55 (return) [ _Quodam miraculo_, says Al_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

received by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended

Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p.

805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian Nicetas;

and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian

library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas

says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to the

marquis.—M.]

Athens, 56 though no more than the shadow of her former self,

still contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these,

three fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks,

who compose the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse

with the citizens, somewhat of the pride and gravity of their

national character. The olive-tree, the gift of Minerva,

flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey of Mount Hymettus lost

any part of its exquisite flavor: 57 but the languid trade is

monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a barren land is

abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians are still

distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their

understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom,

and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish

cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, “From the

Jews of Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of

Athens, good Lord deliver us!” This artful people has eluded the

tyranny of the Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates

their servitude and aggravates their shame. About the middle of

the last century, the Athenians chose for their protector the

Kislar Aga, or chief black eunuch of the seraglio. This Æthiopian

slave, who possesses the sultan’s ear, condescends to accept the

tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his lieutenant, the Waywode,

whom he annually confirms, may reserve for his own about five or

six thousand more; and such is the policy of the citizens, that

they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive governor.

Their private differences are decided by the archbishop, one of

the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a

revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the

eight _geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the

city: the noble families cannot trace their pedigree above three

hundred years; but their principal members are distinguished by a

grave demeanor, a fur cap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_.

By some, who delight in the contrast, the modern language of

Athens is represented as the most corrupt and barbarous of the

seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: 58 this picture is too

darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the country of Plato

and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their works. The

Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious ruins

of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that

they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors.

56 (return) [ The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is

extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79—199,) and

Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337—414,) Stuart, (Antiquities

of Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p.

23—172.) The first of these travellers visited Greece in the year

1676; the last, 1765; and ninety years had not produced much

difference in the tranquil scene.]

57 (return) [ The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed

that all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount

Hymettus. They taught, that health might be preserved, and life

prolonged, by the external use of oil, and the internal use of

honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c 7, p. 1089—1094, edit. Niclas.)]

58 (return) [ Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8, who quotes

for his author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet

Spon (tom. ii. p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent

judges, entertain a more favorable opinion of the Attic dialect.]

59 (return) [ Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name

of Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn

'Aqhnhn, we have formed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note:

Gibbon did not foresee a Bavarian prince on the throne of Greece,

with Athens as his capital.—M.]

Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part

Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Reigns Of Andronicus,

The Elder And Younger, And John Palæologus.— Regency, Revolt,

Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.— Establishment Of A

Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.—Their Wars With The Empire And

City Of Constantinople.

The long reign of Andronicus 1 the elder is chiefly memorable by

the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans,

and the rise of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most

learned and virtuous prince of the age; but such virtue, and such

learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the

individual, nor to the happiness of society. A slave of the most

abject superstition, he was surrounded on all sides by visible

and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful

to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the

reign of the Palæologi, the choice of the patriarch was the most

important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church

were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues,

their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or

contemptible. By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch

Athanasius 2 excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was

heard to declare, that the sinner should swallow the last dregs

of the cup of penance; and the foolish tale was propagated of his

punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted the lettuce of a

convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal clamor,

Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very

opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity

and resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst

anathemas against the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded

forever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and

the saints. This last paper he enclosed in an earthen pot, which

was placed, by his order, on the top of one of the pillars, in

the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope of discovery and

revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbing

by a ladder in search of pigeons’ nests, detected the fatal

secret; and,

as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the

excommunication, he trembled on the brink of the abyss which had

been so treacherously dug under his feet. A synod of bishops was

instantly convened to debate this important question: the

rashness of these clandestine anathemas was generally condemned;

but as the knot could be untied only by the same hand, as that

hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that this

posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some

faint testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the

author of the mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was

still wounded, and he desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius

himself, the restoration of a patriarch, by whom alone he could

be healed. At the dead of night, a monk rudely knocked at the

door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing a revelation of plague

and famine, of inundations and earthquakes. Andronicus started

from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he felt, or

thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor

on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and,

after a proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had

been sent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church

of Constantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude,

the shepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies

contrived a singular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of

revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or

foot-cloth of his throne, which they secretly replaced with the

decoration of a satirical picture. The emperor was painted with a

bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leading the tractable beast

to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were detected and

punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian

priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of

Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed

by his successor.

1 (return) [ Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the

invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he

pronounced against historic falsehood. It is true, that his

censure is more pointedly urged against calumny than against

adulation.]

2 (return) [ For the anathema in the pigeon’s nest, see Pachymer,

(l. ix. c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius,

(l. viii. c. 13—16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27—29, 31—36, l. xi. c. 1—3,

5, 6, l. xiii. c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus

Gregoras, (l. vi. c. 5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the

second retreat of this second Chrysostom.]

If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a

reign of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my

materials, since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios

of Pachymer, 3 Cantacuzene, 4 and Nicephorus Gregoras, 5 who have

composed the prolix and languid story of the times. The name and

situation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might inspire the most

lively curiosity. His memorials of forty years extend from the

revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication of the

empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and Cæsar, he was

the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But in this

eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or a

penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of

the world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the

life of an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true

counsels and characters of men, he displays the smooth and

specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own praises

and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their

ends always legitimate: they conspire and rebel without any views

of interest; and the violence which they inflict or suffer is

celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason and virtue.

3 (return) [ Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes

the first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the

date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day,

(A.D. 1308.) Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming

the pen.]

4 (return) [ After an interval of twelve years, from the

conclusion of Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his

first book (c. 1—59, p. 9—150) relates the civil war, and the

eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious

comparison with Moses and Cæsar is fancied by his French

translator, the president Cousin.]

5 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire

life and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96—291.)

This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and

malicious representation of his conduct.]

After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder

Andronicus associated his son Michael to the honors of the

purple; and from the age of eighteen to his premature death, that

prince was acknowledged, above twenty-five years, as the second

emperor of the Greeks. 6 At the head of an army, he excited

neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy of the court;

his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute the years

of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his

liberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of

Michael was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early

favor he was introduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms

of wit and beauty increased the fondness of the elder Andronicus;

and, with the common vanity of age, he expected to realize in the

second, the hope which had been disappointed in the first,

generation. The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a

favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the

_august triad_ was formed by the names of the father, the son,

and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily

corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile

impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang,

over his rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to

diffuse happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and

impunity were in his eyes the most precious attributes of a

monarch; and his first indiscreet demand was the sovereignty of

some rich and fertile island, where he might lead a life of

independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the loud

and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums

which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers

of Pera; and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest

of a faction, could be discharged only by a revolution. A

beautiful female, a matron in rank, a prostitute in manners, had

instructed the younger Andronicus in the rudiments of love; but

he had reason to suspect the nocturnal visits of a rival; and a

stranger passing through the street was pierced by the arrows of

his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That stranger

was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his

wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health

was in a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting

the loss of both his children. 7 However guiltless in his

intention, the younger Andronicus might impute a brother’s and a

father’s death to the consequence of his own vices; and deep was

the sigh of thinking and feeling men, when they perceived,

instead of sorrow and repentance, his ill-dissembled joy on the

removal of two odious competitors. By these melancholy events,

and the increase of his disorders, the mind of the elder emperor

was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless reproofs, he

transferred on another grandson 8 his hopes and affection. The

change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the

reigning sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for

his successor; and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of

insults and complaints, was exposed to the indignity of a public

trial. Before the sentence, which would probably have condemned

him to a dungeon or a cell, the emperor was informed that the

palace courts were filled with the armed followers of his

grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of

reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince

encouraged the ardor of the younger faction.

6 (return) [ He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October

12th, 1320, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by

a second marriage, inherited the marquisate of Montferrat,

apostatized to the religion and manners of the Latins, (oti kai

gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai geneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin

DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l. ix. c. 1,) and founded a

dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished A.D. 1533,

(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249—253.)]

7 (return) [ We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c.

1) for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene

more discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of

which he was the witness and perhaps the associate, (l. i. c. 1,

&c.)]

8 (return) [ His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard

of Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his

grandson Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3) agrees

with Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 1, 2.)]

Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the

person, or at least to the government, of the old emperor; and it

was only in the provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign

succor, that the malecontents could hope to vindicate their cause

and subvert his throne. The soul of the enterprise was the great

domestic John Cantacuzene; the sally from Constantinople is the

first date of his actions and memorials; and if his own pen be

most descriptive of his patriotism, an unfriendly historian has

not refused to celebrate the zeal and ability which he displayed

in the service of the young emperor. 89 That prince escaped from

the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected his standard

at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousand horse

and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against

the Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the

empire; but their counsels were discordant, their motions were

slow and doubtful, and their progress was checked by intrigue and

negotiation. The quarrel of the two Andronici was protracted, and

suspended, and renewed, during a ruinous period of seven years.

In the first treaty, the relics of the Greek empire were divided:

Constantinople, Thessalonica, and the islands, were left to the

elder, while the younger acquired the sovereignty of the greatest

part of Thrace, from Philippi to the Byzantine limit. By the

second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his troops, his

immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and

revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the

surprise of Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor,

and the sole reign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of

this delay may be found in the characters of the men and of the

times. When the heir of the monarchy first pleaded his wrongs and

his apprehensions, he was heard with pity and applause: and his

adherents repeated on all sides the inconsistent promise, that he

would increase the pay of the soldiers and alleviate the burdens

of the people. The grievances of forty years were mingled in his

revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the endless

prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other

times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age

was without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of

five hundred thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns

of Christendom was incapable of maintaining three thousand horse

and twenty galleys, to resist the destructive progress of the

Turks. 9 “How different,” said the younger Andronicus, “is my

situation from that of the son of Philip! Alexander might

complain, that his father would leave him nothing to conquer:

alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose.” But the Greeks

were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be

healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not

destined to be the savior of a falling empire. On the first

repulse, his party was broken by his own levity, their intestine

discord, and the intrigues of the ancient court, which tempted

each malecontent to desert or betray the cause of the rebellion.

Andronicus the younger was touched with remorse, or fatigued with

business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure rather than power

was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand hounds, a

thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to sully

his fame and disarm his ambition.

89 (return) [ The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was

inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and

dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young

Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn

the emperor of his danger when the march was determined.

Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist. Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.—M.]

9 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger

Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum

of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his

household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted

the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of

the revenue.]

Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the

final situation of the principal actors. 10 The age of Andronicus

was consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and

treaty, his power and reputation continually decayed, till the

fatal night in which the gates of the city and palace were opened

without resistance to his grandson. His principal commander

scorned the repeated warnings of danger; and retiring to rest in

the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch,

with some priests and pages, to the terrors of a sleepless night.

These terrors were quickly realized by the hostile shouts, which

proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicus the younger; and

the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image of the

Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, and

to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of

his grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends,

the younger Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the

elder still enjoyed the name and preeminence of the first

emperor, the use of the great palace, and a pension of

twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one half of which was

assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on the fishery of

Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to contempt

and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed only

by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, 101 which roved

with impunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced

allowance of ten thousand pieces of gold 11 was all that he could

ask, and more than he could hope. His calamities were imbittered

by the gradual extinction of sight; his confinement was rendered

each day more rigorous; and during the absence and sickness of

his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the threats of instant

death, compelled him to exchange the purple for the monastic

habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pomp of

the world; yet he had occasion for a coarse fur in the winter

season, and as wine was forbidden by his confessor, and water by

his physician, the sherbet of Egypt was his common drink. It was

not without difficulty that the late emperor could procure three

or four pieces to satisfy these simple wants; and if he bestowed

the gold to relieve the more painful distress of a friend, the

sacrifice is of some weight in the scale of humanity and

religion. Four years after his abdication, Andronicus or Antony

expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of his age: and the

last strain of adulation could only promise a more splendid crown

of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. 12 121

10 (return) [ I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who

is remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken

the dates of his own actions, or rather that his text has been

corrupted by ignorant transcribers.]

101 (return) [ And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras,

p. 431.—M.]

11 (return) [ I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of

Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras,

(l. ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the other to

magnify, the hardships of the old emperor.]

12 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14,

l. x. c. 1.) The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and

shared the retreat, of his benefactor; and that friendship which

“waits or to the scaffold or the cell,” should not lightly be

accused as “a hireling, a prostitute to praise.” * Note: But it

may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. He compares the

extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his coffin

is to be floated like Noah’s ark by a deluge of tears.—M.]

121 (return) [ Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460)

announced the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk

from his earthly prison.—M.]

Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than

that of the elder, Andronicus. 13 He gathered the fruits of

ambition; but the taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme

station he lost the remains of his early popularity; and the

defects of his character became still more conspicuous to the

world. The public reproach urged him to march in person against

the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the hour of trial; but a

defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his expedition in

Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman monarchy.

The abuses of the civil government attained their full maturity

and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion of

national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal

symptoms of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before

his time; the intemperance of youth had accelerated the

infirmities of age; and after being rescued from a dangerous

malady by nature, or physic, or the Virgin, he was snatched away

before he had accomplished his forty-fifth year. He was twice

married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms and arts had

softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two wives

were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The

first, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke

of Brunswick. Her father 14 was a petty lord 15 in the poor and

savage regions of the north of Germany: 16 yet he derived some

revenue from his silver mines; 17 and his family is celebrated by

the Greeks as the most ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. 18

After the death of this childish princess, Andronicus sought in

marriage Jane, the sister of the count of Savoy; 19 and his suit

was preferred to that of the French king. 20 The count respected

in his sister the superior majesty of a Roman empress: her

retinue was composed of knights and ladies; she was regenerated

and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodox appellation of

Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italians vied

with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and

tournaments.

13 (return) [ The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is

described by Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1—40, p. 191—339) and

Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix c. 7—l. xi. c. 11, p. 262—361.)]

14 (return) [ Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the

Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in

descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and

Bavaria, and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her

brother Henry was surnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys

into the East: but these journeys were subsequent to his sister’s

marriage; and I am ignorant _how_ Agnes was discovered in the

heart of Germany, and recommended to the Byzantine court.

(Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p. 126—137.]

15 (return) [ Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch

of Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He

resided in the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than

a sixth part of the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh,

which the Guelph family had saved from the confiscation of their

great fiefs. The frequent partitions among brothers had almost

ruined the princely houses of Germany, till that just, but

pernicious, law was slowly superseded by the right of

primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of the last

remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous, and

barren tract, (Busching’s Geography, vol. vi. p. 270—286, English

translation.)]

16 (return) [ The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh

will teach us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of

Germany deserved the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur

les Murs, &c.) In the year 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some

wild people of the Vened race were allowed to bury alive their

infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p. 136.)]

17 (return) [ The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was

destitute of the precious metals, must be taken, even in his own

time, with some limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.)

According to Spener, (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,)

_Argentifodin_ in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone magno

(A.D. 968) primum apertæ, largam etiam opes augendi dederunt

copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the year 1016 the

discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper Hartz,

which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and

which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of

Brunswick.]

18 (return) [ Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony,

hn d’ ek Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern

Greeks employ the nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the

whole will read in the Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou par autoiV

epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti pantaV touV omojulouV

uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and pleasing to an

English ear.]

19 (return) [ Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of

Amedée the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his

successor Edward count of Savoy. (Anderson’s Tables, p. 650. See

Cantacuzene, l. i. c. 40—42.)]

20 (return) [ That king, if the fact be true, must have been

Charles the Fair who in five years (1321—1326) was married to

three wives, (Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at

Constantinople in February, 1326.]

The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John

Palæologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year

of his age; and his weakness was protected by the first and most

deserving of the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his

father for John Cantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and

the subject. It had been formed amidst the pleasures of their

youth: their families were almost equally noble; 21 and the

recent lustre of the purple was amply compensated by the energy

of a private education. We have seen that the young emperor was

saved by Cantacuzene from the power of his grandfather; and,

after six years of civil war, the same favorite brought him back

in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under the reign of

Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperor and

the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of

Lesbos and the principality of Ætolia were restored to their

ancient allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public

robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the

free and voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth 22

may sustain the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance,

and not accumulated by rapine. He does not indeed specify the

value of his money, plate, and jewels; yet, after a voluntary

gift of two hundred vases of silver, after much had been secreted

by his friends and plundered by his foes, his forfeit treasures

were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of seventy galleys.

He does not measure the size and number of his estates; but his

granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat and

barley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate,

according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand

five hundred acres of arable land. 23 His pastures were stocked

with two thousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels,

three hundred mules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned

cattle, fifty thousand hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: 24 a

precious record of rural opulence, in the last period of the

empire, and in a land, most probably in Thrace, so repeatedly

wasted by foreign and domestic hostility. The favor of

Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments of familiarity,

in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to level the

distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem

and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested

by his own pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last

testament of Andronicus the younger named him the guardian of his

son, and the regent of the empire.

21 (return) [ The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from

the xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the

Paladins of France, the heroes of those romances which, in the

xiiith century, were translated and read by the Greeks, (Ducange,

Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]

22 (return) [ See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]

23 (return) [ Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain,

allow two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two

hundred jugera (125 English acres) of arable land, and three more

men must be added if there be much underwood, (Columella de Re

Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441, edit. Gesner.)]

24 (return) [ In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French

translation of the president Cousin is blotted with three

palpable and essential errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of

working oxen. 2. He interprets the pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV,

by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He confounds myriads with

chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000 hogs. Put not

your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be another

reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr’s edit. in loc.—M.]

Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and

gratitude, perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous

fidelity in the service of his pupil. 25 A guard of five hundred

soldiers watched over his person and the palace; the funeral of

the late emperor was decently performed; the capital was silent

and submissive; and five hundred letters, which Cantacuzene

despatched in the first month, informed the provinces of their

loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil minority was

blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to exaggerate

_his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnify his

own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice

of his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and

profuse, the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns

subservient to each other; and his talents were applied to the

ruin of his country. His arrogance was heightened by the command

of a naval force and an impregnable castle, and under the mask of

oaths and flattery he secretly conspired against his benefactor.

The female court of the empress was bribed and directed; he

encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law of nature, the

tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by the

anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palæologi

had instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious

guardian. The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old

man, encompassed by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an

obsolete epistle of Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince and

people to his pious care: the fate of his predecessor Arsenius

prompted him to prevent, rather than punish, the crimes of a

usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the success of his own flattery,

when he beheld the Byzantine priest assuming the state and

temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. 26 Between three persons so

different in their situation and character, a private league was

concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate; and

the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerful

confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with

clandestine, at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were

disputed; his opinions slighted; his friends persecuted; and his

safety was threatened both in the camp and city. In his absence

on the public service, he was accused of treason; proscribed as

an enemy of the church and state; and delivered with all his

adherents to the sword of justice, the vengeance of the people,

and the power of the devil; his fortunes were confiscated; his

aged mother was cast into prison; 261 all his past services were

buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to perpetrate

the crime of which he was accused. 27 From the review of his

preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of

any treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence

must arise from the vehemence of his protestations, and the

sublime purity which he ascribes to his own virtue. While the

empress and the patriarch still affected the appearances of

harmony, he repeatedly solicited the permission of retiring to a

private, and even a monastic, life. After he had been declared a

public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throw himself at the

feet of the young emperor, and to receive without a murmur the

stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance that he

listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty

of saving his family and friends, and proved that he could only

save them by drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title.

25 (return) [ See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and

the whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii.

c. 1—100, p. 348—700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.

xii. c. 1—l. xv. c. 9, p. 353—492.)]

26 (return) [ He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or

buskins; placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed

his epistles with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new,

whatever Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen.

l. iii. c. 36. Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]

261 (return) [ She died there through persecution and

neglect.—M.]

27 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the

innocence and virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious

vices of Apocaucus; nor does he dissemble the motive of his

personal and religious enmity to the former; nun de dia kakian

allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwn edoxaV? eioai jqoraV.

Note: The alloi were the religious enemies and persecutors of

Nicephorus.—M.]

Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part

II.

In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the emperor

John Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right

leg was clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin

chiefs, on whom he conferred the order of knighthood. But even in

this act of revolt, he was still studious of loyalty; and the

titles of John Palæologus and Anne of Savoy were proclaimed

before his own name and that of his wife Irene. Such vain

ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there perhaps

any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms

against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success

may confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step

was the effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople

adhered to the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to

the relief of Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and

Macedonia, after some hesitation, renounced their obedience to

the great domestic; and the leaders of the troops and provinces

were induced, by their private interest, to prefer the loose

dominion of a woman and a priest. 271 The army of Cantacuzene, in

sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks of the Melas to

tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed by treachery

or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary Latins,

accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine

court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between

the two characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen

remnant; but he failed in his enterprise on that important place;

and he was closely pursued by the great duke, his enemy

Apocaucus, at the head of a superior power by sea and land.

Driven from the coast, in his march, or rather flight, into the

mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his troops to

scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his

broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his

trusty band was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five

hundred, volunteers. The _cral_, 28 or despot of the Servians

received him with general hospitality; but the ally was

insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a hostage, a captive; and in

this miserable dependence, he waited at the door of the

Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a Roman

emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to

violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and

his friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of

hopes and perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with

various success and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by

the faction of the nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and

Palæologi: and the Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were

invoked on both sides as the instruments of private ambition and

the common ruin. The regent deplored the calamities, of which he

was the author and victim: and his own experience might dictate a

just and lively remark on the different nature of foreign and

civil war. “The former,” said he, “is the external warmth of

summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is the

deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the

vitals of the constitution.” 29

271 (return) [ Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the

populace were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his.

The populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the

wealthy as Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common

oppression and ruin had not extinguished these republican

factions.—M.]

28 (return) [ The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticæ,

&c., c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in

their native idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 751.) That title,

the equivalent of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from

whence it has been borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks,

and even by the Turks, (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who

reserve the name of Padishah for the emperor. To obtain the

latter instead of the former is the ambition of the French at

Constantinople, (Aversissement à l’Histoire de Timur Bec, p.

39.)]

29 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that

Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his

own writings.]

The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of

civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief;

which the interest of the moment may compel, but which is

reprobated by the best principles of humanity and reason. It is

the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the guilt

of the first alliances; and those who fail in their negotiations

are loudest in their censure of the example which they envy and

would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were less barbarous

perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but their

religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity.

To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied

with each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of

Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor and victory

were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an

infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the

passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in

the fall of the Roman empire. The inclining scale was decided in

his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the just though singular

retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or plebeians, whom

he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in the capital

and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was assigned

as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising

the walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously

contrived to prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery;

and the work was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the

tyrant. His guards watched at the gate, and as he stood in the

inner court to overlook the architects, without fear or

suspicion, he was assaulted and laid breathless on the ground, by

two 291 resolute prisoners of the Palæologian race, 30 who were

armed with sticks, and animated by despair. On the rumor of

revenge and liberty, the captive multitude broke their fetters,

fortified their prison, and exposed from the battlements the

tyrant’s head, presuming on the favor of the people and the

clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall

of a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to

resolve or to act, the populace, more especially the mariners,

were excited by the widow of the great duke to a sedition, an

assault, and a massacre. The prisoners (of whom the far greater

part were guiltless or inglorious of the deed) escaped to a

neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the foot of the

altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and

venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause

of the young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of

each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the

fairest terms of accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute,

the empress felt, and complained, that she was deceived by the

enemies of Cantacuzene: the patriarch was employed to preach

against the forgiveness of injuries; and her promise of immortal

hatred was sealed by an oath, under the penalty of

excommunication. 31 But Anne soon learned to hate without a

teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the

indifference of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the

competition of a rival empress; and on the first symptoms of a

more yielding temper, she threatened the patriarch to convene a

synod, and degrade him from his office. Their incapacity and

discord would have afforded the most decisive advantage; but the

civil war was protracted by the weakness of both parties; and the

moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped the reproach of

timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the provinces

and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the walls

of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the

rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest

till he had secured in his favor the public voice and a private

correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, 32 had

succeeded to the office of great duke: the ships, the guards, and

the golden gate, were subject to his command; but his humble

ambition was bribed to become the instrument of treachery; and

the revolution was accomplished without danger or bloodshed.

Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope of relief, the

inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have

smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the

possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends

and enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who

professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his

benefactor. The marriage of his daughter with John Palæologus was

at length consummated: the hereditary right of the pupil was

acknowledged; but the sole administration during ten years was

vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were

seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general amnesty quieted the

apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty

subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was

celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and

both were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the

treasures of the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had

been alienated or embezzled; the royal banquet was served in

pewter or earthenware; and such was the proud poverty of the

times, that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the

paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather. 33

291 (return) [ Nicephorus says four, p.734.]

30 (return) [ The two avengers were both Palæologi, who might

resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The

tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to

Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]

31 (return) [ Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the

empress, the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against

whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10,

11, xv. 5.) It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same

time.]

32 (return) [ The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic.

Gregoras, (l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly

suppressed by his great accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]

33 (return) [ Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some

true pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones

had only pantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV.]

I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. 34

He triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded

by the discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His

followers might style the general amnesty an act of pardon for

his enemies, and of oblivion for his friends: 35 in his cause

their estates had been forfeited or plundered; and as they

wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed the

selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of the empire,

might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. The

adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes

by the precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge

was concealed by a tender concern for the succession, and even

the safety, of her son. They were justly alarmed by a petition of

the friends of Cantacuzene, that they might be released from

their oath of allegiance to the Palæologi, and intrusted with the

defence of some cautionary towns; a measure supported with

argument and eloquence; and which was rejected (says the Imperial

historian) “by _my_ sublime, and almost incredible virtue.” His

repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions; and he

trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some

foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his

wrongs in the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus

advanced in the years of manhood, he began to feel and to act for

himself; and his rising ambition was rather stimulated than

checked by the imitation of his father’s vices. If we may trust

his own professions, Cantacuzene labored with honest industry to

correct these sordid and sensual appetites, and to raise the mind

of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In the Servian

expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordial harmony

to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was

initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government.

After the conclusion of the peace, Palæologus was left at

Thessalonica, a royal residence, and a frontier station, to

secure by his absence the peace of Constantinople, and to

withdraw his youth from the temptations of a luxurious capital.

But the distance weakened the powers of control, and the son of

Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking companions,

who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to

vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot of

Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on

the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and

prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At

his request the empress-mother undertook the voyage of

Thessalonica, and the office of mediation: she returned without

success; and unless Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we

may doubt the sincerity, or at least the fervor, of her zeal.

While the regent grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous

hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the ten years of

his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after a

full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene

sighed for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a

heavenly crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary

abdication would have restored the peace of the empire, and his

conscience would have been relieved by an act of justice.

Palæologus alone was responsible for his future government; and

whatever might be his vices, they were surely less formidable

than the calamities of a civil war, in which the Barbarians and

infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their mutual

destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and

everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third

contest in which he had been involved; and the young emperor,

driven from the sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among

the Latins of the Isle of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy

provoked the victor to a step which must render the quarrel

irreconcilable; and the association of his son Matthew, whom he

invested with the purple, established the succession in the

family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was still attached

to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last injury

accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese

espoused the cause of Palæologus, obtained a promise of his

sister, and achieved the revolution with two galleys and two

thousand five hundred auxiliaries. Under the pretence of

distress, they were admitted into the lesser port; a gate was

opened, and the Latin shout of, “Long life and victory to the

emperor, John Palæologus!” was answered by a general rising in

his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the standard

of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope for

belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of

conquest; that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and

philosophy, he descended from the throne and embraced with

pleasure the monastic habit and profession. 36 So soon as he

ceased to be a prince, his successor was not unwilling that he

should be a saint: the remainder of his life was devoted to piety

and learning; in the cells of Constantinople and Mount Athos, the

monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and spiritual father

of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it was as the

minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the

pardon, of his rebellious son. 37

34 (return) [ From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene

continues his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the

abdication of his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l—50, p.

705—911.) Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of

Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l. xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the

rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p. 717, is all

controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in the

king of France’s library.]

35 (return) [ The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents

his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints

of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the

words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.]

36 (return) [ The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.

39—42,) who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall,

may be supplied by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives

of Matthew Villani (l. iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom.

xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c 10, 11.)]

37 (return) [ Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a

letter from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250.)

His death is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of

November, 1411, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of

the age of his companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have

lived 116 years; a rare instance of longevity, which in so

illustrious a person would have attracted universal notice.]

Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised

by theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the

Jews and Mahometans; 38 and in every state he defended with equal

zeal the divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which

consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of

India, 39 and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike

persuaded, that in the total abstraction of the faculties of the

mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and

vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries

of Mount Athos 40 will be best represented in the words of an

abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. “When thou art

alone in thy cell,” says the ascetic teacher, “shut thy door, and

seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain

and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn

thy eyes and thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the

region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat

of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if

you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and

no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it

is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.” This light, the

production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty

stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the

pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly

was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not

inquisitive how the divine essence could be a _material_

substance, or how an _immaterial_ substance could be perceived by

the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus,

these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, 41 a Calabrian monk,

who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed

the language of the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius

could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the interest

of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the

curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam

embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed

the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of

heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to

renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and

Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the

essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in

the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific

vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on

Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this

distinction could not escape the reproach of polytheism; the

eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam

still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances,

a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of

Mount Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to

Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced

him to the favor of the great domestic and the emperor. The court

and the city were involved in this theological dispute, which

flamed amidst the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was

disgraced by his flight and apostasy: the Palamites triumphed;

and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by

the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the

character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the

synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of

faith, the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many

insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the

addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment

have been blotted; and the impenitent sectaries, who refused to

subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors of

Christian burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten;

nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for the

extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. 42

38 (return) [ His four discourses, or books, were printed at

Basil, 1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 473.) He composed

them to satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from

his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I

understand from Maracci that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and

fables against Mahomet and his religion.]

39 (return) [ See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]

40 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 522, 523.

Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107—114, &c. The former

unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter

transcribes and transcribes and translates with the prejudices of

a Catholic priest.]

41 (return) [ Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.

363—368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The

duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the

identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.

tom. x. p. 427—432.)]

42 (return) [ See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23,

24, 25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,)

whose last books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined

to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic.

Gregoræ,) from the unpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot.

Græc. tom. x. p. 462—473,) or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of

the Coislin library, have added some facts and documents.]

For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese

war, which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the

debility of the Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the

recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or

Galata, received that honorable fief from the bounty of the

emperor. They were indulged in the use of their laws and

magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals and

subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_43 was borrowed from the

Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he

entered on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal

acclamations and vows of fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance

with the Greeks; and, in case of a defensive war, a supply of

fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty galleys, completely

armed and manned, was promised by the republic to the empire. In

the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael

Palæologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his

vigorous government contained the Genoese of Galata within those

limits which the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to

exceed. A sailor threatened that they should soon be masters of

Constantinople, and slew the Greek who resented this national

affront; and an armed vessel, after refusing to salute the

palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the Black Sea. Their

countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the long and

open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial

troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese

implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless

situation which secured their obedience exposed them to the

attack of their Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder

Andronicus, presumed to violate the majesty of the throne. On the

approach of their fleets, the Genoese, with their families and

effects, retired into the city: their empty habitations were

reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had viewed the

destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by arms,

but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous to

the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the

dangerous license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of

introducing into the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting

lofty turrets; and of mounting a train of military engines on the

rampart. The narrow bounds in which they had been circumscribed

were insufficient for the growing colony; each day they acquired

some addition of landed property; and the adjacent hills were

covered with their villas and castles, which they joined and

protected by new fortifications. 44 The navigation and trade of

the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded

the narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea.

In the reign of Michael Palæologus, their prerogative was

acknowledged by the sultan of Egypt, who solicited and obtained

the liberty of sending an annual ship for the purchase of slaves

in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary: a liberty pregnant with

mischief to the Christian cause; since these youths were

transformed by education and discipline into the formidable

Mamalukes. 45 From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with

superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and

their industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two

articles of food almost equally important to a superstitious

people. The spontaneous bounty of nature appears to have bestowed

the harvests of Ukraine, the produce of a rude and savage

husbandry; and the endless exportation of salt fish and caviare

is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that are caught at

the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station of the rich

mud and shallow water of the Mæotis. 46 The waters of the Oxus,

the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious

passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months’

march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the

harbors of Crimæa. 47 These various branches of trade were

monopolized by the diligence and power of the Genoese. Their

rivals of Venice and Pisa were forcibly expelled; the natives

were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the

foundations of their humble factories; and their principal

establishment of Caffa 48 was besieged without effect by the

Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by

these haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople,

according to their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs,

the fishery, and even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they

derived from these objects a revenue of two hundred thousand

pieces of gold, a remnant of thirty thousand was reluctantly

allowed to the emperor. 49 The colony of Pera or Galata acted, in

peace and war, as an independent state; and, as it will happen in

distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often forgot that he

was the servant of his own masters.

43 (return) [ Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains

liziouV (_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the

Greek and Latin of the feudal times may be amply understood from

the Glossaries of Ducange, (Græc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p.

109—111.)]

44 (return) [ The establishment and progress of the Genoese at

Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i.

p. 68, 69) from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c.

35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix. 15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras,

(l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix. c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1,

6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 29, &c.)]

45 (return) [ Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg.

(l. iv. c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this

dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar,

but a devout Mussulman, obtained from the children of Zingis the

permission to build a stately mosque in the capital of Crimea,

(De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343.)]

46 (return) [ Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was

assured at Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or

twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and

yielded three or four quintals of caviare. The corn of the

Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]

47 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344.

Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water

carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under

a wise and powerful monarch.]

48 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and

well informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin

describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he

saw above 400 sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages

en Perse, tom. i. p. 46—48.)]

49 (return) [ See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]

These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder

Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the

minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were

employed to the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire;

and after his domestic victory, he was condemned to an

ignominious trial, whether the Greeks or the Genoese should reign

in Constantinople. The merchants of Pera were offended by his

refusal of some contiguous land, some commanding heights, which

they proposed to cover with new fortifications; and in the

absence of the emperor, who was detained at Demotica by sickness,

they ventured to brave the debility of a female reign. A

Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of the

harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen were

murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded

satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks

should renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with

regular arms the first sallies of the popular indignation. They

instantly occupied the debatable land; and by the labor of a

whole people, of either sex and of every age, the wall was

raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the

same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while

the three others, the remainder of the Imperial navy, escaped

from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the

shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent,

of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the

city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public

consternation: the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he

yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all

reasonable terms, and to the ardor of his subjects, who

threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them in pieces

like a potter’s vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that

he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the

war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land,

the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the

evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had

believed that a few days would terminate the war, already

murmured at their losses: the succors from their mother-country

were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious

embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their

families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring,

the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller

vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a

single line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their

sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were

composed of peasants and mechanics; nor was their ignorance

compensated by the native courage of Barbarians: the wind was

strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks

perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong

into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The troops

that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at

the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were

astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their

triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging after them

the captive galleys, repeatedly passed and repassed before the

palace: the only virtue of the emperor was patience; and the hope

of revenge his sole consolation. Yet the distress of both parties

interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame of the empire was

disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the

chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the trivial

object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally

granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the

seeming custody of his officers. 50

50 (return) [ The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene

(l. iv. c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras

l. xvii. c. 1—7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was

less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]

But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to

join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa

and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war,

his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants

of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that

fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they

coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day

the insult was repeated; and they exulted in a second proof that

the royal city was not beyond the reach of their artillery.

Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the Venetians; but

the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the balance

of these opulent and powerful republics. 51 From the Straits of

Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered

each other with various success; and a memorable battle was

fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It

would not be an easy task to reconcile the accounts of the

Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese; 52 and while I depend on

the narrative of an impartial historian, 53 I shall borrow from

each nation the facts that redound to their own disgrace, and the

honor of their foes. The Venetians, with their allies the

Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their fleet, with the

poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to

seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in

those times their ships of war were distinguished by the

superiority of their size and strength. The names and families of

their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the

annals of their country; but the personal merit of the former was

eclipsed by the fame and abilities of his rival. They engaged in

tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary conflict was continued

from the dawn to the extinction of light. The enemies of the

Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the Venetians are

dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree in

praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, 531 who, with

many wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation

of the fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen

Genoese galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by

a double loss of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans,

and two Greeks; 532 and even the grief of the conquerors

expressed the assurance and habit of more decisive victories.

Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring into a fortified harbor,

from whence, under the pretext of the orders of the senate, he

steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle of Candia,

and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a

public epistle, 54 addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch

employs his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two

luminaries of Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory

of the Genoese, the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he

drops a tear on the misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but

he exhorts them to pursue with fire and sword the base and

perfidious Greeks; to purge the metropolis of the East from the

heresy with which it was infected. Deserted by their friends, the

Greeks were incapable of resistance; and three months after the

battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and subscribed a

treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans, and

granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of

dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name)

might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of

the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and

naval power. A long contest of one hundred and thirty years was

determined by the triumph of Venice; and the factions of the

Genoese compelled them to seek for domestic peace under the

protection of a foreign lord, the duke of Milan, or the French

king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and

the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the

Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude

of Constantinople itself.

51 (return) [ The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l.

iv. c. 18, p. 24, 25, 28—32,) who wishes to disguise what he

dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is

still in MS. at Paris. * Note: This part of Nicephorus Gregoras

has not been printed in the new edition of the Byzantine

Historians. The editor expresses a hope that it may be undertaken

by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon, if these books

contain any historical information: if they are but a

continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in

our present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in

MS. as in print.—M.]

52 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. xii. p. 144)

refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the

continuator of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa,

(George Stella Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both

which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the

Historians of Italy.]

53 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l.

ii. c. 59, p. 145—147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori’s

Collection, tom. xiv.]

531 (return) [ Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes

their losses to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more

by the breakers than by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.—M.]

532 (return) [ Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost

twenty-eight ships with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and

Catalans sixteen, the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani

of cowardice, in not following up the victory, and destroying the

Genoese. But Pisani’s conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene’s account

of the battle, betray the superiority of the Genoese.—M.]

54 (return) [ The Abbé de Sade (Mémoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,

tom. iii. p. 257—263) translates this letter, which he copied

from a MS. in the king of France’s library. Though a servant of

the duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and

grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the following

year, (p. 323—332.)]

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.

Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To

Poland.—Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.—Origin Of The

Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.—Reigns And Victories Of Othman, Orchan,

Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.— Foundation And Progress

Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And Europe.—Danger Of

Constantinople And The Greek Empire.

From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the

cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend

to the victorious Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by

martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the

national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the

present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most

important scenes of modern history; but they are founded on a

previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls 100 and

Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive

convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the

surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to

introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the

fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those

events, which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a

philosophic mind in the history of blood. 1

100 (return) [ Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper

name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux,

their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also

Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against

the French Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom.

xxii p. 402.]

1 (return) [ The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to

xxvi., and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations,

the conquests of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a

time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of

concluding my history.]

From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the

Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been

poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied

in the twelfth century by many pastoral tribes, of the same

descent and similar manners, which were united and led to

conquest by the formidable Zingis. 101 In his ascent to

greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin)

had trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but

it was the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced

his seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin.

His father had reigned over thirteen hordes, which composed about

thirty or forty thousand families: above two thirds refused to

pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of

thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious

subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and to

obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth

year he had established his fame and dominion over the

circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which policy is

rude and valor is universal, the ascendant of one man must be

founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and

recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified by

the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a running

stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the

sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them

his horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his

own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on

the fire, and seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast

headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of his attraction was

continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud and the submission

of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains might tremble, when

they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of the khan of

Keraites; 2 who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded

with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The ambition of

Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition; and it

was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white

horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, 3 the _most great_;

and a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In

a general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which

was long afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed

great khan, or emperor of the Moguls 4 and Tartars. 5 Of these

kindred, though rival, names, the former had given birth to the

imperial race; and the latter has been extended by accident or

error over the spacious wilderness of the north.

101 (return) [ On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see

D’Ohson, Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824.

Schmidt, Geschichte des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.—M.]

2 (return) [ The khans of the Keraites were most probably

incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name

by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous

wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the

Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rites of baptism

and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p.

487—503.)]

3 (return) [ Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis,

at least in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling;

but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor.

His etymology appears just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies

_great_, and _gis_ is the superlative termination, (Hist.

Généalogique des Tatars, part iii. p. 194, 195.) From the same

idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_ is bestowed on the

ocean.]

4 (return) [ The name of Moguls has prevailed among the

Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great

Mogul of Hindastan. * Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares,

p. 233) justly observes, that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul,

and, p. 242, that probably there was not Mogul in the army of

Baber, who established the Indian throne of the “Great

Mogul.”—M.]

5 (return) [ The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended

from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part

i. and ii.,) and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the

borders of Kitay, (p. 103—112.) In the great invasion of Europe

(A.D. 1238) they seem to have led the vanguard; and the

similitude of the name of _Tartarei_, recommended that of Tartars

to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) * Note: This

relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and invented

by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored to

connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those

of the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no

trace of it in the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 156.—M.]

The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was

adapted to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise

of foreign hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on

the crimes of adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts

of a horse or ox; and the fiercest of men were mild and just in

their intercourse with each other. The future election of the

great khan was vested in the princes of his family and the heads

of the tribes; and the regulations of the chase were essential to

the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The victorious nation

was held sacred from all servile labors, which were abandoned to

slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except the

profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who

were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by

hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of

a veteran commander. Each officer and soldier was made

responsible, under pain of death, for the safety and honor of his

companions; and the spirit of conquest breathed in the law, that

peace should never be granted unless to a vanquished and

suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis that best

deserves our wonder and applause. 501 The Catholic inquisitors of

Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been

confounded by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the

lessons of philosophy, 6 and established by his laws a system of

pure theism and perfect toleration. His first and only article of

faith was the existence of one God, the Author of all good; who

fills by his presence the heavens and earth, which he has created

by his power. The Tartars and Moguls were addicted to the idols

of their peculiar tribes; and many of them had been converted by

the foreign missionaries to the religions of Moses, of Mahomet,

and of Christ. These various systems in freedom and concord were

taught and practised within the precincts of the same camp; and

the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin

priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and

tribute: in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might

trample the Koran under his horse’s feet, but the calm legislator

respected the prophets and pontiffs of the most hostile sects.

The reason of Zingis was not informed by books: the khan could

neither read nor write; and, except the tribe of the Igours, the

greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars were as illiterate as

their sovereign. 601 The memory of their exploits was preserved

by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis, these

traditions were collected and transcribed; 7 the brevity of their

domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, 8 Persians, 9

Armenians, 10 Syrians, 11 Arabians, 12 Greeks, 13 Russians, 14

Poles, 15 Hungarians, 16 and Latins; 17 and each nation will

deserve credit in the relation of their own disasters and

defeats. 18

501 (return) [ Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an

embassy to Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter

to this effect: “I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and

my empire. Repair then to me, and promote the present and future

happiness of man: I will be thy supporter and protector: let us

establish a system of religion, and unite it with the monarchy,”

&c. The high priest accepted the invitation; and the Mongol

history literally terms this step the _period of the first

respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his public

profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. “Travels

in Caucasus,” ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his

son and successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual

wars, much leisure for the propagation of the religion of the

Lama. By religion they understand a distinct, independent, sacred

moral code, which has but one origin, one source, and one object.

This notion they universally propagate, and even believe that the

brutes, and all created beings, have a religion adapted to their

sphere of action. The different forms of the various religions

they ascribe to the difference of individuals, nations, and

legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against any

creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of

their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the

other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with

perfect resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of

others, nay, consider them as a motive for increased ardor in

prayer, ch. ix. p. 109.—M.]

6 (return) [ A singular conformity may be found between the

religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of

Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]

601 (return) [ See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour

minister of Tchingis, in Abel Remusat’s 2d series of Recherch.

Asiat. vol. ii. p. 61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write:

“He was the instructor of the Moguls in writing, of which they

were before ignorant;” and hence the application of the Ouigour

characters to the Mogul language cannot be placed earlier than

the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of Pà-sse-pa, who

lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that of

Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai.—M.]

7 (return) [ In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of

Persia, the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions,

his vizier Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian

language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de

Genghizcan, p. 537—539.) The Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (à

Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was translated by the Swedish

prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi Bahadur Khan,

a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks of Charasm,

or Carizme, (A.D. 1644—1663.) He is of most value and credit for

the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his nine

parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from

Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth,

vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons and their

posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history of the

descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and

Charasm.]

8 (return) [ Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des

Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de

l’Histoire de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de

Jesus, Missionaire à Peking; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This

translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic

accuracy and foreign ignorance.]

9 (return) [ See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier

Empereur des Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à

Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a work of ten years’ labor, chiefly drawn

from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of

Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a

contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the

originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of

_Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c., in the Bibliothèque

Orientale of D’Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des

Mongols, (Paris, 1824) gives a catalogue of the Arabic and

Persian authorities.—M.]

10 (return) [ Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and

afterwards a monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ævi,

tom. i. p. 34,) dictated in the French language, his book _de

Tartaris_, his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated

into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus,

(Basil, 1555, in folio.) * Note: A précis at the end of the new

edition of Le Beau, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M.

Brosset, gives large extracts from the accounts of the Armenian

historians relating to the Mogul conquests.—M.]

11 (return) [ Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the

conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock,

Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls

of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted

some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the

Jacobite maphrians, or primates of the East.]

12 (return) [ Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we

may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in

person, under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]

13 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the

necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He

describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of

the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and

corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons.]

14 (return) [ M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has

described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the

patriarch Nicon, and the old chronicles.]

15 (return) [ For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica

et Europæa of Matthew à Michou, or De Michoviâ, a canon and

physician of Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of

Grynæus. Fabric Bibliot. Latin. Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. v.

p. 56.]

16 (return) [ I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general

historian (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the

Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain

the original narrative of a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a

sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici,

Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni Hungariæ

Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros facta, p. 292—321;) the

best picture that I have ever seen of all the circumstances of a

Barbaric invasion.]

17 (return) [ Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic

documents, the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word

_Tartari_ in his copious Index.) From motives of zeal and

curiosity, the court of the great khan in the xiiith century was

visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini, and William

Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin

relations of the two former are inserted in the 1st volume of

Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third (Fabric.

Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may be

found in the second tome of Ramusio.]

18 (return) [ In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has

most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom.

iii. l. xv.—xix., and in the collateral articles of the

Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and

the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l. xxi.; consult likewise the tables of

the 1st volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only

indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of

Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. * Note: To

this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added

D’Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic

and Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der

Ost Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by

Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol,

was written after the conversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is

enriched with very valuable notes by the editor and translator;

but, unfortunately, is very barren of information about the

European and even the western Asiatic conquests of the

Mongols.—M.]

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part II.

The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the

hordes of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of

China and the Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of

the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and

soldiers, who felt their united strength, and were impatient to

rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south. His ancestors

had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors; and Temugin

himself had been disgraced by a title of honor and servitude. The

court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy from its former

vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exacted the

tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to

treat the _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A

haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their

fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable squadrons,

who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the great wall.

Ninety cities were stormed, or starved, by the Moguls; ten only

escaped; and Zingis, from a knowledge of the filial piety of the

Chinese, covered his vanguard with their captive parents; an

unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of the virtue of his

enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundred

thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to a

treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five

hundred youths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and

silk, were the price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he

compelled the Chinese emperor to retire beyond the yellow river

to a more southern residence. The siege of Pekin 19 was long and

laborious: the inhabitants were reduced by famine to decimate and

devour their fellow-citizens; when their ammunition was spent,

they discharged ingots of gold and silver from their engines; but

the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of the capital; and

the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty days. China

was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the five

northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis.

19 (return) [ More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose

ruins still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern

_Pekin_, which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.)

Pe-king and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north

and of the south. The identity and change of names perplex the

most skilful readers of the Chinese geography, (p. 177.) * Note:

And likewise in Chinese history—see Abel Remusat, Mel. Asiat. 2d

tom. ii. p. 5.—M.]

In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of

Carizme, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of

India and Turkestan; and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander

the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to

the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Zingis to establish a

friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the

Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by the secret

solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his

personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and

inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the

invasion of the southern Asia. 191 A caravan of three ambassadors

and one hundred and fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at

Otrar, by the command of Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand

and denial of justice, till he had prayed and fasted three nights

on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor appealed to the judgment of

God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic

writer, 20 are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that

have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred

thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the

standard of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that

extend to the north of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were

encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan; and

in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one

hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was

astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he withdrew

from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the

frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the

field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many

regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of

Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps

of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of

attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they

had defended their own. The Persian historians will relate the

sieges and reduction of Otrar, Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand,

Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch, and Candahar; and the

conquest of the rich and populous countries of Transoxiana,

Carizme, and Chorazan. 204 The destructive hostilities of Attila

and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of

Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be

content to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they

ruined a tract of many hundred miles, which was adorned with the

habitations and labors of mankind, and that five centuries have

not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years. The

Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury of his troops: the

hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of rapine and

slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native

fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall

and death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and

alone, in a desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement

for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the

Carizmian empire have been saved by a single hero, it would have

been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose active valor repeatedly

checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he

fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by their

innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin

spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and

most rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and

applause of Zingis himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul

conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and

wealthy troops, who sighed for the enjoyment of their native

land. Eucumbered with the spoils of Asia, he slowly measured back

his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the misery of the

vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities

which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he

had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two

generals, whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to

subdue the western provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the

nations which opposed their passage, penetrated through the gates

of Derbent, traversed the Volga and the desert, and accomplished

the circuit of the Caspian Sea, by an expedition which had never

been attempted, and has never been repeated. The return of Zingis

was signalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or independent

kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in the fulness of years and

glory, with his last breath exhorting and instructing his sons to

achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. 205

191 (return) [ See the particular account of this transaction,

from the Kholauesut el Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402.—M.]

20 (return) [ M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, tom.

iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains,

as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular

errors.]

204 (return) [ Every where they massacred all classes, except the

artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols.—M.]

205 (return) [ Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was

to massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of

Ninhia, the surrender of the city being already agreed upon,

Hist. des Mongols. vol. i. p. 286.—M.]

The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and

concubines; and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious

by their birth and merit, exercised under their father the

principal offices of peace and war. Toushi was his great

huntsman, Zagatai 21 his judge, Octai his minister, and Tuli his

general; and their names and actions are often conspicuous in the

history of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the

public interest, the three brothers and their families were

content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent,

was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars.

He was succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire

devolved to his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and

the grandsons of Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four

first successors, the Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large

portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of time,

without expatiating on the detail of events, I shall present a

general picture of the progress of their arms; I. In the East;

II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the North.

21 (return) [ Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of

Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who

emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians.

This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai,

&c., may warn us not absolutely to reject the derivations of a

national, from a personal, name. * Note: See a curious anecdote

of Tschagatai. Hist. des Mongols, p. 370.—M.]

I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two

empires or dynasties of the North and South; 22 and the

difference of origin and interest was smoothed by a general

conformity of laws, language, and national manners. The Northern

empire, which had been dismembered by Zingis, was finally subdued

seven years after his death. After the loss of Pekin, the emperor

had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many leagues in

circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese

annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and

fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and

made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the

hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his

fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as soon

as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his

attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native and ancient

sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years

the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was

reserved for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls

were often diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom

dared to meet their victors in the field, their passive courage

presented and endless succession of cities to storm and of

millions to slaughter. In the attack and defence of places, the

engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately

employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a

familiar practice; 23 and the sieges were conducted by the

Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the

service of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and

artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they

invested the royal residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the

country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The

emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre;

and before he was sent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine

times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or

thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was now

styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern

provinces from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of

independence and hostility was transported from the land to the

sea. But when the fleet of the _Song_ was surrounded and

oppressed by a superior armament, their last champion leaped into

the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. “It is more

glorious,” he cried, “to die a prince, than to live a slave.” A

hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole

empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion

of Cublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of

Japan: his fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a

hundred thousand Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the

fruitless expedition. But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea,

Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in

different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or

terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of

a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most probably

to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though

they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was

dissatisfied that the savage king had escaped from their hands.

22 (return) [ In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the

names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern

empires, which, from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great

khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had

been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth

century, in their attempts to discover the north-east passage.]

23 (return) [ I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père

Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the

Moguls or Yuen, (p. 71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time

these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco

Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l.

ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have

felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and

their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive objection. I

entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was carried

from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and

falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival

of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil

affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese

above 1600 years. ** Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.—M.

Note: ** La poudre à canon et d’autres compositions inflammantes,

dont ils se servent pour construire des pièces d’artifice d’un

effet suprenant, leur étaient connues depuis très long-temps, et

l’on croit que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient

enseigné l’usage aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l’idée

d’artillerie, quoique la forme des fusils et des canons dont ils

se servent actuellement, leur ait été apportée par les Francs,

ainsi que l’attestent les noms mêmes qu’ils donnent à ces sortes

d’armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 23.—M.]

II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a

later period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or

Persia, was achieved by Holagou Khan, 231 the grandson of Zingis,

the brother and lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou

and Cublai. I shall not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs,

and atabeks, whom he trampled into dust; but the extirpation of

the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians 24 of Persia, may be considered as

a service to mankind. Among the hills to the south of the

Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above a

hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam, established

his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount Libanus, so

famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. 25 With the

fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian

transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was

their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind

obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries

were felt both in the East and West: the Christians and the

Moslems enumerate, and persons multiply, the illustrious victims

that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment of _the

old man_ (as he was corruptly styled) _of the mountain_. But

these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the sword of

Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,

except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has

been adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the

Abbassides cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their

greatness and decline. Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants

the caliphs had recovered their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the

Arabian Irak; but the city was distracted by theological

factions, and the commander of the faithful was lost in a harem

of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the Moguls he

encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. “On the

divine decree,” said the caliph Mostasem, “is founded the throne

of the sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in

this world and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to

rise against them? If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly

depart from the sacred territory; and perhaps he may obtain from

our clemency the pardon of his fault.” This presumption was

cherished by a perfidious vizier, who assured his master, that,

even if the Barbarians had entered the city, the women and

children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to overwhelm

them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, it

instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months,

Bagdad was stormed and sacked by the Moguls; 251 and their savage

commander pronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last

of the temporal successors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of

the race of Abbas, had reigned in Asia above five hundred years.

Whatever might be the designs of the conqueror, the holy cities

of Mecca and Medina 26 were protected by the Arabian desert; but

the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, pillaged

Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the Franks in the

deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she been defended

only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed in

their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor,

superior in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought

field; and drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of

the Euphrates. 261 But it overflowed with resistless violence the

kingdoms of Armenia 262 and Anatolia, of which the former was

possessed by the Christians, and the latter by the Turks. The

sultans of Iconium opposed some resistance to the Mogul arms,

till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of Constantinople,

and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian dynasty,

were finally extirpated by the khans of Persia. 263

231 (return) [ See the curious account of the expedition of

Holagou, translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat,

Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 171.—M.]

24 (return) [ All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia

and Syria is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition

of M. Falconet, in two _Mémoires_ read before the Academy of

Inscriptions, (tom. xvii. p. 127—170.) * Note: Von Hammer’s

History of the Assassins has now thrown Falconet’s Dissertation

into the shade.—M.]

25 (return) [ The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had

acquired or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About

the year 1280, they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]

251 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p.

283, 307. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p. 406.

Price, Chronological Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217—223.—M.]

26 (return) [ As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in

foreign transactions, I must observe, that some of their

historians extend the conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the

country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p. 42.)]

261 (return) [ Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410.—M.]

262 (return) [ On the friendly relations of the Armenians with

the Mongols see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p.

402. They eagerly desired an alliance against the Mahometan

powers.—M.]

263 (return) [ Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous

politics of the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul

supremacy. Falmerayer, p. 172.—M.]

III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China,

than he resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries

of the West. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were

inscribed on the military roll: of these the great khan selected

a third, which he intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou,

the son of Tuli; who reigned over his father’s conquests to the

north of the Caspian Sea. 264 After a festival of forty days,

Batou set forwards on this great expedition; and such was the

speed and ardor of his innumerable squadrons, than in less than

six years they had measured a line of ninety degrees of

longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The

great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don and

Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their

horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats,

which followed the camp, and transported their wagons and

artillery. By the first victories of Batou, the remains of

national freedom were eradicated in the immense plains of

Turkestan and Kipzak. 27 In his rapid progress, he overran the

kingdoms, as they are now styled, of Astracan and Cazan; and the

troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most

secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The civil discord of

the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their country to

the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both

Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were

reduced to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and

perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years

has imprinted on the character of the Russians. The Tartars

ravaged with equal fury the countries which they hoped to

possess, and those which they were hastening to leave. From the

permanent conquest of Russia they made a deadly, though

transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the

borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were

obliterated: 271 they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in

the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the

Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and

filled nine sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz,

the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to

the invasion of Hungary; and the presence or spirit of Batou

inspired the host of five hundred thousand men: the Carpathian

hills could not be long impervious to their divided columns; and

their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it was

irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the

military force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated

the nation by adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families

of Comans, and these savage guests were provoked to revolt by the

suspicion of treachery and the murder of their prince. The whole

country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in

a summer; and the ruins of cities and churches were overspread

with the bones of the natives, who expiated the sins of their

Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack of

Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered;

and the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less

atrocious than the treatment of the fugitives, who had been

allured from the woods under a promise of peace and pardon and

who were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the

labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter the Tartars

passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or Strigonium,

a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty

engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled

with sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous

massacre, three hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence

of the khan. Of all the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three

alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid

his head among the islands of the Adriatic.

264 (return) [ See the curious extracts from the Mahometan

writers, Hist. des Mongols, p. 707.—M.]

27 (return) [ The _Dashté Kipzak_, or plain of Kipzak, extends on

either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik

and Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name

and nation of the Cossacks.]

271 (return) [ Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by

Stenberg, Hist. des Mongols, p. 396.—M.]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 72 / 79 章

55 (return) [ _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably