206

PROCESSIONS AND ACCLAMATIONS.

[CH. LIII. solemnly received by the patriarch and his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations

were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long life* and victory were the burden of every song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the church; and, as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated in the Latin,t Gothic, Persian, French, and even English language, by the mercenaries, who sustained the real or fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery has been reduced into a pompous and trifling volume,§ which the vanity of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet the calmer reflections of a prince would surely suggest, that the same acclamations were applied to every character and every reign; and if he had risen from a private rank, he might remember that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager in applause, at

* Πολυχρονίζειν is explained by εὐφημίζειν. (Codin. c. 7. Ducange Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 1199.) + Κωνσέρβετ Δέους ἡμπέριουμ βέστρουμ—βίκτορ σῆς σέμπερ—βήβητε Δόμινι ΗμπεραTOPES Y μоúλroç avvos. (Ceremon. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin v, obliged the Greeks to employ their ß; nor do they regard quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange sentences might puzzle a professor. [In some instances, the quantities are much more distinctly marked than they are by us. Our barbarously corrupt pronunciation of Latin does not qualify us to reproach others by whom its correct tones are disregarded.-ED.]

† Βάραγγοι κατὰ την πάτριαν καὶ οὗτοι αὐτῶν γλωσσαν, ἥγουν Ινκλινιστί, πολυχρονίζουσι. (Codin. p. 90. I wish he had preserved the words, however corrupt, of their English acclamation. [This is very insufficient authority for making the Varangi oùr countrymen. See ch. 55 and 56.-ED.] § For all these ceremonies see the professed work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, with the notes,_or rather dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the rank of the standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23. 62, for the adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95. 240, not. 131; the processions, p. 2, &c. not. p. 3, &c., the acclamations, passim, not. 25, &c., the factions and hippodrome, p. 177-214, not. 9. 93, &c., the Gothic games, p. 221,

CH. LIII.] FOREIGN MARRIAGE OF THE CÆSARS.

207

the very moment when he envied the fortune, or conspired against the life, of his predecessor.*

The princes of the north, of the nations, says Constantine, without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood with the blood of the Cæsars, by their marriage with a royal virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman prince.† The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride, and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable demands. Every animal says the discreet emperor, is prompted by nature to seek a mate among the animals of his own species; and the human species is divided into various tribes, by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the sage Romans; their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen and a stranger; in the days of freedom and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his daughter with a king; the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian wife; and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice.§ This perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanc

not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not. 109: much more information is scattered over the work. * Et privato Othoni et nuper

eadem dicenti nota adulatio. (Tacit. Hist. 1. 85.)

The thirteenth chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be explained and rectified by the Familia Byzantine of Ducange.

Sequiturque nefas Ægyptia conjunx. (Virgil, Æneid. 8. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est (Sueton. in August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to inquire), whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egpytian rites. [Horace preceded Virgil in giving expression to this sentiment. The "mulier peregrina," who was the cause of Troy's overthrow (Carm. 3. 3), and the "fatale monstrum," applied to Cleopatra herself (1. 37) evince the national repugnance to foreign nuptials.—ED.]

§ Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit. (Suetonius in Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.

208

IMAGINARY LAW OF CONSTANTINE.

[CH. LII. tion of the great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished, that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the impious prince, who should stain the majesty of the purple, was excluded from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars, the nuptials of the grand-daughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three answers were prepared, which solved the difficulty and established the law. I. The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font and declared war against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honour, of the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from the law of Constantine; the clergy, the senate, and the people disapproved the conduct of Romanus, and he was reproached, both in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III. For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king of Italy, a more honourable defence is contrived by the wise Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the fidelity and valour of the Franks; and his prophetic spirit beheld the vision of * Constantine was made to praise the ɛvyɛveía and repipaveia of

A.D. 943.]

THE THIRD EXCEPTION.

209

their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was the lineal descendant of Charlemagne ; and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it was not denied, that in the confusion of the times, he had usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany; France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favourite concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele. The daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine court; her name of Bertha was

the Franks, with whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers (Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with these compliments. [Other royal marriages of this kind might have been adduced, among which the most prominent are that of Arcadius to Eudocia, of the race of Baltha (ch. 29, vol. iii. p. 315), and that of Placidia to Adolphus (ch. 31, Ib. p. 454). Germanus, the husband of Mathasuintha, was also a member of the imperial family. See ch. 43, vol. iv. p. 520.-ED.] * Constantine Porphy

rogenitus (de Administrat. Imp. c. 26) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious king Hugo (περιβλέπτου ῥήγος Οὐγώνος). A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc. A.D. 925-946.

After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur, earum nati ex incertis patribus originem ducunt (Hist. 1. 4, c. 6): for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. 5, c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercitio Hymenæi, 1. 2, c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, 1. 3, c. 5. Yet it must not be forgotten that the bishop of VOL. VI.

P

210

WOLODOMIR OF RUSSIA.

[CH. LIII. changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years, the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the minory of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance of her country.* In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the north, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and the offer of a powerful succour against a domestic rebel. A victim of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign and a hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighbourhood of the polar circle.t Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Jeroslaus was recommended by her imperial de

Cremona was a lover of scandal.

* Licet illa Imperatrix

Græca sibi et aliis fuisset satis utilis et optima, &c. is the preamble of an inimical writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc, under the proper years. +Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 221. Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, 1. 3, c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque, tom. ii. p. 112. Pagi, Critica. A.D. 987, No. 6, a singular concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the saints of the Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are ignorant