found, that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty emperors,
including in the Augustan list some female sovereigns; and deducting
some usurpers who were never acknowledged in the capital, and some
princes who did not live to possess their inheritance. The average
proportion will allow ten years for each emperor, far below the
chronological rule of Sir Isaac Newton, who, from the experience of
more recent and regular monarchies, has defined about eighteen or twenty
years as the term of an ordinary reign. The Byzantine empire was
most tranquil and prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary
succession; five dynasties, the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian,
and Comnenian families, enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony
during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and four
generations; several princes number the years of their reign with those
of their infancy; and Constantine the Seventh and his two grandsons
occupy the space of an entire century. But in the intervals of the
Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and broken, and the name
of a successful candidate is speedily erased by a more fortunate
competitor. Many were the paths that led to the summit of royalty:
the fabric of rebellion was overthrown by the stroke of conspiracy, or
undermined by the silent arts of intrigue: the favorites of the soldiers
or people, of the senate or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were
alternately clothed with the purple: the means of their elevation were
base, and their end was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the
nature of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer
measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and contempt on
the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager, in a narrow span,
to grasp at a precarious and short-lived enjoyment. It is thus that
the experience of history exalts and enlarges the horizon of our
intellectual view. In a composition of some days, in a perusal of some
hours, six hundred years have rolled away, and the duration of a life or
reign is contracted to a fleeting moment: the grave is ever beside the
throne: the success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the
loss of his prize and our immortal reason survives and disdains the
sixty phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly
dwell on our remembrance. The observation that, in every age and
climate, ambition has prevailed with the same commanding energy, may
abate the surprise of a philosopher: but while he condemns the vanity,
he may search the motive, of this universal desire to obtain and hold
the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of the Byzantine series,
we cannot reasonably ascribe the love of fame and of mankind. The virtue
alone of John Comnenus was beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of
the princes, who precede or follow that respectable name, have trod
with some dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish
policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the Isaurian,
Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus, the second Basil,
and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are almost equally balanced;
and the remainder of the Imperial crowd could only desire and expect to
be forgotten by posterity. Was personal happiness the aim and object of
their ambition? I shall not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery
of kings; but I may surely observe, that their condition, of all others,
is the most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For
these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the revolutions
of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of the modern world,
which cannot easily repeat either the triumph of Alexander or the fall
of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed
them to domestic perils, without affording any lively promise of foreign
conquest. From the pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated
by a death more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but
the most glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from
their subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious
without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the Barbarians of
the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the loss of the provinces
was terminated by the final servitude of the capital.
The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the CÊsars to the
last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen hundred years: and the
term of dominion, unbroken by foreign conquest, surpasses the measure of
the ancient monarchies; the Assyrians or Medes, the successors of Cyrus,
or those of Alexander.
End Of Vol. IV.