plebeian birth, the sovereign is the sole fountain of honor; and the
rank, both in the palace and the empire, depends on the titles and
offices which are bestowed and resumed by his arbitrary will. Above a
thousand years, from Vespasian to Alexius Comnenus, the _CÊsar_ was the
second person, or at least the second degree, after the supreme title of
_Augustus_ was more freely communicated to the sons and brothers of the
reigning monarch. To elude without violating his promise to a powerful
associate, the husband of his sister, and, without giving himself an
equal, to reward the piety of his brother Isaac, the crafty Alexius
interposed a new and supereminent dignity. The happy flexibility of the
Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names of Augustus and Emperor
(Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union produces the sonorous title of
_Sebastocrator_. He was exalted above the CÊsar on the first step of
the throne: the public acclamations repeated his name; and he was only
distinguished from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments of the head
and feet. The emperor alone could assume the purple or red buskins, and
the close diadem or tiara, which imitated the fashion of the Persian
kings. It was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk, almost concealed by
a profusion of pearls and jewels: the crown was formed by a horizontal
circle and two arches of gold: at the summit, the point of their
intersection, was placed a globe or cross, and two strings or lappets
of pearl depended on either cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the
Sebastocrator and CÊsar were green; and on their _open_ coronets or
crowns, the precious gems were more sparingly distributed. Beside and
below the CÊsar the fancy of Alexius created the _Panhypersebasto_
and the _Protosebastos_, whose sound and signification will satisfy a
Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and a priority above the simple
name of Augustus; and this sacred and primitive title of the Roman
prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the Byzantine court.
The daughter of Alexius applauds, with fond complacency, this artful
gradation of hopes and honors; but the science of words is accessible
to the meanest capacity; and this vain dictionary was easily enriched
by the pride of his successors. To their favorite sons or brothers,
they imparted the more lofty appellation of Lord or _Despot_, which was
illustrated with new ornaments, and prerogatives, and placed immediately
after the person of the emperor himself. The five titles of, 1. _Despot_;
2. _Sebastocrator_; 3. _CÊsar_; 4. _Panhypersebastos_; and,
5. _Protosebastos_; were usually confined to the princes of his blood: they
were the emanations of his majesty; but as they exercised no regular
functions, their existence was useless, and their authority precarious.
But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must be
divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and treasury, the
fleet and army. The titles alone can differ; and in the revolution
of ages, the counts and prÊfects, the prÊtor and quÊstor, insensibly
descended, while their servants rose above their heads to the first
honors of the state. 1. In a monarchy, which refers every object to the
person of the prince, the care and ceremonies of the palace form the
most respectable department. The _Curopalata_, so illustrious in the
age of Justinian, was supplanted by the _Protovestiare_, whose primitive
functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe. From thence his
jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of pomp and luxury;
and he presided with his silver wand at the public and private audience.
2. In the ancient system of Constantine, the name of _Logothete_, or
accountant, was applied to the receivers of the finances: the principal
officers were distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of the
posts, the army, the private and public treasure; and the _great
Logothete_, the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared
with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. His discerning eye pervaded
the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due subordination, by
the eparch or prÊfect of the city, the first secretary, and the keepers
of the privy seal, the archives, and the red or purple ink which was
reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor alone. The introductor
and interpreter of foreign ambassadors were the great _Chiauss_ and the
_Dragoman_, two names of Turkish origin, and which are still familiar to
the Sublime Porte. 3. From the humble style and service of guards, the
_Domestics_ insensibly rose to the station of generals; the military
themes of the East and West, the legions of Europe and Asia, were often
divided, till the great Domestic was finally invested with the universal
and absolute command of the land forces. The _Protostrator_, in his
original functions, was the assistant of the emperor when he mounted on
horseback: he gradually became the lieutenant of the great Domestic in
the field; and his jurisdiction extended over the stables, the cavalry,
and the royal train of hunting and hawking. The _Stratopedarch_ was the
great judge of the camp: the _Protospathaire_ commanded the guards; the
_Constable_, the _great ∆teriarch_, and the _Acolyth_, were the separate
chiefs of the Franks, the Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the
mercenary strangers, who, a the decay of the national spirit, formed
the nerve of the Byzantine armies. 4. The naval powers were under the
command of the _great Duke_; in his absence they obeyed the _great
Drungaire_ of the fleet; and, in _his_ place, the _Emir_, or _Admiral_,
a name of Saracen extraction, but which has been naturalized in all the
modern languages of Europe. Of these officers, and of many more whom
it would be useless to enumerate, the civil and military hierarchy
was framed. Their honors and emoluments, their dress and titles, their
mutual salutations and respective preÎminence, were balanced with more
exquisite labor than would have fixed the constitution of a free people;
and the code was almost perfect when this baseless fabric, the monument
of pride and servitude, was forever buried in the ruins of the empire.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.--Part III.
The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which devotion has
applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted by flattery and fear
to creatures of the same nature with ourselves. The mode of _adoration_,
of falling prostrate on the ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor,
was borrowed by Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued
and aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting only
on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious pride,
this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who entered the royal
presence, from the princes invested with the diadem and purple, and
from the ambassadors who represented their independent sovereigns, the
caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the kings of France and Italy, and
the Latin emperors of ancient Rome. In his transactions of business,
Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, asserted the free spirit of a Frank and
the dignity of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the
abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne, the
birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which were
accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two
companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and
thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He arose, but in the short
interval, the throne had been hoisted from the floor to the ceiling,
the Imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous apparel, and the
interview was concluded in haughty and majestic silence. In this honest
and curious narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies
of the Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,
and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy
or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to
Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he was
conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace prepared for
his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his jealous keepers
prohibited all social intercourse either with strangers or natives.
At his first audience, he offered the gifts of his master, slaves, and
golden vases, and costly armor. The ostentatious payment of the officers
and troops displayed before his eyes the riches of the empire: he was
entertained at a royal banquet, in which the ambassadors of the nations
were marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own
table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates which he
had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe of honor. In
the morning and evening of each day, his civil and military servants
attended their duty in the palace; their labors were repaid by the
sight, perhaps by the smile, of their lord; his commands were signified
by a nod or a sign: but all earthly greatness _stood_ silent and
submissive in his presence. In his regular or extraordinary processions
through the capital, he unveiled his person to the public view: the
rites of policy were connected with those of religion, and his visits
to the principal churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek
calendar. On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout
intention of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were
cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the most
precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken hangings,
were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a severe discipline
restrained and silenced the tumult of the populace. The march was opened
by the military officers at the head of their troops: they were followed
in long order by the magistrates and ministers of the civil government:
the person of the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and
at the church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and
his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and
spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations were
occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the circus; and
their furious conflicts, which had shaken the capital, were insensibly
sunk to an emulation of servitude. From either side they echoed in
responsive melody the praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians
directed the choir, and long life and victory were the burden of every
song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet,
and the church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated
in the Latin, Gothic, Persian, French, and even English language, by
the mercenaries who sustained the real or fictitious character of those
nations. By the pen of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, this science of form
and flattery has been reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, which
the vanity of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement.
Yet the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the same
acclamations were applied to every character and every reign: and if he
had risen from a private rank, he might remember, that his own voice had
been the loudest and most eager in applause, at the very moment when he
envied the fortune, or conspired against the life, of his predecessor.
The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine, without
faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood with the blood of
the CÊsars, by their marriage with a royal virgin, or by the nuptials
of their daughters with a Roman prince. The aged monarch, in his
instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride;
and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and
unreasonable demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is
prompted by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just
regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and
private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of
disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the
sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen
and a stranger: in the days of freedom and virtue, a senator would have
scorned to match his daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was
sullied by an Egyptian wife: and the emperor Titus was compelled, by
popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice. This
perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the great
Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially of the
unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished, that such strange
alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city.
The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the
impious prince who should stain the majesty of the purple was excluded
from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the
ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine
history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation
of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father
Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars,
the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince,
and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the
son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three
answers were prepared, which solved the difficulty and established
the law. I. The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were
acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font, and
declared war against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian
wife. By this impious alliance he accomplished the measure of his
crimes, and was devoted to the just censure of the church and of
posterity. II. Romanus could not be alleged as a legitimate emperor;
he was a plebeian usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the
honor, of the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride,
was the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject and
the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and
devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of
many thousand captives, depended on this preposterous alliance. Yet no
consideration could dispense from the law of Constantine: the clergy,
the senate, and the people, disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he
was reproached, both in his life and death, as the author of the public
disgrace. III. For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of
Hugo, king of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise
Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the fidelity
and valor of the Franks; and his prophetic spirit beheld the vision
of their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general
prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was the lineal descendant of
Charlemagne; and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of her
family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the
fraud or error of the Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo
was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles;
though it was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had
usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of Italy.
His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her female descent
from the Carlovingian line, every step was polluted with illegitimacy
or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine,
rather than the wife, of the second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce,
and second nuptials, had provoked against him the thunders of
the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was
successively the wife of the count of Arles and of the marquis of
Tuscany: France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till
the age of threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous
servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was
copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite concubines of Hugo
were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele. The
daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine
court: her name of Bertha was changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was
wedded, or rather betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of
the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was
suspended by the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five
years, the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The
second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but of
Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given
in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the
pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited
this alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned
how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation;
but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had
restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law
and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the
virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance
of her country. In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice was
lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by the stronger
argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great
prince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his
claim was enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and
the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim of her
religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from the palace of
her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a hopeless exile
on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighborhood of the Polar
circle. Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and fruitful: the
daughter of her grandson Joroslaus was recommended by her Imperial
descent; and the king of France, Henry I., sought a wife on the last
borders of Europe and Christendom.
In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the
ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated each
word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated the leisure
of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of millions hung on
his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds, superior to the allurements
of pomp and luxury, may be seduced by the more active pleasure of
commanding their equals. The legislative and executive powers were
centred in the person of the monarch, and the last remains of the
authority of the senate were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher.
A lethargy of servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in the
wildest tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a free
constitution; and the private character of the prince was the only
source and measure of their public happiness. Superstition rivetted
their chains; in the church of St. Sophia he was solemnly crowned by
the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they pledged their passive and
unconditional obedience to his government and family. On his side he
engaged to abstain as much as possible from the capital punishments of
death and mutilation; his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own
hand, and he promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the
canons of the holy church. But the assurance of mercy was loose and
indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible judge; and
except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the ministers of heaven were
always prepared to preach the indefeasible right, and to absolve the
venial transgressions, of their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were
themselves the subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant,
the bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished with
an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or influence, they
could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the establishment of an
independent republic; and the patriarch of Constantinople condemned,
what he secretly envied, the temporal greatness of his Roman brother.
Yet the exercise of boundless despotism is happily checked by the laws
of nature and necessity. In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the
master of an empire is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious
duty. In proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are ruled by
the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite, who undertakes
for his private interest to exercise the task of the public oppression.
In some fatal moment, the most absolute monarch may dread the reason
or the caprice of a nation of slaves; and experience has proved, that
whatever is gained in the extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of
regal power.
Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may assert, it
is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to guard him against his
foreign and domestic enemies. From the age of Charlemagne to that of the
Crusades, the world (for I overlook the remote monarchy of China) was
occupied and disputed by the three great empires or nations of the
Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks. Their military strength may be
ascertained by a comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and
their obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals in the
first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to the Saracens,
in the second and third of these warlike qualifications.