123 (return) [ Neither the author of the_History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum Angliae, l. ii.

c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth century, of inventing

this extraordinary fact; they are incapable of explaining the

motives and measures of Alfred; and their hasty notice serves

only to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the

difficulty of the enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur;

and I almost suspect that the English ambassadors collected their

cargo and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his

Orosius (see Barrington’s Miscellanies) with an Indian, as well

as a Scandinavian, voyage.]

124 (return) [ Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see

Assemann. Bibliot Orient. tom. iv. p. 391—407, 435—451; Geddes’s

Church History of Malabar; and, above all, La Croze, Histoire du

Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. 12mo., La Haye, 1758, a

learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source,

the Portuguese and Italian narratives; and the prejudices of the

Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants.

Note: The St. Thome Christians had excited great interest in the

ancient mind of the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and,

to his friends, highly characteristic letter to Mar Athanasius,

Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his friend and coadjutor,

Mr. Robinson, (Last Days of Bishop Heber,) have not convinced me

that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian

dispersion.—M]

II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and

interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno

and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the

prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its

native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the

Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by

Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the

Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches

maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ,

and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke

truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not abate the

vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that

their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference;

the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his

reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty

monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or

resistance, under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of

Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus

fled into Egypt; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who

had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his

exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were

swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast

into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous favor of

Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their shepherds, must

insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this

spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,

and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James

Baradaeus 129 has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites,

a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader.

From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he

received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East,

and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and

deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible source. The speed

of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest

dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and

discipline of the Jacobites were secretly established in the

dominions of Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to

violate the laws and to hate the Roman legislator. The successors

of Severus, while they lurked in convents or villages, while they

sheltered their proscribed heads in the caverns of hermits, or

the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as they now assert,

their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and the

prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of

the infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the

pleasant monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with

cells, aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though

honorable, place is filled by the maphrian, who, in his station

at Mosul itself, defies the Nestorian catholic with whom he

contests the primacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the

maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops have been

counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church; but the

order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater

part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the

Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which

are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy

merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive

their scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as

well as superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five

annual lents, during which both the clergy and laity abstain not

only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil,

and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to

fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which

was gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries.

Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been

converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of

Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in

his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the

Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a

subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his

funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a

train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and

mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which

was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to

sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The

superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more

rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, and their

doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of nonsense) are

more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may possibly

be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more

for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in

Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been

distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity

of their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the

favorites of the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is

reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the

government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits and

prejudices of the cloister. 132

125 (return) [ Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of

the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist.

du Christianisme d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, p. 35,) who exclaims,

perhaps too hastily, “Quel pitoyable raisonnement!” Renaudot has

touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127—138) the Oriental accounts

of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the epistle

of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to

his brother Mannas of Alexandria, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 132—141.)]

126 (return) [ Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syriae

Secundae ad Papam Hormisdam, Concil. tom. v. p. 598—602. The

courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion

that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or

defensive, (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c.)]

127 (return) [ Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 10—46) and

La Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 36—40) will supply the

history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or

Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac

language, and the author or editor of a version of the New

Testament.]

128 (return) [ The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who

were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of

Dionysius, (apud Asseman. tom. ii. p. 54.) Severus was personally

summoned to Constantinople—for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev.

c. 19)—that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (l. iv.

c. iv.) The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the

difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to

the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, tom. ii. p.

506.)]

129 (return) [ The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus,

or Zanzalust may be gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.

144, 147,) Renau dot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 133,) and

Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 424, tom. ii. p. 62-69,

324—332, 414, tom. iii. p. 385—388.) He seems to be unknown to

the Greeks. The Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name

and pedigree from St. James the apostle.]

130 (return) [ The account of his person and writings is perhaps

the most curious article in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (tom.

ii. p. 244—321, under the name of Gregorius Bar-Hebroeus.) La

Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 53—63) ridicules the

prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which

secretly defiles their church and state.]

131 (return) [ This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze,

(p. 352,) and even by the Syrian Assemannus, (tom. i. p. 226,

tom. ii. p. 304, 305.)]

132 (return) [ The state of the Monophysites is excellently

illustrated in a dissertation at the beginning of the iid volume

of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The Syriac Chronicle of

Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 321—463,) pursues the double series of the Nestorian

Catholics and the Maphrians of the Jacobites.]

III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of

every age are described under the appellation of Maronites, 133 a

name which has been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a

monastery, from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage

of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria;

the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a

stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his

disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the

Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely

threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and

Eutyches; but the unfortunate question of one will or operation

in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious

leisure. Their proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as

a Maronite from the walls of Emesa, he found a refuge in the

monastery of his brethren; and their theological lessons were

repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy domain. The name and

doctrine of this venerable school were propagated among the

Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,

patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of

Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the two wills of

Christ, he would submit to be hewn piecemeal and cast into the

sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode of persecution soon

converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while the

glorious title of Mardaites, 135 or rebels, was bravely

maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one

of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the

character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the

head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom

against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox

Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who

might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common

foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the

monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest

chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of

their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of

Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had

survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy,

under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated

servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient

nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still

fancies himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose

his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the

liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred

thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount

Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent

affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate,

from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, 136 to the

vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley.

In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite

error were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,

137 and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the

ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians. But it may

reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been

perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of

Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the

guilt of heresy and schism. 138

133 (return) [ The synonymous use of the two words may be proved

from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 191, 267, 332,) and many

similar passages which may be found in the methodical table of

Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against the

Maronites of the xth century; and we may believe a Melchite,

whose testimony is confirmed by the Jacobites and Latins.]

134 (return) [ Concil. tom. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause

was supported with firmness and subtilty by Constantine, a Syrian

priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.)]

135 (return) [ Theophanes (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306) and

Cedrenus (p. 437, 440) relates the exploits of the Mardaites: the

name (Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit) is explained by La Roque,

(Voyage de la Syrie, tom. ii. p. 53;) and dates are fixed by

Pagi, (A.D. 676, No. 4—14, A.D. 685, No. 3, 4;) and even the

obscure story of the patriarch John Maron (Asseman. Bibliot.

Orient. tom. i. p. 496—520) illustrates from the year 686 to 707,

the troubles of Mount Libanus. * Note: Compare on the Mardaites

Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the Mem. de l’Acad.

des Inscriptions; and Schlosser, Bildersturmendes Kaiser, p.

100.—M]

136 (return) [ In the last century twenty large cedars still

remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. p. 68—76;) at present they

are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom. i. p. 264.) These

trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication:

the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual

mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the

Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to

repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it

is painted by Tacitus: inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus—a

daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.) Note: Of the oldest and best

looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve twenty-five very large

ones; and about fifty of middling size; and more than three

hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria p.

19.—M]

137 (return) [ The evidence of William of Tyre (Hist. in Gestis

Dei per Francos, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022) is copied or confirmed

by Jacques de Vitra, (Hist. Hierosolym. l. ii. c. 77, p. 1093,

1094.) But this unnatural league expired with the power of the

Franks; and Abulpharagius (who died in 1286) considers the

Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.

p. 292.)]

138 (return) [ I find a description and history of the Maronites

in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols.

in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. p. 42—47, p.

174—184, tom. ii. p. 10—120.) In the ancient part, he copies the

prejudices of Nairon and the other Maronites of Rome, which

Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support.

Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186.) Niebuhr,

(Voyage de l’Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 346, 370—381,) and, above

all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom.

ii. p. 8—31, Paris, 1787,) may be consulted.]

IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians 139 had

signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the

Christians. 1391 The disorders of their country, and their

ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from

assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four

years 140 in a state of indifference or suspense, till their

vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian

of Halicarnassus, 141 who in Egypt, their common exile, had been

vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival

Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians

alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent,

who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual

progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of

Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and

incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the

adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by

deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute

to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the

natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of

Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the

power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of

their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in

the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the

clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of

Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy

the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the

present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war: the

lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel

policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were

transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces

of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians

is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of

martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the

error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with

the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand

bishops, whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman

pontiff. 142 The catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians resides

in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan.

Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of

four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far

greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their

presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they

have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our

bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life

increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank.

In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual

empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from

each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of

six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the

incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of

the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and

lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from

Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,

the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient

industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent

congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143

139 (return) [ The religion of the Armenians is briefly described

by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l’Ethiopie et de l’Armenie, p.

269—402.) He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3

vols. in fol. Rome, 1650—1661,) and commends the state of Armenia

in the iiid volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du

Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is

praised by La Croze.]

1391 (return) [ See vol. iii. ch. xx. p. 271.—M.]

140 (return) [ The schism of the Armenians is placed 84 years

after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A.D. 535.) It

was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the

year of Christ 552 that we date the aera of the Armenians, (L’Art

de verifier les Dates, p. xxxv.)]

141 (return) [ The sentiments and success of Julian of

Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot,

(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132, 303,) and Assemannus, (Bibliot.

Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat. Monophysitis, l. viii. p. 286.)]

142 (return) [ See a remarkable fact of the xiith century in the

History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258.) Yet three hundred years

before, Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried

in the conversion of the Armenians.]

143 (return) [ The travelling Armenians are in the way of every

traveller, and their mother church is on the high road between

Constantinople and Ispahan; for their present state, see

Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. p. 40—51,) Olearius,

(l. iv. c. 40,) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232,) Teurnefort, (lettre

xx.,) and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 28—37, 510-518,)

that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so

much and so well]

V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince

might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed.

But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their

opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian

condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.

The Monophysite church of Alexandria 144 was torn by the disputes

of the corruptibles and incorruptibles, and on the death of the

patriarch, the two factions upheld their respective candidates.

145 Gaian was the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the

pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the

consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the

latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of

the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which

might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the

popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment

of Alexandria; and after a schism of one hundred and seventy

years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of

their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was

tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled

with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women,

ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or

ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final

victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted

the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of

Justinian had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius

himself was speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis,

an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The

powers of government were strained in his support; he might

appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the

allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed,

the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived

at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the

tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:

and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man,

a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition,

that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited,

with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to

the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor

Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike

qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, under arms, were

distributed through the streets; the gates of the cathedral were

guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend

the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,

throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared

before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of

Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had

Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of

curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister

of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by

the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees

in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have

fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be

extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the

reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and

John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and

arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. The

theological knowledge of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume,

which magnified the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted

to reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the

orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the fathers of Chalcedon. The

bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were dictated by

superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five

hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he

found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the

church; he collected ten thousand from the liberality of the

faithful; yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he

left behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of

the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered to

the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was proscribed in

Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded the natives from the

honors and emoluments of the state.

144 (return) [ The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from

Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (p. 114—164,) and

the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.]

145 (return) [ Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. p. 329

330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 26, 27.]

146 (return) [ Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more

conspicuous for subtilty than eloquence. He proves that the

enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to

be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the

mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the

opposite assertions of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings

are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had

perused them with care and satisfaction, ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi.

ccxxvii. ccxxx. cclxxx.]

147 (return) [ See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his

contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyrus, whose Greek

text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of

Baronius, (A.D. 610, No.9, A.D. 620, No. 8.) Pagi (Critica, tom.

ii. p. 763) and Fabricius (l. v c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454) have

made some critical observations]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.

A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the

oracle and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted

the threats and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an

apostle or an enthusiast. “Such,” replied the patriarch, “were

the offers of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the

earth. But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. The

churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill the body; but

my conscience is my own; and in exile, poverty, or chains, I will

steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy predecessors,

Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of Leo and

the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!

Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my

mother’s womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those

who love God follow me and seek their salvation.” After

comforting his brethren, he embarked for Constantinople, and

sustained, in six successive interviews, the almost irresistible

weight of the royal presence. His opinions were favorably

entertained in the palace and the city; the influence of Theodora

assured him a safe conduct and honorable dismission; and he ended

his days, though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his

native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently

feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by the

intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth

of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais,

and were maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A

perpetual succession of patriarchs arose from the ashes of

Theodosius; and the Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were

united by the name of Jacobites and the communion of the faith.

But the same faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of

the Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or Coptic

nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected the decrees of the

synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed since Egypt

had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and

Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient

wisdom and power ascend beyond the records of history. The

conflict of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their

national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners

and language of the Greeks: every Melchite, in their eyes, was a

stranger, every Jacobite a citizen; the alliance of marriage, the

offices of humanity, were condemned as a deadly sin; the natives

renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his orders, at a

distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the pressure of

military force. A generous effort might have redeemed the

religion and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries

might have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom

death should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or

delight. But experience has proved the distinction of active and

passive courage; the fanatic who endures without a groan the

torture of the rack or the stake, would tremble and fly before

the face of an armed enemy. The pusillanimous temper of the

Egyptians could only hope for a change of masters; the arms of

Chosroes depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites

enjoyed a short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius

renewed and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again

escaped from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin

was encouraged by a voice, which bade him expect, at the end of

ten years, the aid of a foreign nation, marked, like the

Egyptians themselves, with the ancient rite of circumcision. The

character of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliverance,

will be hereafter explained; and I shall step over the interval

of eleven centuries to observe the present misery of the

Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a

residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and

a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the

inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy

has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of

twenty-five or thirty thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate

beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior

wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive

congregation. 149

148 (return) [ This number is taken from the curious Recherches

sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, (tom. ii. p. 192, 193,) and

appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, or 15,000 modern,

Copts of Gemelli Carreri Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch of

Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more

numerous than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying Homer,

(Iliad, ii. 128,) the most perfect expression of contempt,

(Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740.)]

149 (return) [ The history of the Copts, their religion, manners,

&c., may be found in the Abbe Renaudot’s motley work, neither a

translation nor an original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a

Jacobite; in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, Paris,

1651; and John Simon Asseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend

no lower than the xiiith century. The more recent accounts must

be searched for in the travellers into Egypt and the Nouveaux

Memoires des Missions du Levant. In the last century, Joseph

Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at Oxford, in thirty

pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarum, 147, post p.150]

VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Caesars, or a slave to

the khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings

of Nubia and Aethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying

their greatness; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring

into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal number of

camels; 150 that their hand could pour out or restrain the waters

of the Nile; 151 and the peace and plenty of Egypt was obtained,

even in this world, by the intercession of the patriarch. In

exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his patroness

the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of

Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. 152 Her design was suspected

and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival

missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same

time; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, was more

effectually obeyed; and the Catholic priest was detained by the

president of Thebais, while the king of Nubia and his court were

hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of

Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but when he

accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro

convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his

brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the

synod of Chalcedon. 153 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia

were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of

Alexandria: as late as the twelfth century, Christianity

prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in the

savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the Nubians at

length executed their threats of returning to the worship of

idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they

have finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement

of the Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for

the capacity of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be

taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite

creed.

150 (return) [ About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.

Alex p. 221, 222. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 99.]

151 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. i. c. 8.

Renaudot Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion,

introduced into Egypt and Europe by the artifice of the Copts,

the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks

and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of

Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will

of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three

days’ journey of the Red Sea (see D’Anville’s Maps,) a canal that

should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass,

the power of the Caesars.]

152 (return) [ The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features

and olive complexion of the Arabs, afford a proof that two

thousand years are not sufficient to change the color of the

human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as

black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips,

and woolly hair, (Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 117, 143,

144, 166, 219, edit. in 12mo., Paris, 1769.) The ancients beheld,

without much attention, the extraordinary phenomenon which has

exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times]

153 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 329.]

154 (return) [ The Christianity of the Nubians (A.D. 1153) is

attested by the sheriff al Edrisi, falsely described under the

name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18,) who represents them as a

nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle in

the history of Ranaudot (p. 178, 220—224, 281—286, 405, 434, 451,

464) are all previous to this aera. See the modern state in the

Lettres Edifiantes (Recueil, iv.) and Busching, (tom. ix. p.

152—139, par Berenger.)]

Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire;

and, although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted

above seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria

retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven

bishops once composed the Aethiopic synod: had their number

amounted to ten, they might have elected an independent primate;

and one of their kings was ambitious of promoting his brother to

the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was foreseen, the

increase was denied: the episcopal office has been gradually

confined to the abuna, 155 the head and author of the Abyssinian

priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian

monk; and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in

the eyes of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch.

In the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the

rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove

to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and

independent province. The industry of the empress was again

victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in that

sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. 156

Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the

Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world,

by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the

Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa,

appeared in India and the Red Sea, as if they had descended

through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of

their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the

resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each

nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with

their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the

Aethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their

vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to

navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted,

the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous

name, was content, both in peace and war, with the immovable

residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the

Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts

and ingenuity of Europe; 157 and their ambassadors at Rome and

Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,

tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use

of their country. But the public danger soon called for the

instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an

unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland

country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast

in more formidable array. Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and

fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of

Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and cannon. In

a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself

and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch

represented the supremacy of the pope: 158 the empire, enlarged

in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than

the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal

were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

155 (return) [ The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins

with the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the

four patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan

or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l.

iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed

A.D. 1131, are unknown to the historian.]

156 (return) [ I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 384) should call in question these probable missions of

Theodora into Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of

Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot (p.

336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511,

525, 559—564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was

a perfect blank.]

157 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most

necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign

trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally

admired and envied was the industry of Europe—artes et opificia.]

158 (return) [ John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon,

1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii.

c. 7, p. 1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze,

(Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 92—265.) The piece is curious; but

the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and

Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and

doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p. 473.)]

But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return

of 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, 159 and they vainly solicited a reenforcement 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 Aethiopia, 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 Aethiopia. 160 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 Aethiopia were now delivered

from the hyaenas of the West;” and the gates of that solitary

realm were forever shut against the arts, the science, and the

fanaticism of Europe. 161

159 (return) [ Religio Romana...nec precibus patrum nec miraculis

ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance

of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph.

Comment. No. 126, p. 529;) and such assurances should be

preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvellous legends.]

160 (return) [ I am aware how tender is the question of

circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians have a

physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of

females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.)

2. That it was practised in Aethiopia long before the

introduction of Judaism or Christianity, (Herodot. l. ii. c. 104.

Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.) “Infantes circumcidunt ob

consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,” says Gregory the Abyssinian

priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of

dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of

uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. l.

iii. c. l.)]

161 (return) [ The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist.

Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova,

&c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History of Aethiopia,

London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme

d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn

their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the

General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra,

1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most

flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the

most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a

slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal

conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom

he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the

Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p.

716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of

Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us

again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their

speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem

to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the practice of

Christianity.—M.]

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part

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 aera, 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. VII. 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 Caesars 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 reechoed, 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. 1111 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, 1112 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.

1111 (return) [ His soldiers (according to Abulfaradji. Chron.

Syr. p. 112) called him another Cain. St. Martin, t. xi. p.

379.—M.]

1112 (return) [ He was received in Rome, and pillaged the

churches. He carried off the brass roof of the Pantheon to

Syracuse, or, as Schlosser conceives, to Constantinople Schlosser

Geschichte der bilder-sturmenden Kaiser p. 80—M.]

Constans had left in the Byzantine palace three sons, the eldest

of whom had been clothed in his infancy with the purple. When the

father summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these

precious hostages were detained by the Greeks, and a firm refusal

informed him that they were the children of the state. The news

of his murder was conveyed with almost supernatural speed from

Syracuse to Constantinople; and Constantine, the eldest of his

sons, inherited his throne without being the heir of the public

hatred. His subjects contributed, with zeal and alacrity, to

chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had

usurped the rights of the senate and people; the young emperor

sailed from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet; and the legions

of Rome and Carthage were assembled under his standard in the

harbor of Syracuse. The defeat of the Sicilian tyrant was easy,

his punishment just, and his beauteous head was exposed in the

hippodrome: but I cannot applaud the clemency of a prince, who,

among a crowd of victims, condemned the son of a patrician, for

deploring with some bitterness the execution of a virtuous

father. The youth was castrated: he survived the operation, and

the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation

of Germanus to the rank of a patriarch and saint. After pouring

this bloody libation on his father’s tomb, Constantine returned

to his capital; and the growth of his young beard during the

Sicilian voyage was announced, by the familiar surname of

Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his reign, like that of his

predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two

brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title of

Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without

trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret

instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province

approached the city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal

brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported

their seditious claim by a theological argument. They were

Christians, (they cried,) and orthodox Catholics; the sincere

votaries of the holy and undivided Trinity. Since there are three

equal persons in heaven, it is reasonable there should be three

equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned

divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose

their arguments to the senate: they obeyed the summons, but the

prospect of their bodies hanging on the gibbet in the suburb of

Galata reconciled their companions to the unity of the reign of

Constantine. He pardoned his brothers, and their names were still

pronounced in the public acclamations: but on the repetition or

suspicion of a similar offence, the obnoxious princes were

deprived of their titles and noses, 1113 in the presence of the

Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in the

sixth general synod. In the close of his life, Pogonatus was

anxious only to establish the right of primogeniture: the heir of

his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, was offered on the shrine

of St. Peter, as a symbol of their spiritual adoption by the

pope; but the elder was alone exalted to the rank of Augustus,

and the assurance of the empire.

1113 (return) [ Schlosser (Geschichte der bilder sturmenden

Kaiser, p. 90) supposed that the young princes were mutilated

after the first insurrection; that after this the acts were still

inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in

the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed

against Gibbon’s want of authority for his statement.—M.]

After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the Roman

world devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of a triumphant

lawgiver was dishonored by the vices of a boy, who imitated his

namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions

were strong; his understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated

with a foolish pride, that his birth had given him the command of

millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen

him for their local magistrate. His favorite ministers were two

beings the least susceptible of human sympathy, a eunuch and a

monk: to the one he abandoned the palace, to the other the

finances; the former corrected the emperor’s mother with a

scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with

their heads downwards, over a slow and smoky fire. Since the days

of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had

most commonly been the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who

possessed some vigor of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and

braved the revenge, of his subjects, about ten years, till the

measure was full, of his crimes and of their patience. In a dark

dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation, had groaned above

three years, with some of the noblest and most deserving of the

patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government

of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of the

contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was

followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius

observed, with a sigh, that he was a victim adorned for

sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps.

They ventured to reply, that glory and empire might be the

recompense of a generous resolution; that every order of men

abhorred the reign of a monster; and that the hands of two

hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader.

The night was chosen for their deliverance; and in the first

effort of the conspirators, the præfect was slain, and the

prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed

in every street, “Christians, to St. Sophia!” and the seasonable

text of the patriarch, “This is the day of the Lord!” was the

prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church the people

adjourned to the hippodrome: Justinian, in whose cause not a

sword had been drawn, was dragged before these tumultuary judges,

and their clamors demanded the instant death of the tyrant. But

Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast an eye of

pity on the prostrate son of his own benefactor and of so many

emperors. The life of Justinian was spared; the amputation of his

nose, perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy

flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of

Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonae

in Crim-Tartary, a lonely settlement, where corn, wine, and oil,

were imported as foreign luxuries.

On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished

the pride of his birth, and the hope of his restoration. After

three years’ exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that

his injury was avenged by a second revolution, and that Leontius

in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel

Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable name of Tiberius. But

the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian

usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and

charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the tyrant in

the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to

his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from

the inhospitable shore to the horde of the Chozars, who pitched

their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan

entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant:

Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the Asiatic side of the lake

Moeotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman

prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the

Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have

received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was

soon tempted by the gold of Constantinople: and had not the

design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her

husband must have been assassinated or betrayed into the power of

his enemies. After strangling, with his own hands, the two

emissaries of the khan, Justinian sent back his wife to her

brother, and embarked on the Euxine in search of new and more

faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent tempest;

and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve the mercy

of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored

to the throne. “Of forgiveness?” replied the intrepid tyrant:

“may I perish this instant—may the Almighty whelm me in the

waves—if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies!” He

survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the

Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the

Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of Terbelis, a pagan conqueror,

by the promise of his daughter and a fair partition of the

treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the

confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople

at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by

the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had

been promised by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet

ignorant. After an absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian

were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their

hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever

discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence

of his adherents, he was introduced into the city and palace of

Constantine.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part

II.

In rewarding his allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian

displayed some sense of honor and gratitude; 1114 and Terbelis

retired, after sweeping away a heap of gold coin, which he

measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more

religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he

had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two usurpers (for

I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror) were dragged

into the hippodrome, the one from his prison, the other from his

palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast

prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and

Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated

above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people

shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, “Thou shalt trample on the

asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy

foot!” The universal defection which he had once experienced

might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman

people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that

such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, since his revenge

and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow,

instead of the slow variety of tortures which Justinian inflicted

on the victims of his anger. His pleasures were inexhaustible:

neither private virtue nor public service could expiate the guilt

of active, or even passive, obedience to an established

government; and, during the six years of his new reign, he

considered the axe, the cord, and the rack, as the only

instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was

pointed against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and

violated the laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded

some means of defence, or at least of escape; and a grievous tax

was imposed on Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a

fleet and army. “All are guilty, and all must perish,” was the

mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to

his favorite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the

savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the

intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed

the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country;

and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the

youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive

seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty in the sea,

and with reserving forty-two in chains to receive their doom from

the mouth of the emperor. In their return, the fleet was driven

on the rocky shores of Anatolia; and Justinian applauded the

obedience of the Euxine, which had involved so many thousands of

his subjects and enemies in a common shipwreck: but the tyrant

was still insatiate of blood; and a second expedition was

commanded to extirpate the remains of the proscribed colony. In

the short interval, the Chersonites had returned to their city,

and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars had

renounced the cause of his odious brother; the exiles of every

province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name

of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial

troops, unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of

Justinian, escaped his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance:

the fleet, under their new sovereign, steered back a more

auspicious course to the harbors of Sinope and Constantinople;

and every tongue was prompt to pronounce, every hand to execute,

the death of the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he was deserted by

his Barbarian guards; and the stroke of the assassin was praised

as an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius had

taken refuge in a church; his aged grandmother guarded the door;

and the innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most

formidable relics, embraced with one hand the altar, with the

other the wood of the true cross. But the popular fury that dares

to trample on superstition, is deaf to the cries of humanity; and

the race of Heraclius was extinguished after a reign of one

hundred years

1114 (return) [ Of fear rather than of more generous motives.

Compare Le Beau vol. xii. p. 64.—M.]

Between the fall of the Heraclian and the rise of the Isaurian

dynasty, a short interval of six years is divided into three

reigns. Bardanes, or Philippicus, was hailed at Constantinople as

a hero who had delivered his country from a tyrant; and he might

taste some moments of happiness in the first transports of

sincere and universal joy. Justinian had left behind him an ample

treasure, the fruit of cruelty and rapine: but this useful fund

was soon and idly dissipated by his successor. On the festival of

his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the

games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the

streets with a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets;

refreshed himself in the baths of Zeuxippus, and returning to the

palace, entertained his nobles with a sumptuous banquet. At the

meridian hour he withdrew to his chamber, intoxicated with

flattery and wine, and forgetful that his example had made every

subject ambitious, and that every ambitious subject was his

secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced themselves in the

disorder of the feast; and the slumbering monarch was surprised,

bound, blinded, and deposed, before he was sensible of his

danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward; and the

free voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the

office of secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of

Anastasius the Second, and displayed in a short and troubled

reign the virtues both of peace and war. But after the extinction

of the Imperial line, the rule of obedience was violated, and

every change diffused the seeds of new revolutions. In a mutiny

of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer of the revenue was

forcibly invested with the purple: after some months of a naval

war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,

Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior

ascendant of Leo, the general and emperor of the Oriental troops.

His two predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical

profession: the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to

risk and to lose his life in a treasonable enterprise; but the

last days of Theodosius were honorable and secure. The single

sublime word, “Health,” which he inscribed on his tomb, expresses

the confidence of philosophy or religion; and the fame of his

miracles was long preserved among the people of Ephesus. This

convenient shelter of the church might sometimes impose a lesson

of clemency; but it may be questioned whether it is for the

public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.

I have dwelt on the fall of a tyrant; I shall briefly represent

the founder of a new dynasty, who is known to posterity by the

invectives of his enemies, and whose public and private life is

involved in the ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in

spite of the clamors of superstition, a favorable prejudice for

the character of Leo the Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from

the obscurity of his birth, and the duration of his reign.—I. In

an age of manly spirit, the prospect of an Imperial reward would

have kindled every energy of the mind, and produced a crowd of

competitors as deserving as they were desirous to reign. Even in

the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the elevation

of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society,

supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He

would probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science;

and, in the pursuit of fortune, he might absolve himself from the

obligations of benevolence and justice; but to his character we

may ascribe the useful virtues of prudence and fortitude, the

knowledge of mankind, and the important art of gaining their

confidence and directing their passions. It is agreed that Leo

was a native of Isauria, and that Conon was his primitive name.

The writers, whose awkward satire is praise, describe him as an

itinerant pedler, who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise

to the country fairs; and foolishly relate that he met on the

road some Jewish fortune-tellers, who promised him the Roman

empire, on condition that he should abolish the worship of idols.

A more probable account relates the migration of his father from

Asia Minor to Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a

grazier; and he must have acquired considerable wealth, since the

first introduction of his son was procured by a supply of five

hundred sheep to the Imperial camp. His first service was in the

guards of Justinian, where he soon attracted the notice, and by

degrees the jealousy, of the tyrant. His valor and dexterity were

conspicuous in the Colchian war: from Anastasius he received the

command of the Anatolian legions, and by the suffrage of the

soldiers he was raised to the empire with the general applause of

the Roman world.—II. In this dangerous elevation, Leo the Third

supported himself against the envy of his equals, the discontent

of a powerful faction, and the assaults of his foreign and

domestic enemies. The Catholics, who accuse his religious

innovations, are obliged to confess that they were undertaken

with temper and conducted with firmness. Their silence respects

the wisdom of his administration and the purity of his manners.

After a reign of twenty-four years, he peaceably expired in the

palace of Constantinople; and the purple which he had acquired

was transmitted by the right of inheritance to the third

generation. 1115

1115 (return) [ During the latter part of his reign, the

hostilities of the Saracens, who invested a Pergamenian, named

Tiberius, with the purple, and proclaimed him as the son of

Justinian, and an earthquake, which destroyed the walls of

Constantinople, compelled Leo greatly to increase the burdens of

taxation upon his subjects. A twelfth was exacted in addition to

every aurena as a wall tax. Theophanes p. 275 Schlosser, Bilder

eturmeud Kaiser, p. 197.—M.]

In a long reign of thirty-four years, the son and successor of

Leo, Constantine the Fifth, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with

less temperate zeal the images or idols of the church. Their

votaries have exhausted the bitterness of religious gall, in

their portrait of this spotted panther, this antichrist, this

flying dragon of the serpent’s seed, who surpassed the vices of

Elagabalus and Nero. His reign was a long butchery of whatever

was most noble, or holy, or innocent, in his empire. In person,

the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed

their agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without

satiating, his appetite for blood: a plate of noses was accepted

as a grateful offering, and his domestics were often scourged or

mutilated by the royal hand. His surname was derived from his

pollution of his baptismal font. The infant might be excused; but

the manly pleasures of Copronymus degraded him below the level of

a brute; his lust confounded the eternal distinctions of sex and

species, and he seemed to extract some unnatural delight from the

objects most offensive to human sense. In his religion the

Iconoclast was a Heretic, a Jew, a Mahometan, a Pagan, and an

Atheist; and his belief of an invisible power could be discovered

only in his magic rites, human victims, and nocturnal sacrifices

to Venus and the daemons of antiquity. His life was stained with

the most opposite vices, and the ulcers which covered his body,

anticipated before his death the sentiment of hell-tortures. Of

these accusations, which I have so patiently copied, a part is

refuted by its own absurdity; and in the private anecdotes of the

life of the princes, the lie is more easy as the detection is

more difficult. Without adopting the pernicious maxim, that where

much is alleged, something must be true, I can however discern,

that Constantine the Fifth was dissolute and cruel. Calumny is

more prone to exaggerate than to invent; and her licentious

tongue is checked in some measure by the experience of the age

and country to which she appeals. Of the bishops and monks, the

generals and magistrates, who are said to have suffered under his

reign, the numbers are recorded, the names were conspicuous, the

execution was public, the mutilation visible and permanent. 1116

The Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but

even their hatred is a proof of their oppression. They dissembled

the provocations which might excuse or justify his rigor, but

even these provocations must gradually inflame his resentment and

harden his temper in the use or the abuse of despotism. Yet the

character of the fifth Constantine was not devoid of merit, nor

did his government always deserve the curses or the contempt of

the Greeks. From the confession of his enemies, I am informed of

the restoration of an ancient aqueduct, of the redemption of two

thousand five hundred captives, of the uncommon plenty of the

times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled

Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise

his activity and courage; he was on horseback in the field at the

head of his legions; and, although the fortune of his arms was

various, he triumphed by sea and land, on the Euphrates and the

Danube, in civil and Barbarian war. Heretical praise must be cast

into the scale to counterbalance the weight of orthodox

invective. The Iconoclasts revered the virtues of the prince:

forty years after his death they still prayed before the tomb of

the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated by fanaticism or

fraud: and the Christian hero appeared on a milk-white steed,

brandishing his lance against the Pagans of Bulgaria: “An absurd

fable,” says the Catholic historian, “since Copronymus is chained

with the daemons in the abyss of hell.”

1116 (return) [ He is accused of burning the library of

Constantinople, founded by Julian, with its president and twelve

professors. This eastern Sorbonne had discomfited the Imperial

theologians on the great question of image worship. Schlosser

observes that this accidental fire took place six years after the

emperor had laid the question of image-worship before the

professors. Bilder sturmand Kaiser, p. 294. Compare Le Heau. vol.

xl. p. 156.—M.]

Leo the Fourth, the son of the fifth and the father of the sixth

Constantine, was of a feeble constitution both of mind 1117 and

body, and the principal care of his reign was the settlement of

the succession. The association of the young Constantine was

urged by the officious zeal of his subjects; and the emperor,

conscious of his decay, complied, after a prudent hesitation,

with their unanimous wishes. The royal infant, at the age of five

years, was crowned with his mother Irene; and the national

consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and solemnity,

that could dazzle the eyes or bind the conscience of the Greeks.

An oath of fidelity was administered in the palace, the church,

and the hippodrome, to the several orders of the state, who

adjured the holy names of the Son, and mother of God. “Be

witness, O Christ! that we will watch over the safety of

Constantine the son of Leo, expose our lives in his service, and

bear true allegiance to his person and posterity.” They pledged

their faith on the wood of the true cross, and the act of their

engagement was deposited on the altar of St. Sophia. The first to

swear, and the first to violate their oath, were the five sons of

Copronymus by a second marriage; and the story of these princes

is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them

from the throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded

them of a legacy of about two millions sterling; some vain titles

were not deemed a sufficient compensation for wealth and power;

and they repeatedly conspired against their nephew, before and

after the death of his father. Their first attempt was pardoned;

for the second offence 1118 they were condemned to the

ecclesiastical state; and for the third treason, Nicephorus, the

eldest and most guilty, was deprived of his eyes, and his four

brothers, Christopher, Nicetas, Anthemeus, and Eudoxas, were

punished, as a milder sentence, by the amputation of their

tongues. After five years’ confinement, they escaped to the

church of St. Sophia, and displayed a pathetic spectacle to the

people. “Countrymen and Christians,” cried Nicephorus for himself

and his mute brethren, “behold the sons of your emperor, if you

can still recognize our features in this miserable state. A life,

an imperfect life, is all that the malice of our enemies has

spared. It is now threatened, and we now throw ourselves on your

compassion.” The rising murmur might have produced a revolution,

had it not been checked by the presence of a minister, who

soothed the unhappy princes with flattery and hope, and gently

drew them from the sanctuary to the palace. They were speedily

embarked for Greece, and Athens was allotted for the place of

their exile. In this calm retreat, and in their helpless

condition, Nicephorus and his brothers were tormented by the

thirst of power, and tempted by a Sclavonian chief, who offered

to break their prison, and to lead them in arms, and in the

purple, to the gates of Constantinople. But the Athenian people,

ever zealous in the cause of Irene, prevented her justice or

cruelty; and the five sons of Copronymus were plunged in eternal

darkness and oblivion.

1117 (return) [ Schlosser thinks more highly of Leo’s mind; but

his only proof of his superiority is the successes of his

generals against the Saracens, Schlosser, p. 256.—M.]

1118 (return) [ The second offence was on the accession of the

young Constantine—M.]

For himself, that emperor had chosen a Barbarian wife, the

daughter of the khan of the Chozars; but in the marriage of his

heir, he preferred an Athenian virgin, an orphan, seventeen years

old, whose sole fortune must have consisted in her personal

accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated

with royal pomp; she soon acquired the love and confidence of a

feeble husband, and in his testament he declared the empress

guardian of the Roman world, and of their son Constantine the

Sixth, who was no more than ten years of age. During his

childhood, Irene most ably and assiduously discharged, in her

public administration, the duties of a faithful mother; and her

zeal in the restoration of images has deserved the name and

honors of a saint, which she still occupies in the Greek

calendar. But the emperor attained the maturity of youth; the

maternal yoke became more grievous; and he listened to the

favorites of his own age, who shared his pleasures, and were

ambitious of sharing his power. Their reasons convinced him of

his right, their praises of his ability, to reign; and he

consented to reward the services of Irene by a perpetual

banishment to the Isle of Sicily. But her vigilance and

penetration easily disconcerted their rash projects: a similar,

or more severe, punishment was retaliated on themselves and their

advisers; and Irene inflicted on the ungrateful prince the

chastisement of a boy. After this contest, the mother and the son

were at the head of two domestic factions; and instead of mild

influence and voluntary obedience, she held in chains a captive

and an enemy. The empress was overthrown by the abuse of victory;

the oath of fidelity, which she exacted to herself alone, was

pronounced with reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the

Armenian guards encouraged a free and general declaration, that

Constantine the Sixth was the lawful emperor of the Romans. In

this character he ascended his hereditary throne, and dismissed

Irene to a life of solitude and repose. But her haughty spirit

condescended to the arts of dissimulation: she flattered the

bishops and eunuchs, revived the filial tenderness of the prince,

regained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The

character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or spirit;

but his education had been studiously neglected; and the

ambitious mother exposed to the public censure the vices which

she had nourished, and the actions which she had secretly

advised: his divorce and second marriage offended the prejudices

of the clergy, and by his imprudent rigor he forfeited the

attachment of the Armenian guards. A powerful conspiracy was

formed for the restoration of Irene; and the secret, though

widely diffused, was faithfully kept above eight months, till the

emperor, suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople,

with the design of appealing to the provinces and armies. By this

hasty flight, the empress was left on the brink of the precipice;

yet before she implored the mercy of her son, Irene addressed a

private epistle to the friends whom she had placed about his

person, with a menace, that unless they accomplished, she would

reveal, their treason. Their fear rendered them intrepid; they

seized the emperor on the Asiatic shore, and he was transported

to the porphyry apartment of the palace, where he had first seen

the light. In the mind of Irene, ambition had stifled every

sentiment of humanity and nature; and it was decreed in her

bloody council, that Constantine should be rendered incapable of

the throne: her emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and

stabbed their daggers with such violence and precipitation into

his eyes as if they meant to execute a mortal sentence. An

ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded the annalist of the

church that death was the immediate consequence of this barbarous

execution. The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by the

authority of Baronius; and Protestant zeal has reechoed the words

of a cardinal, desirous, as it should seem, to favor the

patroness of images. 1119 Yet the blind son of Irene survived

many years, oppressed by the court and forgotten by the world;

the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished; and the memory of

Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his daughter

Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second.

1119 (return) [ Gibbon has been attacked on account of this

statement, but is successfully defended by Schlosser. B S. Kaiser

p. 327. Compare Le Beau, c. xii p. 372.—M.]

The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the unnatural

mother, who may not easily be paralleled in the history of

crimes. To her bloody deed superstition has attributed a

subsequent darkness of seventeen days; during which many vessels

in midday were driven from their course, as if the sun, a globe

of fire so vast and so remote, could sympathize with the atoms of

a revolving planet. On earth, the crime of Irene was left five

years unpunished; her reign was crowned with external splendor;

and if she could silence the voice of conscience, she neither

heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world

bowed to the government of a female; and as she moved through the

streets of Constantinople, the reins of four milk-white steeds

were held by as many patricians, who marched on foot before the

golden chariot of their queen. But these patricians were for the

most part eunuchs; and their black ingratitude justified, on this

occasion, the popular hatred and contempt. Raised, enriched,

intrusted with the first dignities of the empire, they basely

conspired against their benefactress; the great treasurer

Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her successor

was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia by the

venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated with

dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy

of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her

unsuspicious clemency, and for the throne and treasures which she

resigned, solicited a decent and honorable retreat. His avarice

refused this modest compensation; and, in her exile of the Isle

of Lesbos, the empress earned a scanty subsistence by the labors

of her distaff.

Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than

Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the

universal abhorrence of their people. His character was stained

with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and

avarice: his want of virtue was not redeemed by any superior

talents, nor his want of talents by any pleasing qualifications.

Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by

the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians; and the advantage of

his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the destruction of

a Roman army. 1011 His son and heir Stauracius escaped from the

field with a mortal wound; yet six months of an expiring life

were sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular

declaration, that he would in all things avoid the example of his

father. On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great

master of the palace, and the husband of his sister Procopia, was

named by every person of the palace and city, except by his

envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre now falling from his

hand, he conspired against the life of his successor, and

cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman empire.

But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the

people and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael the

First accepted the purple, and before he sunk into the grave the

son of Nicephorus implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had

Michael in an age of peace ascended an hereditary throne, he

might have reigned and died the father of his people: but his

mild virtues were adapted to the shade of private life, nor was

he capable of controlling the ambition of his equals, or of

resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While his want

of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the

soldiers, the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened

their indignation. Even the Greeks of the ninth century were

provoked by the insolence of a female, who, in the front of the

standards, presumed to direct their discipline and animate their

valor; and their licentious clamors advised the new Semiramis to

reverence the majesty of a Roman camp. After an unsuccessful

campaign, the emperor left, in their winter-quarters of Thrace, a

disaffected army under the command of his enemies; and their

artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the dominion of

the eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to assert

the right of a military election. They marched towards the

capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of

Constantinople, adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops

and treasures of Asia might have protracted the mischiefs of

civil war. But his humanity (by the ambitious it will be termed

his weakness) protested that not a drop of Christian blood should

be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers presented the

conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They were

disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes

were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of

solitude and religion above thirty-two years after he had been

stripped of the purple and separated from his wife.

1011 (return) [ The Syrian historian Aboulfaradj. Chron. Syr. p.

133, 139, speaks of him as a brave, prudent, and pious prince,

formidable to the Arabs. St. Martin, c. xii. p. 402. Compare

Schlosser, p. 350.—M.]

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123 (return) [ Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle (A.D.