I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine

to Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and

faithfully exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their

reigns. Five centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have

already elapsed; but a period of more than eight hundred years

still separates me from the term of my labors, the taking of

Constantinople by the Turks. Should I persevere in the same

course, should I observe the same measure, a prolix and slender

thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would the patient

reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement. At

every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the

Eastern empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose

a more ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue

to repeat a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the

natural connection of causes and events would be broken by

frequent and hasty transitions, and a minute accumulation of

circumstances must destroy the light and effect of those general

pictures which compose the use and ornament of a remote history.

From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is contracted

and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by the

laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all

sides from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our

inquiries, is reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely

suburbs of Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has

been compared to that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the

sands, before its waters can mingle with the ocean. The scale of

dominion is diminished to our view by the distance of time and

place; nor is the loss of external splendor compensated by the

nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the last moments of her

decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and populous

than Athens at her most flourishing aera, when a scanty sum of

six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling

was possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult

age. But each of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to

assert the liberty of his thoughts, words, and actions, whose

person and property were guarded by equal law; and who exercised

his independent vote in the government of the republic. Their

numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and various

discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on the

wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level

of the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some

chosen spirits soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the

chances of superior merit in a great and populous kingdom, as

they are proved by experience, would excuse the computation of

imaginary millions. The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their

allies, do not exceed a moderate province of France or England;

but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea, they expand in our

fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been trampled under

the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of the

Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of

Greeks and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices,

which are neither softened by the weakness of humanity, nor

animated by the vigor of memorable crimes. The freemen of

antiquity might repeat with generous enthusiasm the sentence of

Homer, “that on the first day of his servitude, the captive is

deprived of one half of his manly virtue.” But the poet had only

seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor could he

foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated by

the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but

even the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke,

the Greeks were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the

tyrant, a law of eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of

his subjects; and on the throne, in the camp, in the schools, we

search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, the names and

characters that may deserve to be rescued from oblivion. Nor are

the defects of the subject compensated by the skill and variety

of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four

first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some

faint and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the

emperors, from Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone

been the theme of a separate work; and the absence, or loss, or

imperfection of contemporary evidence, must be poorly supplied by

the doubtful authority of more recent compilers. The four last

centuries are exempt from the reproach of penury; and with the

Comnenian family, the historic muse of Constantinople again

revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are without

elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads

in each other’s footsteps in the same path of servitude and

superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or

corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still

ignorant of the causes of events, the characters of the actors,

and the manners of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The

observation which has been applied to a man, may be extended to a

whole people, that the energy of the sword is communicated to the

pen; and it will be found by experience, that the tone of history

will rise or fall with the spirit of the age.

From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret

the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not

reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively

connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which

have changed the state of the world. The space of the lost

provinces was immediately replenished with new colonies and

rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war deserted

from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in their

origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we

must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of

the Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches

and variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of

design and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman

of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca,

the historian’s eye shall be always fixed on the city of

Constantinople. The excursive line may embrace the wilds of

Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be ultimately reduced to

the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.

On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two

volumes of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a

regular series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during

a period of six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the

Latin conquest; a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a

general appeal to the order and text of the original historians.

In this introduction, I shall confine myself to the revolutions

of the throne, the succession of families, the personal

characters of the Greek princes, the mode of their life and

death, the maxims and influence of their domestic government, and

the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the downfall

of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve to

illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and

each circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will

adapt itself in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The

internal state of the empire, and the dangerous heresy of the

Paulicians, which shook the East and enlightened the West, will

be the subject of two separate chapters; but these inquiries must

be postponed till our further progress shall have opened the view

of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian

area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the following

nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the space

to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree

of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The

Franks; a general appellation which includes all the Barbarians

of France, Italy, and Germany, who were united by the sword and

sceptre of Charlemagne. The persecution of images and their

votaries separated Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and

prepared the restoration of the Roman empire in the West. II. The

Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will be devoted to this

curious and interesting object. In the first, after a picture of

the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate the

character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the

prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of

Syria, Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor

can I check their victorious career till they have overthrown the

monarchies of Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how

Constantinople and Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the

division and decay, of the empire of the caliphs. A single

chapter will include, III. The Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and,

V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by land the provinces and

the capital; but the last of these, so important in their present

greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin and

infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of

that warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and

Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the

trophies of chivalry, and almost realized the wonders of romance.

VII. The Latins; the subjects of the pope, the nations of the

West, who enlisted under the banner of the cross for the recovery

or relief of the holy sepulchre. The Greek emperors were

terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to

Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers of Christendom.

The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of the first:

Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred

years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and

finally expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these

memorable crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were

diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the

capital, they subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of

Latin princes was seated near threescore years on the throne of

Constantine. VII. The Greeks themselves, during this period of

captivity and exile, must be considered as a foreign nation; the

enemies, and again the sovereigns of Constantinople. Misfortune

had rekindled a spark of national virtue; and the Imperial series

may be continued with some dignity from their restoration to the

Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the arms of

Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to

Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell,

and the Caesars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour

suspended above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine

empire. X. I have already noticed the first appearance of the

Turks; and the names of the fathers, of Seljuk and Othman,

discriminate the two successive dynasties of the nation, which

emerged in the eleventh century from the Scythian wilderness. The

former established a splendid and potent kingdom from the banks

of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first crusade was

provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of

Constantinople. From an humble origin, the Ottomans arose, the

scourge and terror of Christendom. Constantinople was besieged

and taken by Mahomet II., and his triumph annihilates the

remnant, the image, the title, of the Roman empire in the East.

The schism of the Greeks will be connected with their last

calamities, and the restoration of learning in the Western world.

I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the ruins of

ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme, will

shed a ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.

The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his

throne; and the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the

transient conquest, and irreparable loss, of the Eastern

provinces. After the death of Eudocia, his first wife, he

disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by his second

marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the

Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the

father and the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an

illegitimate birth is sufficient to distract the choice, and

loosen the obedience, of the people: the ambition of Martina was

quickened by maternal love, and perhaps by the envy of a

step-mother; and the aged husband was too feeble to withstand the

arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine, his eldest son,

enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the weakness

of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and he

yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire.

The senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the

association of Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of

the diadem was consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the

patriarch; the senators and patricians adored the majesty of the

great emperor and the partners of his reign; and as soon as the

doors were thrown open, they were hailed by the tumultuary but

important voice of the soldiers. After an interval of five

months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the essence of the

Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the

hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly

displayed by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the

name of Martina was mingled in the reluctant or venal

acclamations of the people. Heraclius survived this association

about two years: his last testimony declared his two sons the

equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and commanded them to honor

his widow Martina as their mother and their sovereign.

When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and

attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though

respectful, opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were

kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. “We reverence,”

exclaimed the voice of a citizen, “we reverence the mother of our

princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and

Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain, in his

own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by

nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how

could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly

intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from

the Roman republic this national disgrace, which would provoke

the patience of the slaves of Persia!” Martina descended from the

throne with indignation, and sought a refuge in the female

apartment of the palace. The reign of Constantine the Third

lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired in the

thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long

malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means,

and his cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate.

Martina reaped indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the

government in the name of the surviving emperor; but the

incestuous widow of Heraclius was universally abhorred; the

jealousy of the people was awakened, and the two orphans whom

Constantine had left became the objects of the public care. It

was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than fifteen

years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his

nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it

was in vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to

defend them against all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late

emperor had despatched a trusty servant to arm the troops and

provinces of the East in the defence of his helpless children:

the eloquence and liberality of Valentin had been successful, and

from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly demanded the punishment of

the assassins, and the restoration of the lawful heir. The

license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and drank the

wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of

Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities,

and the dome of St. Sophia reechoed, not with prayers and hymns,

but with the clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At

their imperious command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with

the eldest of the royal orphans; Constans alone was saluted as

emperor of the Romans, and a crown of gold, which had been taken

from the tomb of Heraclius, was placed on his head, with the

solemn benediction of the patriarch.

But in the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was

pillaged, the sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of

Jews and Barbarians; and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of

the empress, after dropping a protestation on the altar, escaped

by a prudent flight from the zeal of the Catholics. A more

serious and bloody task was reserved for the senate, who derived

a temporary strength from the consent of the soldiers and people.

The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient and awful

examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits

were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of

Constantine. But the severity of the conscript fathers was

stained by the indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the

guilty: Martina and Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation,

the former of her tongue, the latter of his nose; and after this

cruel execution, they consumed the remainder of their days in

exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were capable of reflection

might find some consolation for their servitude, by observing the

abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the hands of an

aristocracy.

We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years

backwards to the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the

oration which Constans II. pronounced in the twelfth year of his

age before the Byzantine senate. After returning his thanks for

the just punishment of the assassins, who had intercepted the

fairest hopes of his father’s reign, “By the divine Providence,”

said the young emperor, “and by your righteous decree, Martina

and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the

throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state

from degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and

beseech you to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the

common safety.” The senators were gratified by the respectful

address and liberal donative of their sovereign; but these

servile Greeks were unworthy and regardless of freedom; and in

his mind, the lesson of an hour was quickly erased by the

prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism. He retained

only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day

invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother

Theodosius on an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders,

the grandson of Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but

this ceremony, which seemed to profane the sacraments of the

church, was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant,

and the death of the deacon Theodosius could alone expiate the

crime of his royal birth. 1111 His murder was avenged by the

imprecations of the people, and the assassin, in the fullness of

power, was driven from his capital into voluntary and perpetual

exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant to retort

the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial

galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After

passing the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy,

visited Rome, 1112 and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace

and sacrilegious rapine, by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But

if Constans could fly from his people, he could not fly from

himself. The remorse of his conscience created a phantom who

pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night; and the

visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,

said, or seemed to say, “Drink, brother, drink;” a sure emblem of

the aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the

hands of the deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious

to himself and to mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps

by episcopal, treason, in the capital of Sicily. A servant who

waited in the bath, after pouring warm water on his head, struck

him violently with the vase. He fell, stunned by the blow, and

suffocated by the water; and his attendants, who wondered at the

tedious delay, beheld with indifference the corpse of their

lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested with the purple

an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it might

easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of

the age.

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

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

379.—M.]

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

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

Syracuse, or, as Schlosser conceives, to Constantinople Schlosser

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

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

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

father summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these

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

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

of his murder was conveyed with almost supernatural speed from

Syracuse to Constantinople; and Constantine, the eldest of his

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

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

chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had

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

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

of Rome and Carthage were assembled under his standard in the

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

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

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

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

deploring with some bitterness the execution of a virtuous

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

the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation

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

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

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

Sicilian voyage was announced, by the familiar surname of

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

predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two

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

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

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

instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province

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

brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported

their seditious claim by a theological argument. They were

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

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

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

equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned

divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose

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

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

Galata reconciled their companions to the unity of the reign of

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

pronounced in the public acclamations: but on the repetition or

suspicion of a similar offence, the obnoxious princes were

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

Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in the

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

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

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

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

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

and the assurance of the empire.

1113 (return) [ Schlosser (Geschichte der bilder sturmenden

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

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

inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in

the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed

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

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

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

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

namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions

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

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

millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen

him for their local magistrate. His favorite ministers were two

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

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

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

scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with

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

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

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

possessed some vigor of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and

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

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

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

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

patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government

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

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

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

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

sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps.

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

recompense of a generous resolution; that every order of men

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

hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader.

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

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

prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed

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

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

prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church the people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of

Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonae

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

were imported as foreign luxuries.

On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished

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

three years’ exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that

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

in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel

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

the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian

usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and

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

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

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

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

their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan

entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant:

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

Moeotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman

prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the

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

received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was

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

design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her

husband must have been assassinated or betrayed into the power of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the

Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the

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

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

treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the

confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople

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

the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had

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

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

were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their

hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever

discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence

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

Constantine.

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

II.

In rewarding his allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian

displayed some sense of honor and gratitude; 1114 and Terbelis

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

measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more

religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he

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

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

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

palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast

prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and

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

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

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

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

foot!” The universal defection which he had once experienced

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

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

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

and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow,

instead of the slow variety of tortures which Justinian inflicted

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

neither private virtue nor public service could expiate the guilt

of active, or even passive, obedience to an established

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

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

instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was

pointed against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and

violated the laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded

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

was imposed on Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a

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

mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to

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

savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the

intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed

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

and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the

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

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

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

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

on the rocky shores of Anatolia; and Justinian applauded the

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

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

was still insatiate of blood; and a second expedition was

commanded to extirpate the remains of the proscribed colony. In

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

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

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

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

of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial

troops, unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of

Justinian, escaped his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance:

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

auspicious course to the harbors of Sinope and Constantinople;

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

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

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

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

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

and the innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most

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

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

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

the race of Heraclius was extinguished after a reign of one

hundred years

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

Compare Le Beau vol. xii. p. 64.—M.]

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

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

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

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

taste some moments of happiness in the first transports of

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

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

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

his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the

games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the

streets with a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets;

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

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

meridian hour he withdrew to his chamber, intoxicated with

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

subject ambitious, and that every ambitious subject was his

secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced themselves in the

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

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

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

free voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the

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

Anastasius the Second, and displayed in a short and troubled

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

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

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

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

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

war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,

Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior

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

His two predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical

profession: the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to

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

last days of Theodosius were honorable and secure. The single

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

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

miracles was long preserved among the people of Ephesus. This

convenient shelter of the church might sometimes impose a lesson

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

public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.

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

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

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

involved in the ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in

spite of the clamors of superstition, a favorable prejudice for

the character of Leo the Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from

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

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

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

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

the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the elevation

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

supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He

would probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science;

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

obligations of benevolence and justice; but to his character we

may ascribe the useful virtues of prudence and fortitude, the

knowledge of mankind, and the important art of gaining their

confidence and directing their passions. It is agreed that Leo

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

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

itinerant pedler, who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise

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

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

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

A more probable account relates the migration of his father from

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

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

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

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

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

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

conspicuous in the Colchian war: from Anastasius he received the

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

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

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

supported himself against the envy of his equals, the discontent

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

domestic enemies. The Catholics, who accuse his religious

innovations, are obliged to confess that they were undertaken

with temper and conducted with firmness. Their silence respects

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

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

palace of Constantinople; and the purple which he had acquired

was transmitted by the right of inheritance to the third

generation. 1115

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

hostilities of the Saracens, who invested a Pergamenian, named

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

Justinian, and an earthquake, which destroyed the walls of

Constantinople, compelled Leo greatly to increase the burdens of

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

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

eturmeud Kaiser, p. 197.—M.]

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

Leo, Constantine the Fifth, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with

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

votaries have exhausted the bitterness of religious gall, in

their portrait of this spotted panther, this antichrist, this

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

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

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

the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed

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

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

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

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

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

the manly pleasures of Copronymus degraded him below the level of

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

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

objects most offensive to human sense. In his religion the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

more difficult. Without adopting the pernicious maxim, that where

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

that Constantine the Fifth was dissolute and cruel. Calumny is

more prone to exaggerate than to invent; and her licentious

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

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

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

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

execution was public, the mutilation visible and permanent. 1116

The Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but

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

the provocations which might excuse or justify his rigor, but

even these provocations must gradually inflame his resentment and

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

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

did his government always deserve the curses or the contempt of

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

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

thousand five hundred captives, of the uncommon plenty of the

times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled

Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise

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

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

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

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

into the scale to counterbalance the weight of orthodox

invective. The Iconoclasts revered the virtues of the prince:

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

the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated by fanaticism or

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

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

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

with the daemons in the abyss of hell.”

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

Constantinople, founded by Julian, with its president and twelve

professors. This eastern Sorbonne had discomfited the Imperial

theologians on the great question of image worship. Schlosser

observes that this accidental fire took place six years after the

emperor had laid the question of image-worship before the

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

xl. p. 156.—M.]

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

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

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

the succession. The association of the young Constantine was

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

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

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

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

consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and solemnity,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them

from the throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded

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

were not deemed a sufficient compensation for wealth and power;

and they repeatedly conspired against their nephew, before and

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

for the second offence 1118 they were condemned to the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

soothed the unhappy princes with flattery and hope, and gently

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

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

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

condition, Nicephorus and his brothers were tormented by the

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

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

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

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

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

darkness and oblivion.

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

his only proof of his superiority is the successes of his

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

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

young Constantine—M.]

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

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

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

old, whose sole fortune must have consisted in her personal

accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated

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

feeble husband, and in his testament he declared the empress

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

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

childhood, Irene most ably and assiduously discharged, in her

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

zeal in the restoration of images has deserved the name and

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

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

maternal yoke became more grievous; and he listened to the

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

ambitious of sharing his power. Their reasons convinced him of

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

consented to reward the services of Irene by a perpetual

banishment to the Isle of Sicily. But her vigilance and

penetration easily disconcerted their rash projects: a similar,

or more severe, punishment was retaliated on themselves and their

advisers; and Irene inflicted on the ungrateful prince the

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

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

influence and voluntary obedience, she held in chains a captive

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

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

pronounced with reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the

Armenian guards encouraged a free and general declaration, that

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

this character he ascended his hereditary throne, and dismissed

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

condescended to the arts of dissimulation: she flattered the

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

regained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The

character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or spirit;

but his education had been studiously neglected; and the

ambitious mother exposed to the public censure the vices which

she had nourished, and the actions which she had secretly

advised: his divorce and second marriage offended the prejudices

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

attachment of the Armenian guards. A powerful conspiracy was

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

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

emperor, suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople,

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

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

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

private epistle to the friends whom she had placed about his

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

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

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

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

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

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

bloody council, that Constantine should be rendered incapable of

the throne: her emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and

stabbed their daggers with such violence and precipitation into

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

ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded the annalist of the

church that death was the immediate consequence of this barbarous

execution. The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by the

authority of Baronius; and Protestant zeal has reechoed the words

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

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

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

the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished; and the memory of

Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his daughter

Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second.

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

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

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

The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the unnatural

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

crimes. To her bloody deed superstition has attributed a

subsequent darkness of seventeen days; during which many vessels

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

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

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

years unpunished; her reign was crowned with external splendor;

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

heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world

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

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

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

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

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

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

intrusted with the first dignities of the empire, they basely

conspired against their benefactress; the great treasurer

Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her successor

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

venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated with

dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy

of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her

unsuspicious clemency, and for the throne and treasures which she

resigned, solicited a decent and honorable retreat. His avarice

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

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

of her distaff.

Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than

Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the

universal abhorrence of their people. His character was stained

with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and

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

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

Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by

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

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

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

field with a mortal wound; yet six months of an expiring life

were sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular

declaration, that he would in all things avoid the example of his

father. On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great

master of the palace, and the husband of his sister Procopia, was

named by every person of the palace and city, except by his

envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre now falling from his

hand, he conspired against the life of his successor, and

cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman empire.

But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the

people and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael the

First accepted the purple, and before he sunk into the grave the

son of Nicephorus implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had

Michael in an age of peace ascended an hereditary throne, he

might have reigned and died the father of his people: but his

mild virtues were adapted to the shade of private life, nor was

he capable of controlling the ambition of his equals, or of

resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While his want

of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the

soldiers, the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened

their indignation. Even the Greeks of the ninth century were

provoked by the insolence of a female, who, in the front of the

standards, presumed to direct their discipline and animate their

valor; and their licentious clamors advised the new Semiramis to

reverence the majesty of a Roman camp. After an unsuccessful

campaign, the emperor left, in their winter-quarters of Thrace, a

disaffected army under the command of his enemies; and their

artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the dominion of

the eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to assert

the right of a military election. They marched towards the

capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of

Constantinople, adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops

and treasures of Asia might have protracted the mischiefs of

civil war. But his humanity (by the ambitious it will be termed

his weakness) protested that not a drop of Christian blood should

be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers presented the

conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They were

disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes

were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of

solitude and religion above thirty-two years after he had been

stripped of the purple and separated from his wife.

1011 (return) [ The Syrian historian Aboulfaradj. Chron. Syr. p.

133, 139, speaks of him as a brave, prudent, and pious prince,

formidable to the Arabs. St. Martin, c. xii. p. 402. Compare

Schlosser, p. 350.—M.]

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!”