A rebel, in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate

Bardanes, had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet,

who, after prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of

his three principal officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the

Phrygian, and Thomas the Cappadocian, the successive reigns of

the two former, the fruitless and fatal enterprise of the third.

This prediction was verified, or rather was produced, by the

event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp rejected the

husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same Leo, the

first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As he

affected to hesitate, “With this sword,” said his companion

Michael, “I will open the gates of Constantinople to your

Imperial sway; or instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you

obstinately resist the just desires of your fellow-soldiers.” The

compliance of the Armenian was rewarded with the empire, and he

reigned seven years and a half under the name of Leo the Fifth.

Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws and letters, he

introduced into his civil government the rigor and even cruelty

of military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes

dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the

guilty. His religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of

Chameleon, but the Catholics have acknowledged by the voice of a

saint and confessors, that the life of the Iconoclast was useful

to the republic. The zeal of his companion Michael was repaid

with riches, honors, and military command; and his subordinate

talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet the

Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a scanty

portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal;

and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in hasty

discourse, at length assumed a more threatening and hostile

aspect against a prince whom he represented as a cruel tyrant.

That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected, warned, and dismissed

the old companion of his arms, till fear and resentment prevailed

over gratitude; and Michael, after a scrutiny into his actions

and designs, was convicted of treason, and sentenced to be burnt

alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity of

the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A

solemn day, the twenty-fifth of December, had been fixed for the

execution: she urged, that the anniversary of the Savior’s birth

would be profaned by this inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented

with reluctance to a decent respite. But on the vigil of the

feast his sleepless anxiety prompted him to visit at the dead of

night the chamber in which his enemy was confined: he beheld him

released from his chain, and stretched on his jailer’s bed in a

profound slumber. Leo was alarmed at these signs of security and

intelligence; but though he retired with silent steps, his

entrance and departure were noticed by a slave who lay concealed

in a corner of the prison. Under the pretence of requesting the

spiritual aid of a confessor, Michael informed the conspirators,

that their lives depended on his discretion, and that a few hours

were left to assure their own safety, by the deliverance of their

friend and country. On the great festivals, a chosen band of

priests and chanters was admitted into the palace by a private

gate to sing matins in the chapel; and Leo, who regulated with

the same strictness the discipline of the choir and of the camp,

was seldom absent from these early devotions. In the

ecclesiastical habit, but with their swords under their robes,

the conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the

angles of the chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the

intonation of the first psalm by the emperor himself. The

imperfect light, and the uniformity of dress, might have favored

his escape, whilst their assault was pointed against a harmless

priest; but they soon discovered their mistake, and encompassed

on all sides the royal victim. Without a weapon and without a

friend, he grasped a weighty cross, and stood at bay against the

hunters of his life; but as he asked for mercy, “This is the

hour, not of mercy, but of vengeance,” was the inexorable reply.

The stroke of a well-aimed sword separated from his body the

right arm and the cross, and Leo the Armenian was slain at the

foot of the altar. A memorable reverse of fortune was displayed

in Michael the Second, who from a defect in his speech was

surnamed the Stammerer. He was snatched from the fiery furnace to

the sovereignty of an empire; and as in the tumult a smith could

not readily be found, the fetters remained on his legs several

hours after he was seated on the throne of the Caesars. The royal

blood which had been the price of his elevation, was unprofitably

spent: in the purple he retained the ignoble vices of his origin;

and Michael lost his provinces with as supine indifference as if

they had been the inheritance of his fathers. His title was

disputed by Thomas, the last of the military triumvirate, who

transported into Europe fourscore thousand Barbarians from the

banks of the Tigris and the shores of the Caspian. He formed the

siege of Constantinople; but the capital was defended with

spiritual and carnal weapons; a Bulgarian king assaulted the camp

of the Orientals, and Thomas had the misfortune, or the weakness,

to fall alive into the power of the conqueror. The hands and feet

of the rebel were amputated; he was placed on an ass, and, amidst

the insults of the people, was led through the streets, which he

sprinkled with his blood. The depravation of manners, as savage

as they were corrupt, is marked by the presence of the emperor

himself. Deaf to the lamentation of a fellow-soldier, he

incessantly pressed the discovery of more accomplices, till his

curiosity was checked by the question of an honest or guilty

minister: “Would you give credit to an enemy against the most

faithful of your friends?” After the death of his first wife, the

emperor, at the request of the senate, drew from her monastery

Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine the Sixth. Her august

birth might justify a stipulation in the marriage-contract, that

her children should equally share the empire with their elder

brother. But the nuptials of Michael and Euphrosyne were barren;

and she was content with the title of mother of Theophilus, his

son and successor.

The character of Theophilus is a rare example in which religious

zeal has allowed, and perhaps magnified, the virtues of a heretic

and a persecutor. His valor was often felt by the enemies, and

his justice by the subjects, of the monarchy; but the valor of

Theophilus was rash and fruitless, and his justice arbitrary and

cruel. He displayed the banner of the cross against the Saracens;

but his five expeditions were concluded by a signal overthrow:

Amorium, the native city of his ancestors, was levelled with the

ground and from his military toils he derived only the surname of

the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign is comprised in the

institution of laws and the choice of magistrates, and while he

seems without action, his civil government revolves round his

centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But

the justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the

Oriental despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of

authority, consult the reason or passion of the moment, without

measuring the sentence by the law, or the penalty by the offense.

A poor woman threw herself at the emperor’s feet to complain of a

powerful neighbor, the brother of the empress, who had raised his

palace-wall to such an inconvenient height, that her humble

dwelling was excluded from light and air! On the proof of the

fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or

ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use

and benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theophilus content

with this extravagant satisfaction: his zeal converted a civil

trespass into a criminal act; and the unfortunate patrician was

stripped and scourged in the public place of Constantinople. For

some venial offenses, some defect of equity or vigilance, the

principal ministers, a præfect, a quaestor, a captain of the

guards, were banished or mutilated, or scalded with boiling

pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome; and as these dreadful

examples might be the effects of error or caprice, they must have

alienated from his service the best and wisest of the citizens.

But the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise of

power, or, as he thought, of virtue; and the people, safe in

their obscurity, applauded the danger and debasement of their

superiors. This extraordinary rigor was justified, in some

measure, by its salutary consequences; since, after a scrutiny of

seventeen days, not a complaint or abuse could be found in the

court or city; and it might be alleged that the Greeks could be

ruled only with a rod of iron, and that the public interest is

the motive and law of the supreme judge. Yet in the crime, or the

suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the most

credulous and partial. Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance

on the assassins of Leo and the saviors of his father; but he

enjoyed the fruits of their crime; and his jealous tyranny

sacrificed a brother and a prince to the future safety of his

life. A Persian of the race of the Sassanides died in poverty and

exile at Constantinople, leaving an only son, the issue of a

plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years, the royal birth of

Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not unworthy of his

birth. He was educated in the Byzantine palace, a Christian and a

soldier; advanced with rapid steps in the career of fortune and

glory; received the hand of the emperor’s sister; and was

promoted to the command of thirty thousand Persians, who, like

his father, had fled from the Mahometan conquerors. These troops,

doubly infected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were desirous

of revolting against their benefactor, and erecting the standard

of their native king but the loyal Theophobus rejected their

offers, disconcerted their schemes, and escaped from their hands

to the camp or palace of his royal brother. A generous confidence

might have secured a faithful and able guardian for his wife and

his infant son, to whom Theophilus, in the flower of his age, was

compelled to leave the inheritance of the empire. But his

jealousy was exasperated by envy and disease; he feared the

dangerous virtues which might either support or oppress their

infancy and weakness; and the dying emperor demanded the head of

the Persian prince. With savage delight he recognized the

familiar features of his brother: “Thou art no longer

Theophobus,” he said; and, sinking on his couch, he added, with a

faltering voice, “Soon, too soon, I shall be no more Theophilus!”

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

III.

The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part

of their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the

last century, a singular institution in the marriage of the Czar.

They collected, not the virgins of every rank and of every

province, a vain and romantic idea, but the daughters of the

principal nobles, who awaited in the palace the choice of their

sovereign. It is affirmed, that a similar method was adopted in

the nuptials of Theophilus. With a golden apple in his hand, he

slowly walked between two lines of contending beauties: his eye

was detained by the charms of Icasia, and in the awkwardness of a

first declaration, the prince could only observe, that, in this

world, women had been the cause of much evil; “And surely, sir,”

she pertly replied, “they have likewise been the occasion of much

good.” This affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the

Imperial lover: he turned aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her

mortification in a convent; and the modest silence of Theodora

was rewarded with the golden apple. She deserved the love, but

did not escape the severity, of her lord. From the palace garden

he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the port: on

the discovery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the

property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a

sharp reproach, that her avarice had degraded the character of an

empress into that of a merchant. Yet his last choice intrusted

her with the guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who

was left an orphan in the fifth year of his age. The restoration

of images, and the final extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has

endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks; but in the

fervor of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a grateful regard

for the memory and salvation of her husband. After thirteen years

of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the decline

of her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues

of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or

government of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though

not without a murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring

the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the

worthless youth. Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we

have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the

character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object

of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. Whatever might have

been the maternal care of Theodora in the education of Michael

the Third, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a man. If

the ambitious mother labored to check the progress of reason, she

could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish policy

was justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the

headstrong youth. At the age of eighteen, he rejected her

authority, without feeling his own incapacity to govern the

empire and himself. With Theodora, all gravity and wisdom retired

from the court; their place was supplied by the alternate

dominion of vice and folly; and it was impossible, without

forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or preserve the favor of

the emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been

accumulated for the service of the state, were lavished on the

vilest of men, who flattered his passions and shared his

pleasures; and in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of

sovereigns was compelled to strip the palace and the churches of

their precious furniture. Like Nero, he delighted in the

amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the

accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the

studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a

liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus

were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four

factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the idleness,

of the capital: for himself, the emperor assumed the blue livery;

the three rival colors were distributed to his favorites, and in

the vile though eager contention he forgot the dignity of his

person and the safety of his dominions. He silenced the messenger

of an invasion, who presumed to divert his attention in the most

critical moment of the race; and by his command, the importunate

beacons were extinguished, that too frequently spread the alarm

from Tarsus to Constantinople. The most skilful charioteers

obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their

merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their

houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and

while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the

cold and stately reserve of his predecessors. The unnatural lusts

which had degraded even the manhood of Nero, were banished from

the world; yet the strength of Michael was consumed by the

indulgence of love and intemperance. 1012 In his midnight revels,

when his passions were inflamed by wine, he was provoked to issue

the most sanguinary commands; and if any feelings of humanity

were left, he was reduced, with the return of sense, to approve

the salutary disobedience of his servants. But the most

extraordinary feature in the character of Michael, is the profane

mockery of the religion of his country. The superstition of the

Greeks might indeed excite the smile of a philosopher; but his

smile would have been rational and temperate, and he must have

condemned the ignorant folly of a youth who insulted the objects

of public veneration. A buffoon of the court was invested in the

robes of the patriarch: his twelve metropolitans, among whom the

emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments: they

used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and in their

bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a

nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious

spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day of a

solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode

on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at

the head of his clergy; and by their licentious shouts and

obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian

procession. The devotion of Michael appeared only in some offence

to reason or piety: he received his theatrical crowns from the

statue of the Virgin; and an Imperial tomb was violated for the

sake of burning the bones of Constantine the Iconoclast. By this

extravagant conduct, the son of Theophilus became as contemptible

as he was odious: every citizen was impatient for the deliverance

of his country; and even the favorites of the moment were

apprehensive that a caprice might snatch away what a caprice had

bestowed. In the thirtieth year of his age, and in the hour of

intoxication and sleep, Michael the Third was murdered in his

chamber by the founder of a new dynasty, whom the emperor had

raised to an equality of rank and power.

1012 (return) [ In a campaign against the Saracens, he betrayed

both imbecility and cowardice. Genesius, c. iv. p. 94.—M.]

The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian (if it be not the spurious

offspring of pride and flattery) exhibits a genuine picture of

the revolution of the most illustrious families. The Arsacides,

the rivals of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near four

hundred years: a younger branch of these Parthian kings continued

to reign in Armenia; and their royal descendants survived the

partition and servitude of that ancient monarchy. Two of these,

Artabanus and Chlienes, escaped or retired to the court of Leo

the First: his bounty seated them in a safe and hospitable exile,

in the province of Macedonia: Adrianople was their final

settlement. During several generations they maintained the

dignity of their birth; and their Roman patriotism rejected the

tempting offers of the Persian and Arabian powers, who recalled

them to their native country. But their splendor was insensibly

clouded by time and poverty; and the father of Basil was reduced

to a small farm, which he cultivated with his own hands: yet he

scorned to disgrace the blood of the Arsacides by a plebeian

alliance: his wife, a widow of Adrianople, was pleased to count

among her ancestors the great Constantine; and their royal infant

was connected by some dark affinity of lineage or country with

the Macedonian Alexander. No sooner was he born, than the cradle

of Basil, his family, and his city, were swept away by an

inundation of the Bulgarians: he was educated a slave in a

foreign land; and in this severe discipline, he acquired the

hardiness of body and flexibility of mind which promoted his

future elevation. In the age of youth or manhood he shared the

deliverance of the Roman captives, who generously broke their

fetters, marched through Bulgaria to the shores of the Euxine,

defeated two armies of Barbarians, embarked in the ships which

had been stationed for their reception, and returned to

Constantinople, from whence they were distributed to their

respective homes. But the freedom of Basil was naked and

destitute: his farm was ruined by the calamities of war: after

his father’s death, his manual labor, or service, could no longer

support a family of orphans and he resolved to seek a more

conspicuous theatre, in which every virtue and every vice may

lead to the paths of greatness. The first night of his arrival at

Constantinople, without friends or money, the weary pilgrim slept

on the steps of the church of St. Diomede: he was fed by the

casual hospitality of a monk; and was introduced to the service

of a cousin and namesake of the emperor Theophilus; who, though

himself of a diminutive person, was always followed by a train of

tall and handsome domestics. Basil attended his patron to the

government of Peloponnesus; eclipsed, by his personal merit the

birth and dignity of Theophilus, and formed a useful connection

with a wealthy and charitable matron of Patras. Her spiritual or

carnal love embraced the young adventurer, whom she adopted as

her son. Danielis presented him with thirty slaves; and the

produce of her bounty was expended in the support of his

brothers, and the purchase of some large estates in Macedonia.

His gratitude or ambition still attached him to the service of

Theophilus; and a lucky accident recommended him to the notice of

the court. A famous wrestler, in the train of the Bulgarian

ambassadors, had defied, at the royal banquet, the boldest and

most robust of the Greeks. The strength of Basil was praised; he

accepted the challenge; and the Barbarian champion was overthrown

at the first onset. A beautiful but vicious horse was condemned

to be hamstrung: it was subdued by the dexterity and courage of

the servant of Theophilus; and his conqueror was promoted to an

honorable rank in the Imperial stables. But it was impossible to

obtain the confidence of Michael, without complying with his

vices; and his new favorite, the great chamberlain of the palace,

was raised and supported by a disgraceful marriage with a royal

concubine, and the dishonor of his sister, who succeeded to her

place. The public administration had been abandoned to the Caesar

Bardas, the brother and enemy of Theodora; but the arts of female

influence persuaded Michael to hate and to fear his uncle: he was

drawn from Constantinople, under the pretence of a Cretan

expedition, and stabbed in the tent of audience, by the sword of

the chamberlain, and in the presence of the emperor. About a

month after this execution, Basil was invested with the title of

Augustus and the government of the empire. He supported this

unequal association till his influence was fortified by popular

esteem. His life was endangered by the caprice of the emperor;

and his dignity was profaned by a second colleague, who had rowed

in the galleys. Yet the murder of his benefactor must be

condemned as an act of ingratitude and treason; and the churches

which he dedicated to the name of St. Michael were a poor and

puerile expiation of his guilt. The different ages of Basil the

First may be compared with those of Augustus. The situation of

the Greek did not allow him in his earliest youth to lead an army

against his country; or to proscribe the nobles of her sons; but

his aspiring genius stooped to the arts of a slave; he dissembled

his ambition and even his virtues, and grasped, with the bloody

hand of an assassin, the empire which he ruled with the wisdom

and tenderness of a parent.

A private citizen may feel his interest repugnant to his duty;

but it must be from a deficiency of sense or courage, that an

absolute monarch can separate his happiness from his glory, or

his glory from the public welfare. The life or panegyric of Basil

has indeed been composed and published under the long reign of

his descendants; but even their stability on the throne may be

justly ascribed to the superior merit of their ancestor. In his

character, his grandson Constantine has attempted to delineate a

perfect image of royalty: but that feeble prince, unless he had

copied a real model, could not easily have soared so high above

the level of his own conduct or conceptions. But the most solid

praise of Basil is drawn from the comparison of a ruined and a

flourishing monarchy, that which he wrested from the dissolute

Michael, and that which he bequeathed to the Mecedonian dynasty.

The evils which had been sanctified by time and example, were

corrected by his master-hand; and he revived, if not the national

spirit, at least the order and majesty of the Roman empire. His

application was indefatigable, his temper cool, his understanding

vigorous and decisive; and in his practice he observed that rare

and salutary moderation, which pursues each virtue, at an equal

distance between the opposite vices. His military service had

been confined to the palace: nor was the emperor endowed with the

spirit or the talents of a warrior. Yet under his reign the Roman

arms were again formidable to the Barbarians. As soon as he had

formed a new army by discipline and exercise, he appeared in

person on the banks of the Euphrates, curbed the pride of the

Saracens, and suppressed the dangerous though just revolt of the

Manichaeans. His indignation against a rebel who had long eluded

his pursuit, provoked him to wish and to pray, that, by the grace

of God, he might drive three arrows into the head of Chrysochir.

That odious head, which had been obtained by treason rather than

by valor, was suspended from a tree, and thrice exposed to the

dexterity of the Imperial archer; a base revenge against the

dead, more worthy of the times than of the character of Basil.

But his principal merit was in the civil administration of the

finances and of the laws. To replenish an exhausted treasury, it

was proposed to resume the lavish and ill-placed gifts of his

predecessor: his prudence abated one moiety of the restitution;

and a sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds was instantly

procured to answer the most pressing demands, and to allow some

space for the mature operations of economy. Among the various

schemes for the improvement of the revenue, a new mode was

suggested of capitation, or tribute, which would have too much

depended on the arbitrary discretion of the assessors. A

sufficient list of honest and able agents was instantly produced

by the minister; but on the more careful scrutiny of Basil

himself, only two could be found, who might be safely intrusted

with such dangerous powers; but they justified his esteem by

declining his confidence. But the serious and successful

diligence of the emperor established by degrees the equitable

balance of property and payment, of receipt and expenditure; a

peculiar fund was appropriated to each service; and a public

method secured the interest of the prince and the property of the

people. After reforming the luxury, he assigned two patrimonial

estates to supply the decent plenty, of the Imperial table: the

contributions of the subject were reserved for his defence; and

the residue was employed in the embellishment of the capital and

provinces. A taste for building, however costly, may deserve some

praise and much excuse: from thence industry is fed, art is

encouraged, and some object is attained of public emolument or

pleasure: the use of a road, an aqueduct, or a hospital, is

obvious and solid; and the hundred churches that arose by the

command of Basil were consecrated to the devotion of the age. In

the character of a judge he was assiduous and impartial; desirous

to save, but not afraid to strike: the oppressors of the people

were severely chastised; but his personal foes, whom it might be

unsafe to pardon, were condemned, after the loss of their eyes,

to a life of solitude and repentance. The change of language and

manners demanded a revision of the obsolete jurisprudence of

Justinian: the voluminous body of his Institutes, Pandects, Code,

and Novels, was digested under forty titles, in the Greek idiom;

and the Basilics, which were improved and completed by his son

and grandson, must be referred to the original genius of the

founder of their race. This glorious reign was terminated by an

accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his horns in the

belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse: he was rescued by

an attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall,

or the fever, exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he

expired in the palace amidst the tears of his family and people.

If he struck off the head of the faithful servant for presuming

to draw his sword against his sovereign, the pride of despotism,

which had lain dormant in his life, revived in the last moments

of despair, when he no longer wanted or valued the opinion of

mankind.

Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his

father, whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering

impostor and a vain apparition. Stephen, the youngest, was

content with the honors of a patriarch and a saint; both Leo and

Alexander were alike invested with the purple, but the powers of

government were solely exercised by the elder brother. The name

of Leo the Sixth has been dignified with the title of

philosopher; and the union of the prince and the sage, of the

active and speculative virtues, would indeed constitute the

perfection of human nature. But the claims of Leo are far short

of this ideal excellence. Did he reduce his passions and

appetites under the dominion of reason? His life was spent in the

pomp of the palace, in the society of his wives and concubines;

and even the clemency which he showed, and the peace which he

strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness and indolence

of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those of his

subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile superstition;

the influence of the clergy, and the errors of the people, were

consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in

prophetic style, the fates of the empire, are founded on the arts

of astrology and divination. If we still inquire the reason of

his sage appellation, it can only be replied, that the son of

Basil was less ignorant than the greater part of his

contemporaries in church and state; that his education had been

directed by the learned Photius; and that several books of

profane and ecclesiastical science were composed by the pen, or

in the name, of the Imperial philosopher. But the reputation of

his philosophy and religion was overthrown by a domestic vice,

the repetition of his nuptials. The primitive ideas of the merit

and holiness of celibacy were preached by the monks and

entertained by the Greeks. Marriage was allowed as a necessary

means for the propagation of mankind; after the death of either

party, the survivor might satisfy, by a second union, the

weakness or the strength of the flesh: but a third marriage was

censured as a state of legal fornication; and a fourth was a sin

or scandal as yet unknown to the Christians of the East. In the

beginning of his reign, Leo himself had abolished the state of

concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages:

but his patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own

laws, and to incur the penance, which in a similar case he had

imposed on his subjects. In his three first alliances, his

nuptial bed was unfruitful; the emperor required a female

companion, and the empire a legitimate heir. The beautiful Zoe

was introduced into the palace as a concubine; and after a trial

of her fecundity, and the birth of Constantine, her lover

declared his intention of legitimating the mother and the child,

by the celebration of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch

Nicholas refused his blessing: the Imperial baptism of the young

prince was obtained by a promise of separation; and the

contumacious husband of Zoe was excluded from the communion of

the faithful. Neither the fear of exile, nor the desertion of his

brethren, nor the authority of the Latin church, nor the danger

of failure or doubt in the succession to the empire, could bend

the spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of Leo, he was

recalled from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical

administration; and the edict of union which was promulgated in

the name of Constantine, condemned the future scandal of fourth

marriages, and left a tacit imputation on his own birth. In the

Greek language, purple and porphyry are the same word: and as the

colors of nature are invariable, we may learn, that a dark deep

red was the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients.

An apartment of the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry: it

was reserved for the use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal

birth of their children was expressed by the appellation of

porphyrogenite, or born in the purple. Several of the Roman

princes had been blessed with an heir; but this peculiar surname

was first applied to Constantine the Seventh. His life and

titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years,

six had elapsed before his father’s death; and the son of Leo was

ever the voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed

his weakness or abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who

had long been invested with the title of Augustus, was the first

colleague and governor of the young prince: but in a rapid career

of vice and folly, the brother of Leo already emulated the

reputation of Michael; and when he was extinguished by a timely

death, he entertained a project of castrating his nephew, and

leaving the empire to a worthless favorite. The succeeding years

of the minority of Constantine were occupied by his mother Zoe,

and a succession or council of seven regents, who pursued their

interest, gratified their passions, abandoned the republic,

supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence of a

soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised

himself to the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of

the times, had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national

esteem. With a victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from

the mouth of the Danube into the harbor of Constantinople, and

was hailed as the deliverer of the people, and the guardian of

the prince. His supreme office was at first defined by the new

appellation of father of the emperor; but Romanus soon disdained

the subordinate powers of a minister, and assumed with the titles

of Caesar and Augustus, the full independence of royalty, which

he held near five-and-twenty years. His three sons, Christopher,

Stephen, and Constantine were successively adorned with the same

honors, and the lawful emperor was degraded from the first to the

fifth rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the preservation

of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own fortune and

the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and modern

history would have excused the ambition of Romanus: the powers

and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth

of Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave

or the monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine.

But Lecapenus does not appear to have possessed either the

virtues or the vices of a tyrant. The spirit and activity of his

private life dissolved away in the sunshine of the throne; and in

his licentious pleasures, he forgot the safety both of the

republic and of his family. Of a mild and religious character, he

respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence of the youth, the

memory of his parents, and the attachment of the people. The

studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the

jealousy of power: his books and music, his pen and his pencil,

were a constant source of amusement; and if he could improve a

scanty allowance by the sale of his pictures, if their price was

not enhanced by the name of the artist, he was endowed with a

personal talent, which few princes could employ in the hour of

adversity.

The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of

his children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son,

the two surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and

conspired against their father. At the hour of noon, when all

strangers were regularly excluded from the palace, they entered

his apartment with an armed force, and conveyed him, in the habit

of a monk, to a small island in the Propontis, which was peopled

by a religious community. The rumor of this domestic revolution

excited a tumult in the city; but Porphyrogenitus alone, the true

and lawful emperor, was the object of the public care; and the

sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy experience, that they had

achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for the benefit of

their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine,

revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating

her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were

alarmed, and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded

from the purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery

where their father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met

them on the beach with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just

reproach of their folly and ingratitude, presented his Imperial

colleagues with an equal share of his water and vegetable diet.

In the fortieth year of his reign, Constantine the Seventh

obtained the possession of the Eastern world, which he ruled or

seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid of that

energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and

glory; and the studies, which had amused and dignified his

leisure, were incompatible with the serious duties of a

sovereign. The emperor neglected the practice to instruct his son

Romanus in the theory of government; while he indulged the habits

of intemperance and sloth, he dropped the reins of the

administration into the hands of Helena his wife; and, in the

shifting scene of her favor and caprice, each minister was

regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the

birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the

Greeks; they excused his failings; they respected his learning,

his innocence, and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony

of his funeral was mourned with the unfeigned tears of his

subjects. The body, according to ancient custom, lay in state in

the vestibule of the palace; and the civil and military officers,

the patricians, the senate, and the clergy approached in due

order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their sovereign.

Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre, a

herald proclaimed this awful admonition: “Arise, O king of the

world, and obey the summons of the King of kings!”

The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son

Romanus, who derived that name from his maternal grandfather,

ascended the throne of Constantinople. A prince who, at the age

of twenty, could be suspected of anticipating his inheritance,

must have been already lost in the public esteem; yet Romanus was

rather weak than wicked; and the largest share of the guilt was

transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of base origin

masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of personal

glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were

unknown to the son of Constantine; and, while the two brothers,

Nicephorus and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which

the emperor owed to his people were consumed in strenuous

idleness. In the morning he visited the circus; at noon he

feasted the senators; the greater part of the afternoon he spent

in the sphoeristerium, or tennis-court, the only theatre of his

victories; from thence he passed over to the Asiatic side of the

Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild boars of the largest size,

and returned to the palace, proudly content with the labors of

the day. In strength and beauty he was conspicuous above his

equals: tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion was

fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his

nose long and aquiline. Yet even these perfections were

insufficient to fix the love of Theophano; and, after a reign of

four 1013 years, she mingled for her husband the same deadly

draught which she had composed for his father.

1013 (return) [ Three years and five months. Leo Diaconus in

Niebuhr. Byz p. 50—M.]

By his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the younger left

two sons, Basil the Second and Constantine the Ninth, and two

daughters, Theophano and Anne. The eldest sister was given to

Otho the Second, emperor of the West; the younger became the wife

of Wolodomir, great duke and apostle of russia, and by the

marriage of her granddaughter with Henry the First, king of

France, the blood of the Macedonians, and perhaps of the

Arsacides, still flows in the veins of the Bourbon line. After

the death of her husband, the empress aspired to reign in the

name of her sons, the elder of whom was five, and the younger

only two, years of age; but she soon felt the instability of a

throne which was supported by a female who could not be esteemed,

and two infants who could not be feared. Theophano looked around

for a protector, and threw herself into the arms of the bravest

soldier; her heart was capacious; but the deformity of the new

favorite rendered it more than probable that interest was the

motive and excuse of her love. Nicephorus Phocus united, in the

popular opinion, the double merit of a hero and a saint. In the

former character, his qualifications were genuine and splendid:

the descendant of a race illustrious by their military exploits,

he had displayed in every station and in every province the

courage of a soldier and the conduct of a chief; and Nicephorus

was crowned with recent laurels, from the important conquest of

the Isle of Crete. His religion was of a more ambiguous cast; and

his hair-cloth, his fasts, his pious idiom, and his wish to

retire from the business of the world, were a convenient mask for

his dark and dangerous ambition. Yet he imposed on a holy

patriarch, by whose influence, and by a decree of the senate, he

was intrusted, during the minority of the young princes, with the

absolute and independent command of the Oriental armies. As soon

as he had secured the leaders and the troops, he boldly marched

to Constantinople, trampled on his enemies, avowed his

correspondence with the empress, and without degrading her sons,

assumed, with the title of Augustus, the preeminence of rank and

the plenitude of power. But his marriage with Theophano was

refused by the same patriarch who had placed the crown on his

head: by his second nuptials he incurred a year of canonical

penance; 1014 a bar of spiritual affinity was opposed to their

celebration; and some evasion and perjury were required to

silence the scruples of the clergy and people. The popularity of

the emperor was lost in the purple: in a reign of six years he

provoked the hatred of strangers and subjects: and the hypocrisy

and avarice of the first Nicephorus were revived in his

successor. Hypocrisy I shall never justify or palliate; but I

will dare to observe, that the odious vice of avarice is of all

others most hastily arraigned, and most unmercifully condemned.

In a private citizen, our judgment seldom expects an accurate

scrutiny into his fortune and expense; and in a steward of the

public treasure, frugality is always a virtue, and the increase

of taxes too often an indispensable duty. In the use of his

patrimony, the generous temper of Nicephorus had been proved; and

the revenue was strictly applied to the service of the state:

each spring the emperor marched in person against the Saracens;

and every Roman might compute the employment of his taxes in

triumphs, conquests, and the security of the Eastern barrier.

1015

1014 (return) [ The canonical objection to the marriage was his

relation of Godfather sons. Leo Diac. p. 50.—M.]

1015 (return) [ He retook Antioch, and brought home as a trophy

the sword of “the most unholy and impious Mahomet.” Leo Diac. p.

76.—M.]

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

IV.

Among the warriors who promoted his elevation, and served under

his standard, a noble and valiant Armenian had deserved and

obtained the most eminent rewards. The stature of John Zimisces

was below the ordinary standard: but this diminutive body was

endowed with strength, beauty, and the soul of a hero. By the

jealousy of the emperor’s brother, he was degraded from the

office of general of the East, to that of director of the posts,

and his murmurs were chastised with disgrace and exile. But

Zimisces was ranked among the numerous lovers of the empress: on

her intercession, he was permitted to reside at Chalcedon, in the

neighborhood of the capital: her bounty was repaid in his

clandestine and amorous visits to the palace; and Theophano

consented, with alacrity, to the death of an ugly and penurious

husband. Some bold and trusty conspirators were concealed in her

most private chambers: in the darkness of a winter night,

Zimisces, with his principal companions, embarked in a small

boat, traversed the Bosphorus, landed at the palace stairs, and

silently ascended a ladder of ropes, which was cast down by the

female attendants. Neither his own suspicions, nor the warnings

of his friends, nor the tardy aid of his brother Leo, nor the

fortress which he had erected in the palace, could protect

Nicephorus from a domestic foe, at whose voice every door was

open to the assassins. As he slept on a bear-skin on the ground,

he was roused by their noisy intrusion, and thirty daggers

glittered before his eyes. It is doubtful whether Zimisces

imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign; but he enjoyed

the inhuman spectacle of revenge. 1016 The murder was protracted

by insult and cruelty: and as soon as the head of Nicephorus was

shown from the window, the tumult was hushed, and the Armenian

was emperor of the East. On the day of his coronation, he was

stopped on the threshold of St. Sophia, by the intrepid

patriarch; who charged his conscience with the deed of treason

and blood; and required, as a sign of repentance, that he should

separate himself from his more criminal associate. This sally of

apostolic zeal was not offensive to the prince, since he could

neither love nor trust a woman who had repeatedly violated the

most sacred obligations; and Theophano, instead of sharing his

imperial fortune, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed and

palace. In their last interview, she displayed a frantic and

impotent rage; accused the ingratitude of her lover; assaulted,

with words and blows, her son Basil, as he stood silent and

submissive in the presence of a superior colleague; and avowed

her own prostitution in proclaiming the illegitimacy of his

birth. The public indignation was appeased by her exile, and the

punishment of the meaner accomplices: the death of an unpopular

prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten in

the splendor of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less

useful to the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his

gentle and generous behavior delighted all who approached his

person; and it was only in the paths of victory that he trod in

the footsteps of his predecessor. The greatest part of his reign

was employed in the camp and the field: his personal valor and

activity were signalized on the Danube and the Tigris, the

ancient boundaries of the Roman world; and by his double triumph

over the Russians and the Saracens, he deserved the titles of

savior of the empire, and conqueror of the East. In his last

return from Syria, he observed that the most fruitful lands of

his new provinces were possessed by the eunuchs. “And is it for

them,” he exclaimed, with honest indignation, “that we have

fought and conquered? Is it for them that we shed our blood, and

exhaust the treasures of our people?” The complaint was reechoed

to the palace, and the death of Zimisces is strongly marked with

the suspicion of poison.

1016 (return) [ According to Leo Diaconus, Zimisces, after

ordering the wounded emperor to be dragged to his feet, and

heaping him with insult, to which the miserable man only replied

by invoking the name of the “mother of God,” with his own hand

plucked his beard, while his accomplices beat out his teeth with

the hilts of their swords, and then trampling him to the ground,

drove his sword into his skull. Leo Diac, in Niebuhr Byz. Hist. l

vii. c. 8. p. 88.—M.]

Under this usurpation, or regency, of twelve years, the two

lawful emperors, Basil and Constantine, had silently grown to the

age of manhood. Their tender years had been incapable of

dominion: the respectful modesty of their attendance and

salutation was due to the age and merit of their guardians; the

childless ambition of those guardians had no temptation to

violate their right of succession: their patrimony was ably and

faithfully administered; and the premature death of Zimisces was

a loss, rather than a benefit, to the sons of Romanus. Their want

of experience detained them twelve years longer the obscure and

voluntary pupils of a minister, who extended his reign by

persuading them to indulge the pleasures of youth, and to disdain

the labors of government. In this silken web, the weakness of

Constantine was forever entangled; but his elder brother felt the

impulse of genius and the desire of action; he frowned, and the

minister was no more. Basil was the acknowledged sovereign of

Constantinople and the provinces of Europe; but Asia was

oppressed by two veteran generals, Phocas and Sclerus, who,

alternately friends and enemies, subjects and rebels, maintained

their independence, and labored to emulate the example of

successful usurpation. Against these domestic enemies the son of

Romanus first drew his sword, and they trembled in the presence

of a lawful and high-spirited prince. The first, in the front of

battle, was thrown from his horse, by the stroke of poison, or an

arrow; the second, who had been twice loaded with chains, 1017

and twice invested with the purple, was desirous of ending in

peace the small remainder of his days. As the aged suppliant

approached the throne, with dim eyes and faltering steps, leaning

on his two attendants, the emperor exclaimed, in the insolence of

youth and power, “And is this the man who has so long been the

object of our terror?” After he had confirmed his own authority,

and the peace of the empire, the trophies of Nicephorus and

Zimisces would not suffer their royal pupil to sleep in the

palace. His long and frequent expeditions against the Saracens

were rather glorious than useful to the empire; but the final

destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears, since the time of

Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman arms. Yet,

instead of applauding their victorious prince, his subjects

detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil; and in the

imperfect narrative of his exploits, we can only discern the

courage, patience, and ferociousness of a soldier. A vicious

education, which could not subdue his spirit, had clouded his

mind; he was ignorant of every science; and the remembrance of

his learned and feeble grandsire might encourage his real or

affected contempt of laws and lawyers, of artists and arts. Of

such a character, in such an age, superstition took a firm and

lasting possession; after the first license of his youth, Basil

the Second devoted his life, in the palace and the camp, to the

penance of a hermit, wore the monastic habit under his robes and

armor, observed a vow of continence, and imposed on his appetites

a perpetual abstinence from wine and flesh. In the sixty-eighth

year of his age, his martial spirit urged him to embark in person

for a holy war against the Saracens of Sicily; he was prevented

by death, and Basil, surnamed the Slayer of the Bulgarians, was

dismissed from the world with the blessings of the clergy and the

curse of the people. After his decease, his brother Constantine

enjoyed, about three years, the power, or rather the pleasures,

of royalty; and his only care was the settlement of the

succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six years the title of Augustus;

and the reign of the two brothers is the longest, and most

obscure, of the Byzantine history.

1017 (return) [ Once by the caliph, once by his rival Phocas.

Compare De Beau l. p. 176.—M.]

A lineal succession of five emperors, in a period of one hundred

and sixty years, had attached the loyalty of the Greeks to the

Macedonian dynasty, which had been thrice respected by the

usurpers of their power. After the death of Constantine the

Ninth, the last male of the royal race, a new and broken scene

presents itself, and the accumulated years of twelve emperors do

not equal the space of his single reign. His elder brother had

preferred his private chastity to the public interest, and

Constantine himself had only three daughters; Eudocia, who took

the veil, and Zoe and Theodora, who were preserved till a mature

age in a state of ignorance and virginity. When their marriage

was discussed in the council of their dying father, the cold or

pious Theodora refused to give an heir to the empire, but her

sister Zoe presented herself a willing victim at the altar.

Romanus Argyrus, a patrician of a graceful person and fair

reputation, was chosen for her husband, and, on his declining

that honor, was informed, that blindness or death was the second

alternative. The motive of his reluctance was conjugal affection

but his faithful wife sacrificed her own happiness to his safety

and greatness; and her entrance into a monastery removed the only

bar to the Imperial nuptials. After the decease of Constantine,

the sceptre devolved to Romanus the Third; but his labors at home

and abroad were equally feeble and fruitless; and the mature age,

the forty-eight years of Zoe, were less favorable to the hopes of

pregnancy than to the indulgence of pleasure. Her favorite

chamberlain was a handsome Paphlagonian of the name of Michael,

whose first trade had been that of a money-changer; and Romanus,

either from gratitude or equity, connived at their criminal

intercourse, or accepted a slight assurance of their innocence.

But Zoe soon justified the Roman maxim, that every adulteress is

capable of poisoning her husband; and the death of Romanus was

instantly followed by the scandalous marriage and elevation of

Michael the Fourth. The expectations of Zoe were, however,

disappointed: instead of a vigorous and grateful lover, she had

placed in her bed a miserable wretch, whose health and reason

were impaired by epileptic fits, and whose conscience was

tormented by despair and remorse. The most skilful physicians of

the mind and body were summoned to his aid; and his hopes were

amused by frequent pilgrimages to the baths, and to the tombs of

the most popular saints; the monks applauded his penance, and,

except restitution, (but to whom should he have restored?)

Michael sought every method of expiating his guilt. While he

groaned and prayed in sackcloth and ashes, his brother, the

eunuch John, smiled at his remorse, and enjoyed the harvest of a

crime of which himself was the secret and most guilty author. His

administration was only the art of satiating his avarice, and Zoe

became a captive in the palace of her fathers, and in the hands

of her slaves. When he perceived the irretrievable decline of his

brother’s health, he introduced his nephew, another Michael, who

derived his surname of Calaphates from his father’s occupation in

the careening of vessels: at the command of the eunuch, Zoe

adopted for her son the son of a mechanic; and this fictitious

heir was invested with the title and purple of the Caesars, in

the presence of the senate and clergy. So feeble was the

character of Zoe, that she was oppressed by the liberty and power

which she recovered by the death of the Paphlagonian; and at the

end of four days, she placed the crown on the head of Michael the

Fifth, who had protested, with tears and oaths, that he should

ever reign the first and most obedient of her subjects.

The only act of his short reign was his base ingratitude to his

benefactors, the eunuch and the empress. The disgrace of the

former was pleasing to the public: but the murmurs, and at length

the clamors, of Constantinople deplored the exile of Zoe, the

daughter of so many emperors; her vices were forgotten, and

Michael was taught, that there is a period in which the patience

of the tamest slaves rises into fury and revenge. The citizens of

every degree assembled in a formidable tumult which lasted three

days; they besieged the palace, forced the gates, recalled their

mothers, Zoe from her prison, Theodora from her monastery, and

condemned the son of Calaphates to the loss of his eyes or of his

life. For the first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the two

royal sisters seated on the same throne, presiding in the senate,

and giving audience to the ambassadors of the nations. But the

singular union subsisted no more than two months; the two

sovereigns, their tempers, interests, and adherents, were

secretly hostile to each other; and as Theodora was still averse

to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe, at the age of sixty,

consented, for the public good, to sustain the embraces of a

third husband, and the censures of the Greek church. His name and

number were Constantine the Tenth, and the epithet of Monomachus,

the single combatant, must have been expressive of his valor and

victory in some public or private quarrel. But his health was

broken by the tortures of the gout, and his dissolute reign was

spent in the alternative of sickness and pleasure. A fair and

noble widow had accompanied Constantine in his exile to the Isle

of Lesbos, and Sclerena gloried in the appellation of his

mistress. After his marriage and elevation, she was invested with

the title and pomp of Augusta, and occupied a contiguous

apartment in the palace. The lawful consort (such was the

delicacy or corruption of Zoe) consented to this strange and

scandalous partition; and the emperor appeared in public between

his wife and his concubine. He survived them both; but the last

measures of Constantine to change the order of succession were

prevented by the more vigilant friends of Theodora; and after his

decease, she resumed, with the general consent, the possession of

her inheritance. In her name, and by the influence of four

eunuchs, the Eastern world was peaceably governed about nineteen

months; and as they wished to prolong their dominion, they

persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her successor Michael

the Sixth. The surname of Stratioticus declares his military

profession; but the crazy and decrepit veteran could only see

with the eyes, and execute with the hands, of his ministers.

Whilst he ascended the throne, Theodora sunk into the grave; the

last of the Macedonian or Basilian dynasty. I have hastily

reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this shameful and destructive

period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded below

the common level of servitude, were transferred like a herd of

cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.

From this night of slavery, a ray of freedom, or at least of

spirit, begins to emerge: the Greeks either preserved or revived

the use of surnames, which perpetuate the fame of hereditary

virtue: and we now discern the rise, succession, and alliances of

the last dynasties of Constantinople and Trebizond. The Comneni,

who upheld for a while the fate of the sinking empire, assumed

the honor of a Roman origin: but the family had been long since

transported from Italy to Asia. Their patrimonial estate was

situate in the district of Castamona, in the neighborhood of the

Euxine; and one of their chiefs, who had already entered the

paths of ambition, revisited with affection, perhaps with regret,

the modest though honorable dwelling of his fathers. The first of

their line was the illustrious Manuel, who in the reign of the

second Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the

troubles of the East: he left, in a tender age, two sons, Isaac

and John, whom, with the consciousness of desert, he bequeathed

to the gratitude and favor of his sovereign. The noble youths

were carefully trained in the learning of the monastery, the arts

of the palace, and the exercises of the camp: and from the

domestic service of the guards, they were rapidly promoted to the

command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal union doubled

the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient

nobility was illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers,

with a captive princess of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a

patrician, who had obtained the name of Charon from the number of

enemies whom he had sent to the infernal shades. The soldiers had

served with reluctant loyalty a series of effeminate masters; the

elevation of Michael the Sixth was a personal insult to the more

deserving generals; and their discontent was inflamed by the

parsimony of the emperor and the insolence of the eunuchs. They

secretly assembled in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the votes

of the military synod would have been unanimous in favor of the

old and valiant Catacalon, if the patriotism or modesty of the

veteran had not suggested the importance of birth as well as

merit in the choice of a sovereign. Isaac Comnenus was approved

by general consent, and the associates separated without delay to

meet in the plains of Phrygia at the head of their respective

squadrons and detachments. The cause of Michael was defended in a

single battle by the mercenaries of the Imperial guard, who were

aliens to the public interest, and animated only by a principle

of honor and gratitude. After their defeat, the fears of the

emperor solicited a treaty, which was almost accepted by the

moderation of the Comnenian. But the former was betrayed by his

ambassadors, and the latter was prevented by his friends. The

solitary Michael submitted to the voice of the people; the

patriarch annulled their oath of allegiance; and as he shaved the

head of the royal monk, congratulated his beneficial exchange of

temporal royalty for the kingdom of heaven; an exchange, however,

which the priest, on his own account, would probably have

declined. By the hands of the same patriarch, Isaac Comnenus was

solemnly crowned; the sword which he inscribed on his coins might

be an offensive symbol, if it implied his title by conquest; but

this sword would have been drawn against the foreign and domestic

enemies of the state. The decline of his health and vigor

suspended the operation of active virtue; and the prospect of

approaching death determined him to interpose some moments

between life and eternity. But instead of leaving the empire as

the marriage portion of his daughter, his reason and inclination

concurred in the preference of his brother John, a soldier, a

patriot, and the father of five sons, the future pillars of an

hereditary succession. His first modest reluctance might be the

natural dictates of discretion and tenderness, but his obstinate

and successful perseverance, however it may dazzle with the show

of virtue, must be censured as a criminal desertion of his duty,

and a rare offence against his family and country. The purple

which he had refused was accepted by Constantine Ducas, a friend

of the Comnenian house, and whose noble birth was adorned with

the experience and reputation of civil policy. In the monastic

habit, Isaac recovered his health, and survived two years his

voluntary abdication. At the command of his abbot, he observed

the rule of St. Basil, and executed the most servile offices of

the convent: but his latent vanity was gratified by the frequent

and respectful visits of the reigning monarch, who revered in his

person the character of a benefactor and a saint. If Constantine

the Eleventh were indeed the subject most worthy of empire, we

must pity the debasement of the age and nation in which he was

chosen. In the labor of puerile declamations he sought, without

obtaining, the crown of eloquence, more precious, in his opinion,

than that of Rome; and in the subordinate functions of a judge,

he forgot the duties of a sovereign and a warrior. Far from

imitating the patriotic indifference of the authors of his

greatness, Ducas was anxious only to secure, at the expense of

the republic, the power and prosperity of his children. His three

sons, Michael the Seventh, Andronicus the First, and Constantine

the Twelfth, were invested, in a tender age, with the equal title

of Augustus; and the succession was speedily opened by their

father’s death. His widow, Eudocia, was intrusted with the

administration; but experience had taught the jealousy of the

dying monarch to protect his sons from the danger of her second

nuptials; and her solemn engagement, attested by the principal

senators, was deposited in the hands of the patriarch. Before the

end of seven months, the wants of Eudocia, or those of the state,

called aloud for the male virtues of a soldier; and her heart had

already chosen Romanus Diogenes, whom she raised from the

scaffold to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable attempt

had exposed him to the severity of the laws: his beauty and valor

absolved him in the eyes of the empress; and Romanus, from a mild

exile, was recalled on the second day to the command of the

Oriental armies.

Her royal choice was yet unknown to the public; and the promise

which would have betrayed her falsehood and levity, was stolen by

a dexterous emissary from the ambition of the patriarch. Xiphilin

at first alleged the sanctity of oaths, and the sacred nature of

a trust; but a whisper, that his brother was the future emperor,

relaxed his scruples, and forced him to confess that the public

safety was the supreme law. He resigned the important paper; and

when his hopes were confounded by the nomination of Romanus, he

could no longer regain his security, retract his declarations,

nor oppose the second nuptials of the empress. Yet a murmur was

heard in the palace; and the Barbarian guards had raised their

battle-axes in the cause of the house of Lucas, till the young

princes were soothed by the tears of their mother and the solemn

assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled the

Imperial station with dignity and honor. Hereafter I shall relate

his valiant, but unsuccessful, efforts to resist the progress of

the Turks. His defeat and captivity inflicted a deadly wound on

the Byzantine monarchy of the East; and after he was released

from the chains of the sultan, he vainly sought his wife and his

subjects. His wife had been thrust into a monastery, and the

subjects of Romanus had embraced the rigid maxim of the civil

law, that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy is deprived, as by

the stroke of death, of all the public and private rights of a

citizen. In the general consternation, the Caesar John asserted

the indefeasible right of his three nephews: Constantinople

listened to his voice: and the Turkish captive was proclaimed in

the capital, and received on the frontier, as an enemy of the

republic. Romanus was not more fortunate in domestic than in

foreign war: the loss of two battles compelled him to yield, on

the assurance of fair and honorable treatment; but his enemies

were devoid of faith or humanity; and, after the cruel extinction

of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and corrupt, till in

a few days he was relieved from a state of misery. Under the

triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers were

reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the

pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman

sceptre; and his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach

which he shared with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the

price, and diminished the measure, of wheat. In the school of

Psellus, and after the example of his mother, the son of Eudocia

made some proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric; but his

character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a

monk and the learning of a sophist. Strong in the contempt of

their sovereign and their own esteem, two generals, at the head

of the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the purple at

Adrianople and Nice. Their revolt was in the same months; they

bore the same name of Nicephorus; but the two candidates were

distinguished by the surnames of Bryennius and Botaniates; the

former in the maturity of wisdom and courage, the latter

conspicuous only by the memory of his past exploits. While

Botaniates advanced with cautious and dilatory steps, his active

competitor stood in arms before the gates of Constantinople. The

name of Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was popular; but his

licentious troops could not be restrained from burning and

pillaging a suburb; and the people, who would have hailed the

rebel, rejected and repulsed the incendiary of his country. This

change of the public opinion was favorable to Botaniates, who at

length, with an army of Turks, approached the shores of

Chalcedon. A formal invitation, in the name of the patriarch, the

synod, and the senate, was circulated through the streets of

Constantinople; and the general assembly, in the dome of St.

Sophia, debated, with order and calmness, on the choice of their

sovereign. The guards of Michael would have dispersed this

unarmed multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding his own

moderation and clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was

rewarded with the monastic habit, and the title of Archbishop of

Ephesus. He left a son, a Constantine, born and educated in the

purple; and a daughter of the house of Ducas illustrated the

blood, and confirmed the succession, of the Comnenian dynasty.

John Comnenus, the brother of the emperor Isaac, survived in

peace and dignity his generous refusal of the sceptre. By his

wife Anne, a woman of masculine spirit and a policy, he left

eight children: the three daughters multiplied the Comnenian

alliance with the noblest of the Greeks: of the five sons, Manuel

was stopped by a premature death; Isaac and Alexius restored the

Imperial greatness of their house, which was enjoyed without toil

or danger by the two younger brethren, Adrian and Nicephorus.

Alexius, the third and most illustrious of the brothers was

endowed by nature with the choicest gifts both of mind and body:

they were cultivated by a liberal education, and exercised in the

school of obedience and adversity. The youth was dismissed from

the perils of the Turkish war, by the paternal care of the

emperor Romanus: but the mother of the Comneni, with her aspiring

face, was accused of treason, and banished, by the sons of Ducas,

to an island in the Propontis. The two brothers soon emerged into

favor and action, fought by each other’s side against the rebels

and Barbarians, and adhered to the emperor Michael, till he was

deserted by the world and by himself. In his first interview with

Botaniates, “Prince,” said Alexius with a noble frankness, “my

duty rendered me your enemy; the decrees of God and of the people

have made me your subject. Judge of my future loyalty by my past

opposition.” The successor of Michael entertained him with esteem

and confidence: his valor was employed against three rebels, who

disturbed the peace of the empire, or at least of the emperors.

Ursel, Bryennius, and Basilacius, were formidable by their

numerous forces and military fame: they were successively

vanquished in the field, and led in chains to the foot of the

throne; and whatever treatment they might receive from a timid

and cruel court, they applauded the clemency, as well as the

courage, of their conqueror. But the loyalty of the Comneni was

soon tainted by fear and suspicion; nor is it easy to settle

between a subject and a despot, the debt of gratitude, which the

former is tempted to claim by a revolt, and the latter to

discharge by an executioner. The refusal of Alexius to march

against a fourth rebel, the husband of his sister, destroyed the

merit or memory of his past services: the favorites of Botaniates

provoked the ambition which they apprehended and accused; and the

retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the defence of

their life and liberty. The women of the family were deposited in

a sanctuary, respected by tyrants: the men, mounted on horseback,

sallied from the city, and erected the standard of civil war. The

soldiers who had been gradually assembled in the capital and the

neighborhood, were devoted to the cause of a victorious and

injured leader: the ties of common interest and domestic alliance

secured the attachment of the house of Ducas; and the generous

dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the decisive resolution

of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger brother with

the name and ensigns of royalty. They returned to Constantinople,

to threaten rather than besiege that impregnable fortress; but

the fidelity of the guards was corrupted; a gate was surprised,

and the fleet was occupied by the active courage of George

Palaeologus, who fought against his father, without foreseeing

that he labored for his posterity. Alexius ascended the throne;

and his aged competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army of

various nations was gratified with the pillage of the city; but

the public disorders were expiated by the tears and fasts of the

Comneni, who submitted to every penance compatible with the

possession of the empire. The life of the emperor Alexius has

been delineated by a favorite daughter, who was inspired by a

tender regard for his person and a laudable zeal to perpetuate

his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicions of her readers, the

princess Anna Comnena repeatedly protests, that, besides her

personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings

of the most respectable veterans: and after an interval of thirty

years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her mournful

solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the

naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of

her parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative

which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and

science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The

genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of

virtues; and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology

awakens our jealousy, to question the veracity of the historian

and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her

judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the times

were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every

calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on

his reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his

predecessors. In the East, the victorious Turks had spread, from

Persia to the Hellespont, the reign of the Koran and the

Crescent: the West was invaded by the adventurous valor of the

Normans; and, in the moments of peace, the Danube poured forth

new swarms, who had gained, in the science of war, what they had

lost in the ferociousness of manners. The sea was not less

hostile than the land; and while the frontiers were assaulted by

an open enemy, the palace was distracted with secret treason and

conspiracy. On a sudden, the banner of the Cross was displayed by

the Latins; Europe was precipitated on Asia; and Constantinople

had almost been swept away by this impetuous deluge. In the

tempest, Alexius steered the Imperial vessel with dexterity and

courage. At the head of his armies, he was bold in action,

skilful in stratagem, patient of fatigue, ready to improve his

advantages, and rising from his defeats with inexhaustible vigor.

The discipline of the camp was revived, and a new generation of

men and soldiers was created by the example and precepts of their

leader. In his intercourse with the Latins, Alexius was patient

and artful: his discerning eye pervaded the new system of an

unknown world and I shall hereafter describe the superior policy

with which he balanced the interests and passions of the

champions of the first crusade. In a long reign of thirty-seven

years, he subdued and pardoned the envy of his equals: the laws

of public and private order were restored: the arts of wealth and

science were cultivated: the limits of the empire were enlarged

in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre was transmitted to

his children of the third and fourth generation. Yet the

difficulties of the times betrayed some defects in his character;

and have exposed his memory to some just or ungenerous reproach.

The reader may possibly smile at the lavish praise which his

daughter so often bestows on a flying hero: the weakness or

prudence of his situation might be mistaken for a want of

personal courage; and his political arts are branded by the

Latins with the names of deceit and dissimulation. The increase

of the male and female branches of his family adorned the throne,

and secured the succession; but their princely luxury and pride

offended the patricians, exhausted the revenue, and insulted the

misery of the people. Anna is a faithful witness that his

happiness was destroyed, and his health was broken, by the cares

of a public life; the patience of Constantinople was fatigued by

the length and severity of his reign; and before Alexius expired,

he had lost the love and reverence of his subjects. The clergy

could not forgive his application of the sacred riches to the

defence of the state; but they applauded his theological learning

and ardent zeal for the orthodox faith, which he defended with

his tongue, his pen, and his sword. His character was degraded by

the superstition of the Greeks; and the same inconsistent

principle of human nature enjoined the emperor to found a

hospital for the poor and infirm, and to direct the execution of

a heretic, who was burned alive in the square of St. Sophia. Even

the sincerity of his moral and religious virtues was suspected by

the persons who had passed their lives in his familiar

confidence. In his last hours, when he was pressed by his wife

Irene to alter the succession, he raised his head, and breathed a

pious ejaculation on the vanity of this world. The indignant

reply of the empress may be inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb,

“You die, as you have lived—A Hypocrite!”

It was the wish of Irene to supplant the eldest of her surviving

sons, in favor of her daughter the princess Anne whose philosophy

would not have refused the weight of a diadem. But the order of

male succession was asserted by the friends of their country; the

lawful heir drew the royal signet from the finger of his

insensible or conscious father and the empire obeyed the master

of the palace. Anna Comnena was stimulated by ambition and

revenge to conspire against the life of her brother, and when the

design was prevented by the fears or scruples of her husband, she

passionately exclaimed that nature had mistaken the two sexes,

and had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman. The two sons

of Alexius, John and Isaac, maintained the fraternal concord, the

hereditary virtue of their race, and the younger brother was

content with the title of Sebastocrator, which approached the

dignity, without sharing the power, of the emperor. In the same

person the claims of primogeniture and merit were fortunately

united; his swarthy complexion, harsh features, and diminutive

stature, had suggested the ironical surname of Calo-Johannes, or

John the Handsome, which his grateful subjects more seriously

applied to the beauties of his mind. After the discovery of her

treason, the life and fortune of Anne were justly forfeited to

the laws. Her life was spared by the clemency of the emperor; but

he visited the pomp and treasures of her palace, and bestowed the

rich confiscation on the most deserving of his friends. That

respectable friend Axuch, a slave of Turkish extraction, presumed

to decline the gift, and to intercede for the criminal: his

generous master applauded and imitated the virtue of his

favorite, and the reproach or complaint of an injured brother was

the only chastisement of the guilty princess. After this example

of clemency, the remainder of his reign was never disturbed by

conspiracy or rebellion: feared by his nobles, beloved by his

people, John was never reduced to the painful necessity of

punishing, or even of pardoning, his personal enemies. During his

government of twenty-five years, the penalty of death was

abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to

the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and

vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.

Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal,

abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the

artless virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not

borrowed from the schools. He despised and moderated the stately

magnificence of the Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people,

so contemptible to the eye of reason. Under such a prince,

innocence had nothing to fear, and merit had every thing to hope;

and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a censor, he

introduced a gradual though visible reformation in the public and

private manners of Constantinople. The only defect of this

accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love

of arms and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John

the Handsome may be justified, at least in their principle, by

the necessity of repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the

Bosphorus. The sultan of Iconium was confined to his capital, the

Barbarians were driven to the mountains, and the maritime

provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient blessings of their

deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and Aleppo, he

repeatedly marched at the head of a victorious army, and in the

sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were

astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he

began to indulge the ambitious hope of restoring the ancient

limits of the empire, as he revolved in his mind, the Euphrates

and Tigris, the dominion of Syria, and the conquest of Jerusalem,

the thread of his life and of the public felicity was broken by a

singular accident. He hunted the wild boar in the valley of

Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in the body of the furious

animal; but in the struggle a poisoned arrow dropped from his

quiver, and a slight wound in his hand, which produced a

mortification, was fatal to the best and greatest of the

Comnenian princes.

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

V.

A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of John the

Handsome; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or

affection preferred the younger; and the choice of their dying

prince was ratified by the soldiers, who had applauded the valor

of his favorite in the Turkish war. The faithful Axuch hastened

to the capital, secured the person of Isaac in honorable

confinement, and purchased, with a gift of two hundred pounds of

silver, the leading ecclesiastics of St. Sophia, who possessed a

decisive voice in the consecration of an emperor. With his

veteran and affectionate troops, Manuel soon visited

Constantinople; his brother acquiesced in the title of

Sebastocrator; his subjects admired the lofty stature and martial

graces of their new sovereign, and listened with credulity to the

flattering promise, that he blended the wisdom of age with the

activity and vigor of youth. By the experience of his government,

they were taught, that he emulated the spirit, and shared the

talents, of his father whose social virtues were buried in the

grave. A reign of thirty seven years is filled by a perpetual

though various warfare against the Turks, the Christians, and the

hordes of the wilderness beyond the Danube. The arms of Manuel

were exercised on Mount Taurus, in the plains of Hungary, on the

coast of Italy and Egypt, and on the seas of Sicily and Greece:

the influence of his negotiations extended from Jerusalem to Rome

and Russia; and the Byzantine monarchy, for a while, became an

object of respect or terror to the powers of Asia and Europe.

Educated in the silk and purple of the East, Manuel possessed the

iron temper of a soldier, which cannot easily be paralleled,

except in the lives of Richard the First of England, and of

Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. Such was his strength and exercise

in arms, that Raymond, surnamed the Hercules of Antioch, was

incapable of wielding the lance and buckler of the Greek emperor.

In a famous tournament, he entered the lists on a fiery courser,

and overturned in his first career two of the stoutest of the

Italian knights. The first in the charge, the last in the

retreat, his friends and his enemies alike trembled, the former

for his safety, and the latter for their own. After posting an

ambuscade in a wood, he rode forwards in search of some perilous

adventure, accompanied only by his brother and the faithful

Axuch, who refused to desert their sovereign. Eighteen horsemen,

after a short combat, fled before them: but the numbers of the

enemy increased; the march of the reenforcement was tardy and

fearful, and Manuel, without receiving a wound, cut his way

through a squadron of five hundred Turks. In a battle against the

Hungarians, impatient of the slowness of his troops, he snatched

a standard from the head of the column, and was the first, almost

alone, who passed a bridge that separated him from the enemy. In

the same country, after transporting his army beyond the Save, he

sent back the boats, with an order under pain of death, to their

commander, that he should leave him to conquer or die on that

hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a captive

galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against the

volleys of darts and stones, a large buckler and a flowing sail;

nor could he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian

admiral enjoined his archers to respect the person of a hero. In

one day, he is said to have slain above forty of the Barbarians

with his own hand; he returned to the camp, dragging along four

Turkish prisoners, whom he had tied to the rings of his saddle:

he was ever the foremost to provoke or to accept a single combat;

and the gigantic champions, who encountered his arm, were

transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of the

invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a

model or a copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a

reasonable suspicion of the veracity of the Greeks: I will not,

to vindicate their credit, endanger my own: yet I may observe,

that, in the long series of their annals, Manuel is the only

prince who has been the subject of similar exaggeration. With the

valor of a soldier, he did not unite the skill or prudence of a

general; his victories were not productive of any permanent or

useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in his last

unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the mountains

of Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the

sultan. But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel,

is the contrast and vicissitude of labor and sloth, of hardiness

and effeminacy. In war he seemed ignorant of peace, in peace he

appeared incapable of war. In the field he slept in the sun or in

the snow, tired in the longest marches the strength of his men

and horses, and shared with a smile the abstinence or diet of the

camp. No sooner did he return to Constantinople, than he resigned

himself to the arts and pleasures of a life of luxury: the

expense of his dress, his table, and his palace, surpassed the

measure of his predecessors, and whole summer days were idly

wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous

love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and

dissolute prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes;

and Manuel, in the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured

a bitter reproach from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he

quenched his thirst, he complained that the water of a fountain

was mingled with Christian blood. “It is not the first time,”

exclaimed a voice from the crowd, “that you have drank, O

emperor, the blood of your Christian subjects.” Manuel Comnenus

was twice married, to the virtuous Bertha or Irene of Germany,

and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of

Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for

Bela, a Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople

under the name of Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials

might have transferred the Roman sceptre to a race of free and

warlike Barbarians. But as soon as Maria of Antioch had given a

son and heir to the empire, the presumptive rights of Bela were

abolished, and he was deprived of his promised bride; but the

Hungarian prince resumed his name and the kingdom of his fathers,

and displayed such virtues as might excite the regret and envy of

the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and at the age of

ten years he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his father’s

decease had closed the glories of the Comnenian line.

The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had

been sometimes clouded by an opposition of interest and passion.

By ambition, Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and

rebellion, from whence he was reclaimed by the firmness and

clemency of John the Handsome. The errors of Isaac, the father of

the emperors of Trebizond, were short and venial; but John, the

elder of his sons, renounced forever his religion. Provoked by a

real or imaginary insult of his uncle, he escaped from the Roman

to the Turkish camp: his apostasy was rewarded with the sultan’s

daughter, the title of Chelebi, or noble, and the inheritance of

a princely estate; and in the fifteenth century, Mahomet the

Second boasted of his Imperial descent from the Comnenian family.

Andronicus, the younger brother of John, son of Isaac, and

grandson of Alexius Comnenus, is one of the most conspicuous

characters of the age; and his genuine adventures might form the

subject of a very singular romance. To justify the choice of

three ladies of royal birth, it is incumbent on me to observe,

that their fortunate lover was cast in the best proportions of

strength and beauty; and that the want of the softer graces was

supplied by a manly countenance, a lofty stature, athletic

muscles, and the air and deportment of a soldier. The

preservation, in his old age, of health and vigor, was the reward

of temperance and exercise. A piece of bread and a draught of

water was often his sole and evening repast; and if he tasted of

a wild boar or a stag, which he had roasted with his own hands,

it was the well-earned fruit of a laborious chase. Dexterous in

arms, he was ignorant of fear; his persuasive eloquence could

bend to every situation and character of life, his style, though

not his practice, was fashioned by the example of St. Paul; and,

in every deed of mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to

contrive, and a hand to execute. In his youth, after the death of

the emperor John, he followed the retreat of the Roman army; but,

in the march through Asia Minor, design or accident tempted him

to wander in the mountains: the hunter was encompassed by the

Turkish huntsmen, and he remained some time a reluctant or

willing captive in the power of the sultan. His virtues and vices

recommended him to the favor of his cousin: he shared the perils

and the pleasures of Manuel; and while the emperor lived in

public incest with his niece Theodora, the affections of her

sister Eudocia were seduced and enjoyed by Andronicus. Above the

decencies of her sex and rank, she gloried in the name of his

concubine; and both the palace and the camp could witness that

she slept, or watched, in the arms of her lover. She accompanied

him to his military command of Cilicia, the first scene of his

valor and imprudence. He pressed, with active ardor, the siege of

Mopsuestia: the day was employed in the boldest attacks; but the

night was wasted in song and dance; and a band of Greek comedians

formed the choicest part of his retinue. Andronicus was surprised

by the sally of a vigilant foe; but, while his troops fled in

disorder, his invincible lance transpierced the thickest ranks of

the Armenians. On his return to the Imperial camp in Macedonia,

he was received by Manuel with public smiles and a private

reproof; but the duchies of Naissus, Braniseba, and Castoria,

were the reward or consolation of the unsuccessful general.

Eudocia still attended his motions: at midnight, their tent was

suddenly attacked by her angry brothers, impatient to expiate her

infamy in his blood: his daring spirit refused her advice, and

the disguise of a female habit; and, boldly starting from his

couch, he drew his sword, and cut his way through the numerous

assassins. It was here that he first betrayed his ingratitude and

treachery: he engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the

king of Hungary and the German emperor; approached the royal tent

at a suspicious hour with a drawn sword, and under the mask of a

Latin soldier, avowed an intention of revenge against a mortal

foe; and imprudently praised the fleetness of his horse as an

instrument of flight and safety. The monarch dissembled his

suspicions; but, after the close of the campaign, Andronicus was

arrested and strictly confined in a tower of the palace of

Constantinople.

In this prison he was left about twelve years; a most painful

restraint, from which the thirst of action and pleasure

perpetually urged him to escape. Alone and pensive, he perceived

some broken bricks in a corner of the chamber, and gradually

widened the passage, till he had explored a dark and forgotten

recess. Into this hole he conveyed himself, and the remains of

his provisions, replacing the bricks in their former position,

and erasing with care the footsteps of his retreat. At the hour

of the customary visit, his guards were amazed by the silence and

solitude of the prison, and reported, with shame and fear, his

incomprehensible flight. The gates of the palace and city were

instantly shut: the strictest orders were despatched into the

provinces, for the recovery of the fugitive; and his wife, on the

suspicion of a pious act, was basely imprisoned in the same

tower. At the dead of night she beheld a spectre; she recognized

her husband: they shared their provisions; and a son was the

fruit of these stolen interviews, which alleviated the

tediousness of their confinement. In the custody of a woman, the

vigilance of the keepers was insensibly relaxed; and the captive

had accomplished his real escape, when he was discovered, brought

back to Constantinople, and loaded with a double chain. At length

he found the moment, and the means, of his deliverance. A boy,

his domestic servant, intoxicated the guards, and obtained in wax

the impression of the keys. By the diligence of his friends, a

similar key, with a bundle of ropes, was introduced into the

prison, in the bottom of a hogshead. Andronicus employed, with

industry and courage, the instruments of his safety, unlocked the

doors, descended from the tower, concealed himself all day among

the bushes, and scaled in the night the garden-wall of the

palace. A boat was stationed for his reception: he visited his

own house, embraced his children, cast away his chain, mounted a

fleet horse, and directed his rapid course towards the banks of

the Danube. At Anchialus in Thrace, an intrepid friend supplied

him with horses and money: he passed the river, traversed with

speed the desert of Moldavia and the Carpathian hills, and had

almost reached the town of Halicz, in the Polish Russia, when he

was intercepted by a party of Walachians, who resolved to convey

their important captive to Constantinople. His presence of mind

again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of sickness,

he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from

the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it

with his cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left

a phantom to amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians.

From Halicz he was honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of

the great duke: the subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and

confidence of Ieroslaus; his character could assume the manners

of every climate; and the Barbarians applauded his strength and

courage in the chase of the elks and bears of the forest. In this

northern region he deserved the forgiveness of Manuel, who

solicited the Russian prince to join his arms in the invasion of

Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved this important

service: his private treaty was signed with a promise of fidelity

on one side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at the

head of the Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube.

In his resentment Manuel had ever sympathized with the martial

and dissolute character of his cousin; and his free pardon was

sealed in the assault of Zemlin, in which he was second, and

second only, to the valor of the emperor.

No sooner was the exile restored to freedom and his country, than

his ambition revived, at first to his own, and at length to the

public, misfortune. A daughter of Manuel was a feeble bar to the

succession of the more deserving males of the Comnenian blood;

her future marriage with the prince of Hungary was repugnant to

the hopes or prejudices of the princes and nobles. But when an

oath of allegiance was required to the presumptive heir,

Andronicus alone asserted the honor of the Roman name, declined

the unlawful engagement, and boldly protested against the

adoption of a stranger. His patriotism was offensive to the

emperor, but he spoke the sentiments of the people, and was

removed from the royal presence by an honorable banishment, a

second command of the Cilician frontier, with the absolute

disposal of the revenues of Cyprus. In this station the Armenians

again exercised his courage and exposed his negligence; and the

same rebel, who baffled all his operations, was unhorsed, and

almost slain by the vigor of his lance. But Andronicus soon

discovered a more easy and pleasing conquest, the beautiful

Philippa, sister of the empress Maria, and daughter of Raymond of

Poitou, the Latin prince of Antioch. For her sake he deserted his

station, and wasted the summer in balls and tournaments: to his

love she sacrificed her innocence, her reputation, and the offer

of an advantageous marriage. But the resentment of Manuel for

this domestic affront interrupted his pleasures: Andronicus left

the indiscreet princess to weep and to repent; and, with a band

of desperate adventurers, undertook the pilgrimage of Jerusalem.

His birth, his martial renown, and professions of zeal, announced

him as the champion of the Cross: he soon captivated both the

clergy and the king; and the Greek prince was invested with the

lordship of Berytus, on the coast of Phoenicia.

In his neighborhood resided a young and handsome queen, of his

own nation and family, great-granddaughter of the emperor Alexis,

and widow of Baldwin the Third, king of Jerusalem. She visited

and loved her kinsman. Theodora was the third victim of his

amorous seduction; and her shame was more public and scandalous

than that of her predecessors. The emperor still thirsted for

revenge; and his subjects and allies of the Syrian frontier were

repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out the eyes, of

the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the tender

Theodora revealed his danger, and accompanied his flight. The

queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obsequious

concubine; and two illegitimate children were the living

monuments of her weakness. Damascus was his first refuge; and, in

the characters of the great Noureddin and his servant Saladin,

the superstitious Greek might learn to revere the virtues of the

Mussulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he visited, most probably,

Bagdad, and the courts of Persia; and, after a long circuit round

the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he finally settled

among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of his

country. The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to

Andronicus, his mistress, and his band of outlaws: the debt of

gratitude was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of

Trebizond; and he seldom returned without an ample harvest of

spoil and of Christian captives. In the story of his adventures,

he was fond of comparing himself to David, who escaped, by a long

exile, the snares of the wicked. But the royal prophet (he

presumed to add) was content to lurk on the borders of Judaea, to

slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his miserable state, the

life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the Comnenian

prince had a wider range; and he had spread over the Eastern

world the glory of his name and religion.

By a sentence of the Greek church, the licentious rover had been

separated from the faithful; but even this excommunication may

prove, that he never abjured the profession of Chistianity.

His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret

persecution of the emperor; but he was at length insnared by the

captivity of his female companion. The governor of Trebizond

succeeded in his attempt to surprise the person of Theodora: the

queen of Jerusalem and her two children were sent to

Constantinople, and their loss imbittered the tedious solitude of

banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a final pardon,

with leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign, who was

satisfied with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate

on the ground, he deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his

past rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some

faithful subject would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an

iron chain with which he had secretly encircled his neck. This

extraordinary penance excited the wonder and pity of the

assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church and state; but the

just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a distance from

the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with rich

vineyards, and situate on the coast of the Euxine. The death of

Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon opened the

fairest field to his ambition. The emperor was a boy of twelve or

fourteen years of age, without vigor, or wisdom, or experience:

his mother, the empress Mary, abandoned her person and government

to a favorite of the Comnenian name; and his sister, another

Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was decorated with the title of

Caesar, excited a conspiracy, and at length an insurrection,

against her odious step-mother. The provinces were forgotten, the

capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order was

overthrown in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war

was kindled in Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody

battle in the square of the palace, and the rebels sustained a

regular siege in the cathedral of St. Sophia. The patriarch

labored with honest zeal to heal the wounds of the republic, the

most respectable patriots called aloud for a guardian and

avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise of the talents and

even the virtues of Andronicus. In his retirement, he affected to

revolve the solemn duties of his oath: “If the safety or honor of

the Imperial family be threatened, I will reveal and oppose the

mischief to the utmost of my power.” His correspondence with the

patriarch and patricians was seasoned with apt quotations from

the Psalms of David and the epistles of St. Paul; and he

patiently waited till he was called to her deliverance by the

voice of his country. In his march from Oenoe to Constantinople,

his slender train insensibly swelled to a crowd and an army: his

professions of religion and loyalty were mistaken for the

language of his heart; and the simplicity of a foreign dress,

which showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed a

lively image of his poverty and exile. All opposition sunk before

him; he reached the straits of the Thracian Bosphorus; the

Byzantine navy sailed from the harbor to receive and transport

the savior of the empire: the torrent was loud and irresistible,

and the insects who had basked in the sunshine of royal favor

disappeared at the blast of the storm. It was the first care of

Andronicus to occupy the palace, to salute the emperor, to

confine his mother, to punish her minister, and to restore the

public order and tranquillity. He then visited the sepulchre of

Manuel: the spectators were ordered to stand aloof, but as he

bowed in the attitude of prayer, they heard, or thought they

heard, a murmur of triumph or revenge: “I no longer fear thee, my

old enemy, who hast driven me a vagabond to every climate of the

earth. Thou art safely deposited under a seven-fold dome, from

whence thou canst never arise till the signal of the last

trumpet. It is now my turn, and speedily will I trample on thy

ashes and thy posterity.” From his subsequent tyranny we may

impute such feelings to the man and the moment; but it is not

extremely probable that he gave an articulate sound to his secret

thoughts. In the first months of his administration, his designs

were veiled by a fair semblance of hypocrisy, which could delude

only the eyes of the multitude; the coronation of Alexius was

performed with due solemnity, and his perfidious guardian,

holding in his hands the body and blood of Christ, most fervently

declared that he lived, and was ready to die, for the service of

his beloved pupil. But his numerous adherents were instructed to

maintain, that the sinking empire must perish in the hands of a

child, that the Romans could only be saved by a veteran prince,

bold in arms, skilful in policy, and taught to reign by the long

experience of fortune and mankind; and that it was the duty of

every citizen to force the reluctant modesty of Andronicus to

undertake the burden of the public care. The young emperor was

himself constrained to join his voice to the general acclamation,

and to solicit the association of a colleague, who instantly

degraded him from the supreme rank, secluded his person, and

verified the rash declaration of the patriarch, that Alexius

might be considered as dead, so soon as he was committed to the

custody of his guardian. But his death was preceded by the

imprisonment and execution of his mother. After blackening her

reputation, and inflaming against her the passions of the

multitude, the tyrant accused and tried the empress for a

treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary. His own son,

a youth of honor and humanity, avowed his abhorrence of this

flagitious act, and three of the judges had the merit of

preferring their conscience to their safety: but the obsequious

tribunal, without requiring any reproof, or hearing any defence,

condemned the widow of Manuel; and her unfortunate son subscribed

the sentence of her death. Maria was strangled, her corpse was

buried in the sea, and her memory was wounded by the insult most

offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly representation of

her beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long deferred: he

was strangled with a bowstring; and the tyrant, insensible to

pity or remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth,

struck it rudely with his foot: “Thy father,” he cried, “was a

knave, thy mother a whore, and thyself a fool!”

The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by

Andronicus about three years and a half as the guardian or

sovereign of the empire. His government exhibited a singular

contrast of vice and virtue. When he listened to his passions, he

was the scourge; when he consulted his reason, the father, of his

people. In the exercise of private justice, he was equitable and

rigorous: a shameful and pernicious venality was abolished, and

the offices were filled with the most deserving candidates, by a

prince who had sense to choose, and severity to punish. He

prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and

persons of shipwrecked mariners; the provinces, so long the

objects of oppression or neglect, revived in prosperity and

plenty; and millions applauded the distant blessings of his

reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of his daily

cruelties. The ancient proverb, That bloodthirsty is the man who

returns from banishment to power, had been applied, with too much

truth, to Marius and Tiberius; and was now verified for the third

time in the life of Andronicus. His memory was stored with a

black list of the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit,

opposed his greatness, or insulted his misfortunes; and the only

comfort of his exile was the sacred hope and promise of revenge.

The necessary extinction of the young emperor and his mother

imposed the fatal obligation of extirpating the friends, who

hated, and might punish, the assassin; and the repetition of

murder rendered him less willing, and less able, to forgive. 1018

A horrid narrative of the victims whom he sacrificed by poison or

the sword, by the sea or the flames, would be less expressive of

his cruelty than the appellation of the halcyon days, which was

applied to a rare and bloodless week of repose: the tyrant strove

to transfer, on the laws and the judges, some portion of his

guilt; but the mask was fallen, and his subjects could no longer

mistake the true author of their calamities. The noblest of the

Greeks, more especially those who, by descent or alliance, might

dispute the Comnenian inheritance, escaped from the monster’s

den: Nice and Prusa, Sicily or Cyprus, were their places of

refuge; and as their flight was already criminal, they aggravated

their offence by an open revolt, and the Imperial title. Yet

Andronicus resisted the daggers and swords of his most formidable

enemies: Nice and Prusa were reduced and chastised: the Sicilians

were content with the sack of Thessalonica; and the distance of

Cyprus was not more propitious to the rebel than to the tyrant.

His throne was subverted by a rival without merit, and a people

without arms. Isaac Angelus, a descendant in the female line from

the great Alexius, was marked as a victim by the prudence or

superstition of the emperor. 1019 In a moment of despair, Angelus

defended his life and liberty, slew the executioner, and fled to

the church of St. Sophia. The sanctuary was insensibly filled

with a curious and mournful crowd, who, in his fate,

prognosticated their own. But their lamentations were soon turned

to curses, and their curses to threats: they dared to ask, “Why

do we fear? why do we obey? We are many, and he is one: our

patience is the only bond of our slavery.” With the dawn of day

the city burst into a general sedition, the prisons were thrown

open, the coldest and most servile were roused to the defence of

their country, and Isaac, the second of the name, was raised from

the sanctuary to the throne. Unconscious of his danger, the

tyrant was absent; withdrawn from the toils of state, in the

delicious islands of the Propontis. He had contracted an indecent

marriage with Alice, or Agnes, daughter of Lewis the Seventh, of

France, and relict of the unfortunate Alexius; and his society,

more suitable to his temper than to his age, was composed of a

young wife and a favorite concubine. On the first alarm, he

rushed to Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty;

but he was astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of

the city, and the general desertion of mankind. Andronicus

proclaimed a free pardon to his subjects; they neither desired,

nor would grant, forgiveness; he offered to resign the crown to

his son Manuel; but the virtues of the son could not expiate his

father’s crimes. The sea was still open for his retreat; but the

news of the revolution had flown along the coast; when fear had

ceased, obedience was no more: the Imperial galley was pursued

and taken by an armed brigantine; and the tyrant was dragged to

the presence of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long

chain round his neck. His eloquence, and the tears of his female

companions, pleaded in vain for his life; but, instead of the

decencies of a legal execution, the new monarch abandoned the

criminal to the numerous sufferers, whom he had deprived of a

father, a husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an eye and a

hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss:

and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the

bitterness of death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a

rescue, he was carried through the city, and the basest of the

populace rejoiced to trample on the fallen majesty of their

prince. After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung

by the feet, between two pillars, that supported the statues of a

wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could reach the public

enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal

cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their

swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In

this long and painful agony, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” and “Why

will you bruise a broken reed?” were the only words that escaped

from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the

man; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resignation, since a

Greek Christian was no longer master of his life.

1018 (return) [ Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von

Trapezunt, p. 29, 33) has highly drawn the character of

Andronicus. In his view the extermination of the Byzantine

factions and dissolute nobility was part of a deep-laid and

splendid plan for the regeneration of the empire. It was

necessary for the wise and benevolent schemes of the father of

his people to lop off those limbs which were infected with

irremediable pestilence— “and with necessity, The tyrant’s plea,

excused his devilish deeds!!”—Still the fall of Andronicus was a

fatal blow to the Byzantine empire.—M.]

1019 (return) [ According to Nicetas, (p. 444,) Andronicus

despised the imbecile Isaac too much to fear him; he was arrested

by the officious zeal of Stephen, the instrument of the Emperor’s

cruelties.—M.]

I have been tempted to expatiate on the extraordinary character

and adventures of Andronicus; but I shall here terminate the

series of the Greek emperors since the time of Heraclius. The

branches that sprang from the Comnenian trunk had insensibly

withered; and the male line was continued only in the posterity

of Andronicus himself, who, in the public confusion, usurped the

sovereignty of Trebizond, so obscure in history, and so famous in

romance. A private citizen of Philadelphia, Constantine Angelus,

had emerged to wealth and honors, by his marriage with a daughter

of the emperor Alexius. His son Andronicus is conspicuous only by

his cowardice. His grandson Isaac punished and succeeded the

tyrant; but he was dethroned by his own vices, and the ambition

of his brother; and their discord introduced the Latins to the

conquest of Constantinople, the first great period in the fall of

the Eastern empire.

If we compute the number and duration of the reigns, it will be

found, that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty

emperors, including in the Augustan list some female sovereigns;

and deducting some usurpers who were never acknowledged in the

capital, and some princes who did not live to possess their

inheritance. The average proportion will allow ten years for each

emperor, far below the chronological rule of Sir Isaac Newton,

who, from the experience of more recent and regular monarchies,

has defined about eighteen or twenty years as the term of an

ordinary reign. The Byzantine empire was most tranquil and

prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary succession; five

dynasties, the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and

Comnenian families, enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony

during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and

four generations; several princes number the years of their reign

with those of their infancy; and Constantine the Seventh and his

two grandsons occupy the space of an entire century. But in the

intervals of the Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and

broken, and the name of a successful candidate is speedily erased

by a more fortunate competitor. Many were the paths that led to

the summit of royalty: the fabric of rebellion was overthrown by

the stroke of conspiracy, or undermined by the silent arts of

intrigue: the favorites of the soldiers or people, of the senate

or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were alternately clothed

with the purple: the means of their elevation were base, and

their end was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the nature

of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer

measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and

contempt on the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager,

in a narrow span, to grasp at a precarious and shortlived

enjoyment. It is thus that the experience of history exalts and

enlarges the horizon of our intellectual view. In a composition

of some days, in a perusal of some hours, six hundred years have

rolled away, and the duration of a life or reign is contracted to

a fleeting moment: the grave is ever beside the throne: the

success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the loss of

his prize and our immortal reason survives and disdains the sixty

phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly

dwell on our remembrance. The observation that, in every age and

climate, ambition has prevailed with the same commanding energy,

may abate the surprise of a philosopher: but while he condemns

the vanity, he may search the motive, of this universal desire to

obtain and hold the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of

the Byzantine series, we cannot reasonably ascribe the love of

fame and of mankind. The virtue alone of John Comnenus was

beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of the princes, who

procede or follow that respectable name, have trod with some

dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish

policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the

Isaurian, Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus,

the second Basil, and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are

almost equally balanced; and the remainder of the Imperial crowd

could only desire and expect to be forgotten by posterity. Was

personal happiness the aim and object of their ambition? I shall

not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I

may surely observe, that their condition, of all others, is the

most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For

these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the

revolutions of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of

the modern world, which cannot easily repeat either the triumph

of Alexander or the fall of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity

of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils, without

affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the

pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death

more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but the most

glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from their

subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious

without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the

Barbarians of the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the

loss of the provinces was terminated by the final servitude of

the capital.

The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the

Caesars to the last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen

hundred years: and the term of dominion, unbroken by foreign

conquest, surpasses the measure of the ancient monarchies; the

Assyrians or Medes, the successors of Cyrus, or those of

Alexander.