; the senators
and patricians adored the majesty of the great emperor and the partners
of his reign; and as soon as the doors were thrown open, they were
hailed by the tumultuary but important voice of the soldiers. After an
interval of five months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the
essence of the Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the
hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly displayed
by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the name of Martina
was mingled in the reluctant or venal acclamations of the people.
Heraclius survived this association about two years: his last testimony
declared his two sons the equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and
commanded them to honor his widow Martina as their mother and their
sovereign.
When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and attributes
of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though respectful, opposition;
and the dying embers of freedom were kindled by the breath of
superstitious prejudice. "We reverence," exclaimed the voice of a
citizen, "we reverence the mother of our princes; but to those princes
alone our obedience is due; and Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an
age to sustain, in his own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is
excluded by nature from the toils of government. How could you combat,
how could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly
intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from the Roman
republic this national disgrace, which would provoke the patience of the
slaves of Persia!" Martina descended from the throne with indignation,
and sought a refuge in the female apartment of the palace. The reign of
Constantine the Third lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired
in the thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long
malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means, and
his cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate. Martina reaped
indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the government in the name
of the surviving emperor; but the incestuous widow of Heraclius was
universally abhorred; the jealousy of the people was awakened, and the
two orphans whom Constantine had left became the objects of the public
care. It was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than
fifteen years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his
nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it was in
vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to defend them against
all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late emperor had despatched
a trusty servant to arm the troops and provinces of the East in the
defence of his helpless children: the eloquence and liberality of
Valentin had been successful, and from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly
demanded the punishment of the assassins, and the restoration of the
lawful heir. The license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and
drank the wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of
Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities, and the
dome of St. Sophia reÎchoed, not with prayers and hymns, but with the
clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At their imperious
command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with the eldest of the royal
orphans; Constans alone was saluted as emperor of the Romans, and a
crown of gold, which had been taken from the tomb of Heraclius, was
placed on his head, with the solemn benediction of the patriarch. But
in the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was pillaged, the
sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of Jews and Barbarians;
and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of the empress, after dropping a
protestation on the altar, escaped by a prudent flight from the zeal
of the Catholics. A more serious and bloody task was reserved for
the senate, who derived a temporary strength from the consent of the
soldiers and people. The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient
and awful examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of Constantine.
But the severity of the conscript fathers was stained by the
indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the guilty: Martina and
Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation, the former of her tongue,
the latter of his nose; and after this cruel execution, they consumed
the remainder of their days in exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were
capable of reflection might find some consolation for their servitude,
by observing the abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the
hands of an aristocracy.
We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years backwards to
the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the oration which Constans II.
pronounced in the twelfth year of his age before the Byzantine senate.
After returning his thanks for the just punishment of the assassins, who
had intercepted the fairest hopes of his father's reign, "By the divine
Providence," said the young emperor, "and by your righteous decree,
Martina and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state from
degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and beseech you
to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the common safety." The
senators were gratified by the respectful address and liberal donative
of their sovereign; but these servile Greeks were unworthy and
regardless of freedom; and in his mind, the lesson of an hour was
quickly erased by the prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism.
He retained only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother Theodosius on
an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders, the grandson of
Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but this ceremony, which
seemed to profane the sacraments of the church, was insufficient to
appease the suspicions of the tyrant, and the death of the deacon
Theodosius could alone expiate the crime of his royal birth. His
murder was avenged by the imprecations of the people, and the assassin,
in the fullness of power, was driven from his capital into voluntary
and perpetual exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant
to retort the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After passing
the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy, visited Rome,
and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace and sacrilegious rapine,
by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But if Constans could fly from his
people, he could not fly from himself. The remorse of his conscience
created a phantom who pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night;
and the visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
said, or seemed to say, "Drink, brother, drink;" a sure emblem of the
aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the hands of the
deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious to himself and to
mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps by episcopal, treason,
in the capital of Sicily. A servant who waited in the bath, after
pouring warm water on his head, struck him violently with the vase.
He fell, stunned by the blow, and suffocated by the water; and his
attendants, who wondered at the tedious delay, beheld with indifference
the corpse of their lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested
with the purple an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it
might easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of
the age.