64.9 THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. CHAP. LIII. State of the eastern empire in the tenth century.-Extent and division. Wealth and revenue. Palace of Constantinople Titles and officers. -Pride and power of the emperors.-Tactics of the Greeks, Arabs, and Franks.-Loss of the Latin tongue.-Studies and solitude of the Greeks. A RAY of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the tenth century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,(1) which he composed at a mature age for the instruction of his son, and which promise to unfold the state of the eastern empire, both in peace and war, both at home and abroad. In the first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the church and palace of Constantinople, according to his own practice and that of his predecessors. (2) In the second he attemps an accurate survey of the provinces, the themes, as they were then denominated, both of Europe and Asia.(3) The system of Roman tactics, the discipline and order of the troops, and the military operations by land and sea, are explained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo.(4) In the (1) The epithet of Hoppuрoyevntos, Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple, is elegantly defined by Claudin : Ardua privatos nescit fortuna Penates; Et regnum cum luce dedit. Cognata potestas And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many passages expressive of the same idea. (2) A splendid MS. of Constantine, de Cæremoniis Aulæ et Ecclesiæ Byzantinæ, wandered from Constantinople to Buda, Frankfort, and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid edition, by Leich and Reiske (A. D. 1751. in folio.) with such lavish praise as editors never fail to bestow on the worthy or worthless object of their toil. (3) See, in the first volume of Banduri's Imperium Orientale, Constantinins de Thematibus p. 1-24. de Administrando Imperio, p. 45-127. edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of Meursius is corrected from a MS. of the royal library at Paris, which Isaac Casaubon had formerly seen (Epist. ad Polybium, p. 10.), and the sense is illustrated by two maps of William Deslile, the prince of geographers, till the appearance of the greater d'Auville. (4) The tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the aid of some new MSS. In the great edition of the works of Meursius, by the learned John Lami (tom. vi. p. 531-920. 1211-1417. Florent. 1745.), yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The imperial library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new editor (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.). B VOL. IV. fourth of the administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labours of the age, the practical systems of laws, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject, and the honour of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics, (1) the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics (2) of Constantine. his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodised in fifty-three books, (3) and every citizen might apply to his contemporaries or himself the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the east descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy. At A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these imperial treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version in the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry; and the absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money, enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metaphrast. (4) The merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies, the gifts of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal authors of the Geoponics were most seriously employed in expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which has been taught since the days of Xenophon,(5) as the arts of heroes and kings. But the Tactics of Leo and Constantine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which they (1) On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 425–514.) and Heineccius (Hist. Juris Romani, p. 396–399.), and Giannone (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom, i. p. 450-458.), as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted. XLI. books of this Greek code bave been published with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Fabrottus (Paris 1647.), in seven tomes in folio; four other books have since been discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman's Novus Thesaurus Juris Civ. et Canon tom. v. Of the whole work, the sixty books, John Leunclavius bas printed (Basil, 1575 ), an eclogue or synopsis. The CXIII. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis. (2) I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics (by Nicolas Niclas, Lipsiæ, 1781, two vols in octavo.). I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two books of Hippiatrica, or horse physic, were published at Paris 1530. in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 493-500.) (3) of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been preserved and printed, de Legationi. bus (by Fulvius Ursinus, Antwerp, 1582. and Daniel Hæschelius, August. Vindel. 1603.), and de Virtutibus et Vitiis (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634.). (4) The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankins (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.). This biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible of the original texture. (5) According to the first book of the Cyropædia, professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. good edition of all the scriptores Tactici would be a task, not unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new MSS. and his learning might illustrate the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and, alas! Quintus Icilius Is no more. A lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid minds, which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the gradual decay of the purity of the one, and the power of the other. A review of the. themes or provinces might promise such authentic and useful information, as the curiosity of government only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants.(1) Such information the historian would have been pleased to record; nor should his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population of a capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the imperial standard, have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained with the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit: the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the geography and manners of the Barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the east. The ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century; his style is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius. (2) From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil government and military force, the character and literature, of the Greeks in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of Heraclius to the successful invasion of the Franks or Latins. After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany overspread the provinces, and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion: her limits were inviolate, or at least entire; and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient and precarious; and almost a moiety of the eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and after the reduction of Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province (1) After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus: Καππαδόκην ποτ' εχιδνα κακη δακεν, αλλα και αυτή The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against Freron: Un serpent mordit (2) The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis and Nicephorum Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom ii, pars 1, which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval powers, and it was from their extreme stations, the harbours of Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel emirs insulted the majesty of the throne and capital. The remaining provinces, under the obedience of the emperors, were cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the presidents, the consulars, and the counts, was superseded by the institution of the themes,(1) or military governments, which prevailed under the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and seventeen in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful or capricious: the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear, were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that were maintained at the expence, and for the guard, of the respective divisions. The vanity of the Greek princes most eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest, and the memory of lost dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of the Euphrates: the appellation and prætor of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil the Second revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries of the Roman name: the province of Cilicia the metropolis of Antioch, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance of Christ and Cæsar: one third of Italy was annexed to the throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed; and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighbourhood of Rome. In the eleventh century, the prospect was again clouded by new enemies and new misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away by the Norman adventurers; and almost all the Asiatic branches were dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors. After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, were obedient to their sceptre: the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Agean or Holy sea, (2) and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms. The same princes might assert with dignity and truth, that of all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city, (3) the most ample revenue, the most flourishing and populous state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the cities of the west had decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome, or the mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts, of Paris and London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches, and the arts and luxury of an innumerable peo (1) See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p. 1-30 who owns, that the word is ov Talaia. Oepa is used by Maurice (Stratagem. lib ii. c. 2.) for a legion, from whence the name was easily transferred to its post or province (Ducange, Glos. Græc. tom. i. p. 487, 488.). Some etymologies are attempted for the Opsiciau, Optimician, Thracesiau, themes. (2) Ayios meλayos as it is still styled by the modern Greeks, from which the corrupt names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been trans-termed by geographers and seamen (d'Anville, Geographie Aneienne, tom i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la Grece, p. 60.). The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos (Observations de Belon, fol. 32 verso), monte santo, might justify the epithet of holy, ayios, a slight alteration from the original ayatos, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of acyes, or goats, to the bounding waves (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph Antiq. tom. i. p. 829 ). (3) According to the Jewish traveller, who had visited Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by i agdad, the great city of the Ismaelites (Voyage de Benjamiu de Tudele, par Baratier, tom. i. c. 3. p. 46 ). |