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Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of Justinian.
-- Part IV.

About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor
returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or devotion.
Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his private entry
countenanced the rumor of his death. Before the third hour of the day,
the bakers' shops were plundered of their bread, the houses were shut,
and every citizen, with hope or terror, prepared for the impending
tumult. The senators themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened
at the ninth hour; and the præfect received their commands to visit
every quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the
recovery of the emperor's health. The ferment subsided; but every
accident betrayed the impotence of the government, and the factious
temper of the people: the guards were disposed to mutiny as often as
their quarters were changed, or their pay was withheld: the frequent
calamities of fires and earthquakes afforded the opportunities of
disorder; the disputes of the blues and greens, of the orthodox and
heretics, degenerated into bloody battles; and, in the presence of the
Persian ambassador, Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects.
Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness
and discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the palace;
and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the
most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated
in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their
rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves  were
stationed in the vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the
tyrant, and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of
an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their
garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from
the sanctuary.  Pressed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety,
he accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture
forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret
instructions of their patron.  Posterity will not hastily believe that a
hero who, in the vigor of life, had disdained the fairest offers of
ambition and revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he
could not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly;
but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had lived
enough for nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before the council
with less fear than indignation: after forty years' service, the emperor
had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence
and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belisarius was graciously
spared; but his fortunes were sequestered, and, from December to July,
he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence
was acknowledged; his freedom and honor were restored; and death, which
might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from the world in
about eight months after his deliverance. The name of Belisarius can
never die but instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues, so
justly due to his memory, I only read, that his treasures, the spoil of
the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some
decent portion was reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as
Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life
and fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and
genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of
Justinian.  That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg
his bread, * "Give a penny to Belisarius the general!" is a fiction of
later times,  which has obtained credit, or rather favor, as a strange
example of the vicissitudes of fortune.

If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed the
base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign of
thirty-eight years, and a life of eighty-three years. It would be
difficult to trace the character of a prince who is not the most
conspicuous object of his own times: but the confessions of an enemy may
be received as the safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance of
Justinian to the bust of Domitian, is maliciously urged;  with the
acknowledgment, however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy
complexion, and a pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access,
patient of hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of
the angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the
breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him with
calm and deliberate cruelty: but in the conspiracies which attacked his
authority and person, a more candid judge will approve the justice, or
admire the clemency, of Justinian. He excelled in the private virtues of
chastity and temperance: but the impartial love of beauty would have
been less mischievous than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his
abstemious diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but
the superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on solemn
fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and such was his
strength, as well as fervor, that he frequently passed two days, and as
many nights, without tasting any food. The measure of his sleep was not
less rigorous: after the repose of a single hour, the body was awakened
by the soul, and, to the astonishment of his chamberlain, Justinian
walked or studied till the morning light. Such restless application
prolonged his time for the acquisition of knowledge  and the despatch of
business; and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by
minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his
administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and architect,
a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and if he failed in the
enterprise of reconciling the Christian sects, the review of the Roman
jurisprudence is a noble monument of his spirit and industry. In the
government of the empire, he was less wise, or less successful: the age
was unfortunate; the people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora
abused her power; a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment;
and Justinian was neither beloved in his life, nor regretted at his
death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but he
condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honors, and contemporary
praise; and while he labored to fix the admiration, he forfeited the
esteem and affection, of the Romans. The design of the African and
Italian wars was boldly conceived and executed; and his penetration
discovered the talents of Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the
palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his
victorious generals; and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and
ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favor of mankind applauds the
genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the
exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of Justinian
are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights in war, and
declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze
represented the emperor on horseback, preparing to march against the
Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles. In the great square before
the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column and
a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which
weighed seven thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from
the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes
were more just or indulgent to hismemory; the elder Andronicus, in the
beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified his
equestrian statue: since the fall of the empire it has been melted into
cannon by the victorious Turks.

I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the
plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian.

I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of September, a
comet  was seen during twenty days in the western quarter of the
heavens, and which shot its rays into the north. Eight years afterwards,
while the sun was in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the
Sagittary; the size was gradually increasing; the head was in the east,
the tail in the west, and it remained visible above forty days. The
nations, who gazed with astonishment, expected wars and calamities from
their baleful influence; and these expectations were abundantly
fulfilled. The astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of
these blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion of
Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a longer period
and more eccentric motion.  Time and science have justified the
conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the telescope has opened
new worlds to the eyes of astronomers;  and, in the narrow space of
history and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have
revisited the earth in sevenequal revolutions of five hundred and
seventy-five years. The first,  which ascends beyond the Christian æra
one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges,
the father of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the
tradition which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet
Venus changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
example either in past or succeeding ages.  The secondvisit, in the year
eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of
Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since
the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable
to support the ruin of her country: she abandoned the dances of her
sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained, from
her dishevelled locks, the name of the comet. The thirdperiod expires in
the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the
tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose in the
West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourthapparition,
forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of all others the most
splendid and important. After the death of Cæsar, a long-haired star was
conspicuous to Rome and to the nations, during the games which were
exhibited by young Octavian in honor of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar
opinion, that it conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was
cherished and consecrated by the piety of a statesman; while his secret
superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times.  The
fifthvisit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of Justinian,
which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first of the Christian
æra. And it may deserve notice, that in this, as in the preceding
instance, the comet was followed, though at a longer interval, by a
remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixthreturn, in the year eleven
hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China: and
in the first fervor of the crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans
might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of
the Infidels. The seventhphenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and
eighty, was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age.  The philosophy
of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had so recently
adorned, that the comet, "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and
war."  Its road in the heavens was observed with exquisite skill by
Flamstead and Cassini: and the mathematical science of Bernoulli, Newton
*, and Halley, investigated the laws of its revolutions. At the
eighthperiod, in the year two thousand three hundred and fifty-five,
their calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some
future capital in the Siberian or American wilderness.

II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which
we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced
by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes.  The nature of the soil may
indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions,
since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled
by the union and fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and
effects appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of earthquakes,
till he has counted the drops of water that silently filtrate on the
inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which increase by
resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the
cause, history will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous
events have been rare or frequent, and will observe, that this fever of
the earth raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian.
Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration,
that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent,
that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the globe,
or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory motion was
felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies were discharged
into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated beyond its
ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn from Libanus,  and cast into
the waves, where it protected, as a mole, the new harbor of Botrys  in
Phnicia. The stroke that agitates an ant-hill may crush the
insect-myriads in the dust; yet truth must extort confession that man
has industriously labored for his own destruction. The institution of
great cities, which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost
realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one neck.
Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in the
earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes were swelled by the
conflux of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. The loss of
Berytus  was of smaller account, but of much greater value. That city,
on the coast of Phnicia, was illustrated by the study of the civil law,
which opened the surest road to wealth and dignity: the schools of
Berytus were filled with the rising spirits of the age, and many a youth
was lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or
the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect becomes
the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage, or the tent of an Arab, may
be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and the Peruvians had
reason to deride the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who with so much
cost and labor erected their own sepulchres. The rich marbles of a
patrician are dashed on his own head: a whole people is buried under the
ruins of public and private edifices, and the conflagration is kindled
and propagated by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the
subsistence and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual
sympathy which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully
experience the vices and passions which are released from the fear of
punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid avarice;
revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and the earth often
swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the consummation of their
crimes. Superstition involves the present danger with invisible terrors;
and if the image of death may sometimes be subservient to the virtue or
repentance of individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved
to expect the end of the world, or to deprecate with servile homage the
wrath of an avenging Deity.

III. Æthiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as the
original source and seminary of the plague.  In a damp, hot, stagnating
air, this African fever is generated from the putrefaction of animal
substances, and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less
destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives. The fatal
disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his
successors,  first appeared in the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the
Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing
as it were a double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and
the Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa, and
over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second year,
Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the
pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with
the eyes of a physician,  has emulated the skill and diligence of
Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens.  The infection
was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy, and the
victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the stroke
of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the
streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so
slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the patient gave
any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the
succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the ear; and
when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found to contain a
coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a
just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and
natural discharge of the morbid humor. But if they continued hard and
dry, a mortification quickly ensued, and the fifth day was commonly the
term of his life. The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or
delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or
carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions
too feeble to produce an irruption, the vomiting of blood was followed
by a mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was
generally mortal: yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead mother,
and three mothers survived the loss of their infected ftus. Youth was
the most perilous season; and the female sex was less susceptible than
the male: but every rank and profession was attacked with indiscriminate
rage, and many of those who escaped were deprived of the use of their
speech, without being secure from a return of the disorder.  The
physicians of Constantinople were zealous and skilful; but their art was
baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the
disease: the same remedies were productive of contrary effects, and the
event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of death or recovery.
The order of funerals, and the right of sepulchres, were confounded:
those who were left without friends or servants, lay unburied in the
streets, or in their desolate houses; and a magistrate was authorized to
collect the promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land
or water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the
city. Their own danger, and the prospect of public distress, awakened
some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of mankind: the confidence
of health again revived their passions and habits; but philosophy must
disdain the observation of Procopius, that the lives of such men were
guarded by the peculiar favor of fortune or Providence. He forgot, or
perhaps he secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the person
of Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may
suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and honorable cause
for his recovery.  During his sickness, the public consternation was
expressed in the habits of the citizens; and their idleness and
despondence occasioned a general scarcity in the capital of the East.

Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by mutual
respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to the lungs and
stomach of those who approach them. While philosophers believe and
tremble, it is singular, that the existence of a real danger should have
been denied by a people most prone to vain and imaginary terrors.  Yet
the fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and
partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the
closest conversation:  and this persuasion might support the assiduity
of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom inhuman prudence
would have condemned to solitude and despair. But the fatal security,
like the predestination of the Turks, must have aided the progress of
the contagion; and those salutary precautions to which Europe is
indebted for her safety, were unknown to the government of Justinian. No
restraints were imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the
Roman provinces: from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and
infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odor which lurks
for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of trade, into
the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation is explained by
the remark of Procopius himself, that it always spread from the
sea-coast to the inland country: the most sequestered islands and
mountains were successively visited; the places which had escaped the
fury of its first passage were alone exposed to the contagion of the
ensuing year. The winds might diffuse that subtile venom; but unless the
atmosphere be previously disposed for its reception, the plague would
soon expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was the
universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which burst forth
in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or alleviated by any
difference of the seasons. In time, its first malignity was abated and
dispersed; the disease alternately languished and revived; but it was
not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind
recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious
quality. No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a
conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary
mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at length
ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; that many cities
of the East were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the
harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of
war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and
his reign is disgraced by the visible decrease of the human species,
which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the
globe.

Chapter XLIV * : Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.

Part I.

Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- The Laws Of The Kings -- The Twelve
Of The Decemvirs. -- The Laws Of The People. -- The Decrees Of The
Senate. -- The Edicts Of The Magistrates And Emperors -- Authority Of
The Civilians. -- Code, Pandects, Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:
-- I. Rights Of Persons. -- II. Rights Of Things. -- III. Private
Injuries And Actions. -- IV. Crimes And Punishments.

The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust;
but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting
monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was
digested in the immortal works of the Code, the Pandects, and the
Institutes:  the public reason of the Romans has been silently or
studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, , and
the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of
independent nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince who connects his
own reputation with the honor or interest of a perpetual order of men.
The defence of their founder is the first cause, which in every age has
exercised the zeal and industry of the civilians. They piously
commemorate his virtues; dissemble or deny his failings; and fiercely
chastise the guilt or folly of the rebels, who presume to sully the
majesty of the purple. The idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually
happens, the rancor of opposition; the character of Justinian has been
exposed to the blind vehemence of flattery and invective; and the
injustice of a sect (the Anti-Tribonians,) has refused all praise and
merit to the prince, his ministers, and his laws.  Attached to no party,
interested only for the truth and candor of history, and directed by the
most temperate and skilful guides,  I enter with just diffidence on the
subject of civil law, which has exhausted so many learned lives, and
clothed the walls of such spacious libraries. In a single, if possible
in a short, chapter, I shall trace the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus
to Justinian,  appreciate the labors of that emperor, and pause to
contemplate the principles of a science so important to the peace and
happiness of society. The laws of a nation form the most instructive
portion of its history; and although I have devoted myself to write the
annals of a declining monarchy, I shall embrace the occasion to breathe
the pure and invigorating air of the republic.

The primitive government of Rome  was composed, with some political
skill, of an elective king, a council of nobles, and a general assembly
of the people. War and religion were administered by the supreme
magistrate; and he alone proposed the laws, which were debated in the
senate, and finally ratified or rejected by a majority of votes in the
thirty curior parishes of the city. Romulus, Numa, and Servius Tullius,
are celebrated as the most ancient legislators; and each of them claims
his peculiar part in the threefold division of jurisprudence.  The laws
of marriage, the education of children, and the authority of parents,
which may seem to draw their origin from natureitself, are ascribed to
the untutored wisdom of Romulus. The law of nationsand of religious
worship, which Numa introduced, was derived from his nocturnal converse
with the nymph Egeria. The civillaw is attributed to the experience of
Servius: he balanced the rights and fortunes of the seven classes of
citizens; and guarded, by fifty new regulations, the observance of
contracts and the punishment of crimes. The state, which he had inclined
towards a democracy, was changed by the last Tarquin into a lawless
despotism; and when the kingly office was abolished, the patricians
engrossed the benefits of freedom. The royal laws became odious or
obsolete; the mysterious deposit was silently preserved by the priests
and nobles; and at the end of sixty years, the citizens of Rome still
complained that they were ruled by the arbitrary sentence of the
magistrates. Yet the positive institutions of the kings had blended
themselves with the public and private manners of the city, some
fragments of that venerable jurisprudence  were compiled by the
diligence of antiquarians,  and above twenty texts still speak the
rudeness of the Pelasgic idiom of the Latins.

I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs,  who sullied
by their actions the honor of inscribing on brass, or wood, or ivory,
the Twelve Tables of the Roman laws.  They were dictated by the rigid
and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which had yielded with reluctance
to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the Twelve
Tables was adapted to the state of the city; and the Romans had emerged
from Barbarism, since they were capable of studying and embracing the
institutions of their more enlightened neighbors.  A wise Ephesian was
driven by envy from his native country: before he could reach the shores
of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and civil
society: he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of Rome, and a
statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual memory of Hermodorus.
The names and divisions of the copper money, the sole coin of the infant
state, were of Dorian origin:  the harvests of Campania and Sicily
relieved the wants of a people whose agriculture was often interrupted
by war and faction; and since the trade was established,  the deputies
who sailed from the Tyber might return from the same harbors with a more
precious cargo of political wisdom. The colonies of Great Greece had
transported and improved the arts of their mother country. Cumæand
Rhegium, Crotona and Tarentum, Agrigentum and Syracuse, were in the rank
of the most flourishing cities. The disciples of Pythagoras applied
philosophy to the use of government; the unwritten laws of Charondas
accepted the aid of poetry and music,  and Zaleucus framed the republic
of the Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years.
From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are
willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the
wise and splendid administration of Pericles; and the laws of Solon were
transfused into the twelve tables. If such an embassy had indeed been
received from the Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have been
familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander;  and the faintest
evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity of
succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor will it
seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long and perilous
navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In the comparison of
the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs, some casual resemblance
may be found; some rules which nature and reason have revealed to every
society; some proofs of a common descent from Egypt or Phnicia.  But in
all the great lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators
of Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse at each other.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part II.

Whatever might be the origin or the merit of the twelve tables,  they
obtained among the Romans that blind and partial reverence which the
lawyers of every country delight to bestow on their municipal
institutions. The study is recommended by Cicero  as equally pleasant
and instructive. "They amuse the mind by the remembrance of old words
and the portrait of ancient manners; they inculcate the soundest
principles of government and morals; and I am not afraid to affirm, that
the brief composition of the Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the
libraries of Grecian philosophy. How admirable," says Tully, with honest
or affected prejudice, "is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the
masters of civil prudence, and our superiority is the more conspicuous,
if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude and almost ridiculous
jurisprudence of Draco, of Solon, and of Lycurgus." The twelve tables
were committed to the memory of the young and the meditation of the old;
they were transcribed and illustrated with learned diligence; they had
escaped the flames of the Gauls, they subsisted in the age of Justinian,
and their subsequent loss has been imperfectly restored by the labors of
modern critics.  But although these venerable monuments were considered
as the rule of right and the fountain of justice,  they were overwhelmed
by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the end of five
centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than the vices of the
city.  Three thousand brass plates, the acts of the senate of the
people, were deposited in the Capitol:  and some of the acts, as the
Julian law against extortion, surpassed the number of a hundred
chapters.  The Decemvirs had neglected to import the sanction of
Zaleucus, which so long maintained the integrity of his republic. A
Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the
people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the
innovator was instantly strangled.

The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by an
assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated against
numbers. To the first class of Romans, the proprietors of one hundred
thousand pounds of copper,  ninety-eight votes were assigned, and only
ninety-five were left for the six inferior classes, distributed
according to their substance by the artful policy of Servius. But the
tribunes soon established a more specious and popular maxim, that every
citizen has an equal right to enact the laws which he is bound to obey.
Instead of the centuries, they convened the tribes; and the patricians,
after an impotent struggle, submitted to the decrees of an assembly, in
which their votes were confounded with those of the meanest plebeians.
Yet as long as the tribes successively passed over narrow bridgesand
gave their voices aloud, the conduct of each citizen was exposed to the
eyes and ears of his friends and countrymen. The insolvent debtor
consulted the wishes of his creditor; the client would have blushed to
oppose the views of his patron; the general was followed by his
veterans, and the aspect of a grave magistrate was a living lesson to
the multitude. A new method of secret ballot abolished the influence of
fear and shame, of honor and interest, and the abuse of freedom
accelerated the progress of anarchy and despotism.  The Romans had
aspired to be equal; they were levelled by the equality of servitude;
and the dictates of Augustus were patiently ratified by the formal
consent of the tribes or centuries. Once, and once only, he experienced
a sincere and strenuous opposition. His subjects had resigned all
political liberty; they defended the freedom of domestic life. A law
which enforced the obligation, and strengthened the bonds of marriage,
was clamorously rejected; Propertius, in the arms of Delia, applauded
the victory of licentious love; and the project of reform was suspended
till a new and more tractable generation had arisen in the world.  Such
an example was not necessary to instruct a prudent usurper of the
mischief of popular assemblies; and their abolition, which Augustus had
silently prepared, was accomplished without resistance, and almost
without notice, on the accession of his successor.  Sixty thousand
plebeian legislators, whom numbers made formidable, and poverty secure,
were supplanted by six hundred senators, who held their honors, their
fortunes, and their lives, by the clemency of the emperor. The loss of
executive power was alleviated by the gift of legislative authority; and
Ulpian might assert, after the practice of two hundred years, that the
decrees of the senate obtained the force and validity of laws. In the
times of freedom, the resolves of the people had often been dictated by
the passion or error of the moment: the Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian
laws were adapted by a single hand to the prevailing disorders; but the
senate, under the reign of the Cæsars, was composed of magistrates and
lawyers, and in questions of private jurisprudence, the integrity of
their judgment was seldom perverted by fear or interest.

The silence or ambiguity of the laws was supplied by the occasional
edicts  of those magistrates who were invested with the honorsof the
state.  This ancient prerogative of the Roman kings was transferred, in
their respective offices, to the consuls and dictators, the censors and
prætors; and a similar right was assumed by the tribunes of the people,
the ediles, and the proconsuls. At Rome, and in the provinces, the
duties of the subject, and the intentions of the governor, were
proclaimed; and the civil jurisprudence was reformed by the annual
edicts of the supreme judge, the prætor of the city. * As soon as he
ascended his tribunal, he announced by the voice of the crier, and
afterwards inscribed on a white wall, the rules which he proposed to
follow in the decision of doubtful cases, and the relief which his
equity would afford from the precise rigor of ancient statutes. A
principle of discretion more congenial to monarchy was introduced into
the republic: the art of respecting the name, and eluding the efficacy,
of the laws, was improved by successive prætors; subtleties and fictions
were invented to defeat the plainest meaning of the Decemvirs, and where
the end was salutary, the means were frequently absurd. The secret or
probable wish of the dead was suffered to prevail over the order of
succession and the forms of testaments; and the claimant, who was
excluded from the character of heir, accepted with equal pleasure from
an indulgent prætor the possession of the goods of his late kinsman or
benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs, compensations and fines
were substituted to the obsolete rigor of the Twelve Tables; time and
space were annihilated by fanciful suppositions; and the plea of youth,
or fraud, or violence, annulled the obligation, or excused the
performance, of an inconvenient contract. A jurisdiction thus vague and
arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as
well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of
virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of
interest or resentment. But the errors or vices of each prætor expired
with his annual office; such maxims alone as had been approved by reason
and practice were copied by succeeding judges; the rule of proceeding
was defined by the solution of new cases; and the temptations of
injustice were removed by the Cornelian law, which compelled the prætor
of the year to adhere to the spirit and letter of his first
proclamation.  It was reserved for the curiosity and learning of Adrian,
to accomplish the design which had been conceived by the genius of
Cæsar; and the prætorship of Salvius Julian, an eminent lawyer, was
immortalized by the composition of the Perpetual Edict. This
well-digested code was ratified by the emperor and the senate; the long
divorce of law and equity was at length reconciled; and, instead of the
Twelve Tables, the perpetual edict was fixed as the invariable standard
of civil jurisprudence.

From Augustus to Trajan, the modest Cæsars were content to promulgate
their edicts in the various characters of a Roman magistrate; * and, in
the decrees of the senate, the epistlesand orationsof the prince were
respectfully inserted. Adrian  appears to have been the first who
assumed, without disguise, the plenitude of legislative power. And this
innovation, so agreeable to his active mind, was countenanced by the
patience of the times, and his long absence from the seat of government.
The same policy was embraced by succeeding monarchs, and, according to
the harsh metaphor of Tertullian, "the gloomy and intricate forest of
ancient laws was cleared away by the axe of royal mandates and
constitutions."  During four centuries, from Adrian to Justinian the
public and private jurisprudence was moulded by the will of the
sovereign; and few institutions, either human or divine, were permitted
to stand on their former basis. The origin of Imperial legislation was
concealed by the darkness of ages and the terrors of armed despotism;
and a double fiction was propagated by the servility, or perhaps the
ignorance, of the civilians, who basked in the sunshine of the Roman and
Byzantine courts. 1. To the prayer of the ancient Cæsars, the people or
the senate had sometimes granted a personal exemption from the
obligation and penalty of particular statutes; and each indulgence was
an act of jurisdiction exercised by the republic over the first of her
citizens. His humble privilege was at length transformed into the
prerogative of a tyrant; and the Latin expression of "released from the
laws"  was supposed to exalt the emperor above allhuman restraints, and
to leave his conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct.
2. A similar dependence was implied in the decrees of the senate, which,
in every reign, defined the titles and powers of an elective magistrate.
But it was not before the ideas, and even the language, of the Romans
had been corrupted, that a royallaw,  and an irrevocable gift of the
people, were created by the fancy of Ulpian, or more probably of
Tribonian himself;  and the origin of Imperial power, though false in
fact, and slavish in its consequence, was supported on a principle of
freedom and justice. "The pleasure of the emperor has the vigor and
effect of law, since the Roman people, by the royal law, have
transferred to their prince the full extent of their own power and
sovereignty."  The will of a single man, of a child perhaps, was allowed
to prevail over the wisdom of ages and the inclinations of millions; and
the degenerate Greeks were proud to declare, that in his hands alone the
arbitrary exercise of legislation could be safely deposited. "What
interest or passion," exclaims Theophilus in the court of Justinian,
"can reach the calm and sublime elevation of the monarch? He is already
master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects; and those who have
incurred his displeasure are already numbered with the dead."
Disdaining the language of flattery, the historian may confess, that in
questions of private jurisprudence, the absolute sovereign of a great
empire can seldom be influenced by any personal considerations. Virtue,
or even reason, will suggest to his impartial mind, that he is the
guardian of peace and equity, and that the interest of society is
inseparably connected with his own. Under the weakest and most vicious
reign, the seat of justice was filled by the wisdom and integrity of
Papinian and Ulpian;  and the purest materials of the Code and Pandects
are inscribed with the names of Caracalla and his ministers.  The tyrant
of Rome was sometimes the benefactor of the provinces. A dagger
terminated the crimes of Domitian; but the prudence of Nerva confirmed
his acts, which, in the joy of their deliverance, had been rescinded by
an indignant senate.  Yet in the rescripts,  replies to the
consultations of the magistrates, the wisest of princes might be
deceived by a partial exposition of the case. And this abuse, which
placed their hasty decisions on the same level with mature and
deliberate acts of legislation, was ineffectually condemned by the sense
and example of Trajan. The rescriptsof the emperor, his grantsand
decrees, his edictsand pragmatic sanctions, were subscribed in purple
ink,  and transmitted to the provinces as general or special laws, which
the magistrates were bound to execute, and the people to obey. But as
their number continually multiplied, the rule of obedience became each
day more doubtful and obscure, till the will of the sovereign was fixed
and ascertained in the Gregorian, the Hermogenian, and the Theodosian
codes. * The two first, of which some fragments have escaped, were
framed by two private lawyers, to preserve the constitutions of the
Pagan emperors from Adrian to Constantine. The third, which is still
extant, was digested in sixteen books by the order of the younger
Theodosius to consecrate the laws of the Christian princes from
Constantine to his own reign. But the three codes obtained an equal
authority in the tribunals; and any act which was not included in the
sacred deposit might be disregarded by the judge as spurious or
obsolete.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part III.

Among savage nations, the want of letters is imperfectly supplied by the
use of visible signs, which awaken attention, and perpetuate the
remembrance of any public or private transaction. The jurisprudence of
the first Romans exhibited the scenes of a pantomime; the words were
adapted to the gestures, and the slightest error or neglect in the
formsof proceeding was sufficient to annul the substanceof the fairest
claim. The communion of the marriage-life was denoted by the necessary
elements of fire and water;  and the divorced wife resigned the bunch of
keys, by the delivery of which she had been invested with the government
of the family. The manumission of a son, or a slave, was performed by
turning him round with a gentle blow on the cheek; a work was prohibited
by the casting of a stone; prescription was interrupted by the breaking
of a branch; the clinched fist was the symbol of a pledge or deposit;
the right hand was the gift of faith and confidence. The indenture of
covenants was a broken straw; weights and scales were introduced into
every payment, and the heir who accepted a testament was sometimes
obliged to snap his fingers, to cast away his garments, and to leap or
dance with real or affected transport.  If a citizen pursued any stolen
goods into a neighbor's house, he concealed his nakedness with a linen
towel, and hid his face with a mask or basin, lest he should encounter
the eyes of a virgin or a matron.  In a civil action the plaintiff
touched the ear of his witness, seized his reluctant adversary by the
neck, and implored, in solemn lamentation, the aid of his
fellow-citizens. The two competitors grasped each other's hand as if
they stood prepared for combat before the tribunal of the prætor; he
commanded them to produce the object of the dispute; they went, they
returned with measured steps, and a clod of earth was cast at his feet
to represent the field for which they contended. This occult science of
the words and actions of law was the inheritance of the pontiffs and
patricians. Like the Chaldean astrologers, they announced to their
clients the days of business and repose; these important trifles were
interwoven with the religion of Numa; and after the publication of the
Twelve Tables, the Roman people was still enslaved by the ignorance of
judicial proceedings. The treachery of some plebeian officers at length
revealed the profitable mystery: in a more enlightened age, the legal
actions were derided and observed; and the same antiquity which
sanctified the practice, obliterated the use and meaning of this
primitive language.

A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the sage of Rome, who, in
a stricter sense, may be considered as the authors of the civil law. The
alteration of the idiom and manners of the Romans rendered the style of
the Twelve Tables less familiar to each rising generation, and the
doubtful passages were imperfectly explained by the study of legal
antiquarians. To define the ambiguities, to circumscribe the latitude,
to apply the principles, to extend the consequences, to reconcile the
real or apparent contradictions, was a much nobler and more important
task; and the province of legislation was silently invaded by the
expounders of ancient statutes. Their subtle interpretations concurred
with the equity of the prætor, to reform the tyranny of the darker ages:
however strange or intricate the means, it was the aim of artificial
jurisprudence to restore the simple dictates of nature and reason, and
the skill of private citizens was usefully employed to undermine the
public institutions of their country.  The revolution of almost one
thousand years, from the Twelve Tables to the reign of Justinian, may be
divided into three periods, almost equal in duration, and distinguished
from each other by the mode of instruction and the character of the
civilians.  Pride and ignorance contributed, during the first period, to
confine within narrow limits the science of the Roman law. On the public
days of market or assembly, the masters of the art were seen walking in
the forum ready to impart the needful advice to the meanest of their
fellow-citizens, from whose votes, on a future occasion, they might
solicit a grateful return. As their years and honors increased, they
seated themselves at home on a chair or throne, to expect with patient
gravity the visits of their clients, who at the dawn of day, from the
town and country, began to thunder at their door. The duties of social
life, and the incidents of judicial proceeding, were the ordinary
subject of these consultations, and the verbal or written opinion of the
juris-consultswas framed according to the rules of prudence and law. The
youths of their own order and family were permitted to listen; their
children enjoyed the benefit of more private lessons, and the Mucian
race was long renowned for the hereditary knowledge of the civil law.
The second period, the learned and splendid age of jurisprudence, may be
extended from the birth of Cicero to the reign of Severus Alexander. A
system was formed, schools were instituted, books were composed, and
both the living and the dead became subservient to the instruction of
the student. The tripartiteof Ælius Pætus, surnamed Catus, or the
Cunning, was preserved as the oldest work of Jurisprudence. Cato the
censor derived some additional fame from his legal studies, and those of
his son: the kindred appellation of Mucius Scævola was illustrated by
three sages of the law; but the perfection of the science was ascribed
to Servius Sulpicius, their disciple, and the friend of Tully; and the
long succession, which shone with equal lustre under the republic and
under the Cæsars, is finally closed by the respectable characters of
Papinian, of Paul, and of Ulpian. Their names, and the various titles of
their productions, have been minutely preserved, and the example of
Labeo may suggest some idea of their diligence and fecundity. That
eminent lawyer of the Augustan age divided the year between the city and
country, between business and composition; and four hundred books are
enumerated as the fruit of his retirement. Of the collection of his
rival Capito, the two hundred and fifty-ninth book is expressly quoted;
and few teachers could deliver their opinions in less than a century of
volumes. In the third period, between the reigns of Alexander and
Justinian, the oracles of jurisprudence were almost mute. The measure of
curiosity had been filled: the throne was occupied by tyrants and
Barbarians, the active spirits were diverted by religious disputes, and
the professors of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, were humbly content
to repeat the lessons of their more enlightened predecessors. From the
slow advances and rapid decay of these legal studies, it may be
inferred, that they require a state of peace and refinement. From the
multitude of voluminous civilians who fill the intermediate space, it is
evident that such studies may be pursued, and such works may be
performed, with a common share of judgment, experience, and industry.
The genius of Cicero and Virgil was more sensibly felt, as each
revolving age had been found incapable of producing a similar or a
second: but the most eminent teachers of the law were assured of leaving
disciples equal or superior to themselves in merit and reputation.

The jurisprudence which had been grossly adapted to the wants of the
first Romans, was polished and improved in the seventh century of the
city, by the alliance of Grecian philosophy. The Scævolas had been
taught by use and experience; but Servius Sulpicius * was the first
civilian who established his art on a certain and general theory.  For
the discernment of truth and falsehood he applied, as an infallible
rule, the logic of Aristotle and the stoics, reduced particular cases to
general principles, and diffused over the shapeless mass the light of
order and eloquence. Cicero, his contemporary and friend, declined the
reputation of a professed lawyer; but the jurisprudence of his country
was adorned by his incomparable genius, which converts into gold every
object that it touches. After the example of Plato, he composed a
republic; and, for the use of his republic, a treatise of laws; in which
he labors to deduce from a celestial origin the wisdom and justice of
the Roman constitution. The whole universe, according to his sublime
hypothesis, forms one immense commonwealth: gods and men, who
participate of the same essence, are members of the same community;
reason prescribes the law of nature and nations; and all positive
institutions, however modified by accident or custom, are drawn from the
rule of right, which the Deity has inscribed on every virtuous mind.
From these philosophical mysteries, he mildly excludes the sceptics who
refuse to believe, and the epicureans who are unwilling to act. The
latter disdain the care of the republic: he advises them to slumber in
their shady gardens. But he humbly entreats that the new academy would
be silent, since her bold objections would too soon destroy the fair and
well ordered structure of his lofty system.  Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno,
he represents as the only teachers who arm and instruct a citizen for
the duties of social life. Of these, the armor of the stoics  was found
to be of the firmest temper; and it was chiefly worn, both for use and
ornament, in the schools of jurisprudence. From the portico, the Roman
civilians learned to live, to reason, and to die: but they imbibed in
some degree the prejudices of the sect; the love of paradox, the
pertinacious habits of dispute, and a minute attachment to words and
verbal distinctions. The superiority of formto matterwas introduced to
ascertain the right of property: and the equality of crimes is
countenanced by an opinion of Trebatius,  that he who touches the ear,
touches the whole body; and that he who steals from a heap of corn, or a
hogshead of wine, is guilty of the entire theft.

Arms, eloquence, and the study of the civil law, promoted a citizen to
the honors of the Roman state; and the three professions were sometimes
more conspicuous by their union in the same character. In the
composition of the edict, a learned prætor gave a sanction and
preference to his private sentiments; the opinion of a censor, or a
counsel, was entertained with respect; and a doubtful interpretation of
the laws might be supported by the virtues or triumphs of the civilian.
The patrician arts were long protected by the veil of mystery; and in
more enlightened times, the freedom of inquiry established the general
principles of jurisprudence. Subtile and intricate cases were elucidated
by the disputes of the forum: rules, axioms, and definitions,  were
admitted as the genuine dictates of reason; and the consent of the legal
professors was interwoven into the practice of the tribunals. But these
interpreters could neither enact nor execute the laws of the republic;
and the judges might disregard the authority of the Scævolas themselves,
which was often overthrown by the eloquence or sophistry of an ingenious
pleader.  Augustus and Tiberius were the first to adopt, as a useful
engine, the science of the civilians; and their servile labors
accommodated the old system to the spirit and views of despotism. Under
the fair pretence of securing the dignity of the art, the privilege of
subscribing legal and valid opinions was confined to the sages of
senatorian or equestrian rank, who had been previously approved by the
judgment of the prince; and this monopoly prevailed, till Adrian
restored the freedom of the profession to every citizen conscious of his
abilities and knowledge. The discretion of the prætor was now governed
by the lessons of his teachers; the judges were enjoined to obey the
comment as well as the text of the law; and the use of codicils was a
memorable innovation, which Augustus ratified by the advice of the
civilians.  *

The most absolute mandate could only require that the judges should
agree with the civilians, if the civilians agreed among themselves. But
positive institutions are often the result of custom and prejudice; laws
and language are ambiguous and arbitrary; where reason is incapable of
pronouncing, the love of argument is inflamed by the envy of rivals, the
vanity of masters, the blind attachment of their disciples; and the
Roman jurisprudence was divided by the once famous sects of the
Proculiansand Sabinians.  Two sages of the law, Ateius Capito and
Antistius Labeo,  adorned the peace of the Augustan age; the former
distinguished by the favor of his sovereign; the latter more illustrious
by his contempt of that favor, and his stern though harmless opposition
to the tyrant of Rome. Their legal studies were influenced by the
various colors of their temper and principles. Labeo was attached to the
form of the old republic; his rival embraced the more profitable
substance of the rising monarchy. But the disposition of a courtier is
tame and submissive; and Capito seldom presumed to deviate from the
sentiments, or at least from the words, of his predecessors; while the
bold republican pursued his independent ideas without fear of paradox or
innovations. The freedom of Labeo was enslaved, however, by the rigor of
his own conclusions, and he decided, according to the letter of the law,
the same questions which his indulgent competitor resolved with a
latitude of equity more suitable to the common sense and feelings of
mankind. If a fair exchange had been substituted to the payment of
money, Capito still considered the transaction as a legal sale;  and he
consulted nature for the age of puberty, without confining his
definition to the precise period of twelve or fourteen years.  This
opposition of sentiments was propagated in the writings and lessons of
the two founders; the schools of Capito and Labeo maintained their
inveterate conflict from the age of Augustus to that of Adrian;  and the
two sects derived their appellations from Sabinus and Proculus, their
most celebrated teachers. The names of Cassiansand Pegasianswere
likewise applied to the same parties; but, by a strange reverse, the
popular cause was in the hands of Pegasus,  a timid slave of Domitian,
while the favorite of the Cæsars was represented by Cassius,  who
gloried in his descent from the patriot assassin. By the perpetual
edict, the controversies of the sects were in a great measure
determined. For that important work, the emperor Adrian preferred the
chief of the Sabinians: the friends of monarchy prevailed; but the
moderation of Salvius Julian insensibly reconciled the victors and the
vanquished. Like the contemporary philosophers, the lawyers of the age
of the Antonines disclaimed the authority of a master, and adopted from
every system the most probable doctrines.  But their writings would have
been less voluminous, had their choice been more unanimous. The
conscience of the judge was perplexed by the number and weight of
discordant testimonies, and every sentence that his passion or interest
might pronounce was justified by the sanction of some venerable name. An
indulgent edict of the younger Theodosius excused him from the labor of
comparing and weighing their arguments. Five civilians, Caius, Papinian,
Paul, Ulpian, and Modestinus, were established as the oracles of
jurisprudence: a majority was decisive: but if their opinions were
equally divided, a casting vote was ascribed to the superior wisdom of
Papinian.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part IV.

When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space of ten
centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled
many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase and no capacity
could digest. Books could not easily be found; and the judges, poor in
the midst of riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate
discretion. The subjects of the Greek provinces were ignorant of the
language that disposed of their lives and properties; and the
barbarousdialect of the Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies
of Berytus and Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was
familiar to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by
the lessons of jurisprudence, and his Imperial choice selected the most
learned civilians of the East, to labor with their sovereign in the work
of reformation.  The theory of professors was assisted by the practice
of advocates, and the experience of magistrates; and the whole
undertaking was animated by the spirit of Tribonian.  This extraordinary
man, the object of so much praise and censure, was a native of Side in
Pamphylia; and his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all
the business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian composed, both in prose
and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse subjects:  a
double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the philosopher Theodotus;
the nature of happiness and the duties of government; Homer's catalogue
and the four-and-twenty sorts of metre; the astronomical canon of
Ptolemy; the changes of the months; the houses of the planets; and the
harmonic system of the world. To the literature of Greece he added the
use of the Latin tongue; the Roman civilians were deposited in his
library and in his mind; and he most assiduously cultivated those arts
which opened the road of wealth and preferment. From the bar of the
Prætorian præfects, he raised himself to the honors of quæstor, of
consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian listened
to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy was mitigated by the gentleness
and affability of his manners. The reproaches of impiety and avarice
have stained the virtue or the reputation of Tribonian. In a bigoted and
persecuting court, the principal minister was accused of a secret
aversion to the Christian faith, and was supposed to entertain the
sentiments of an Atheist and a Pagan, which have been imputed,
inconsistently enough, to the last philosophers of Greece. His avarice
was more clearly proved and more sensibly felt. If he were swayed by
gifts in the administration of justice, the example of Bacon will again
occur; nor can the merit of Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he
degraded the sanctity of his profession; and if laws were every day
enacted, modified, or repealed, for the base consideration of his
private emolument. In the sedition of Constantinople, his removal was
granted to the clamors, perhaps to the just indignation, of the people:
but the quæstor was speedily restored, and, till the hour of his death,
he possessed, above twenty years, the favor and confidence of the
emperor. His passive and dutiful submission had been honored with the
praise of Justinian himself, whose vanity was incapable of discerning
how often that submission degenerated into the grossest adulation.
Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious of his gracious master; the
earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he affected a pious fear, that
Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be snatched into the air, and
translated alive to the mansions of celestial glory.

If Cæsar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his creative
genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have given to the
world a pure and original system of jurisprudence. Whatever flattery
might suggest, the emperor of the East was afraid to establish his
private judgment as the standard of equity: in the possession of
legislative power, he borrowed the aid of time and opinion; and his
laborious compilations are guarded by the sages and legislature of past
times. Instead of a statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an
artist, the works of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of
antique and costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first
year of his reign, he directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine learned
associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors, as they were
contained, since the time of Adrian, in the Gregorian Hermogenian, and
Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and contradictions, to retrench
whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and to select the wise and
salutary laws best adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use
of his subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the
twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might be
designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors. The new Code
of Justinian was honored with his name, and confirmed by his royal
signature: authentic transcripts were multiplied by the pens of notaries
and scribes; they were transmitted to the magistrates of the European,
the Asiatic, and afterwards the African provinces; and the law of the
empire was proclaimed on solemn festivals at the doors of churches. A
more arduous operation was still behind -- to extract the spirit of
jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions and
disputes, of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with Tribonian at
their head, were appointed by the emperor to exercise an absolute
jurisdiction over the works of their predecessors. If they had obeyed
his commands in ten years, Justinian would have been satisfied with
their diligence; and the rapid composition of the Digest or Pandects,
in three years, will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit
of the execution. From the library of Tribonian, they chose forty, the
most eminent civilians of former times:  two thousand treatises were
comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been carefully
recorded, that three millions of lines or sentences,  were reduced, in
this abstract, to the moderate number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
The edition of this great work was delayed a month after that of the
Institutes; and it seemed reasonable that the elements should precede
the digest of the Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved their
labors, he ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations of these
private citizens: their commentaries, on the twelve tables, the
perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the senate,
succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was abandoned, as a
useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity. The Code, the Pandects,
and the Institutes, were declared to be the legitimate system of civil
jurisprudence; they alone were admitted into the tribunals, and they
alone were taught in the academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus.
Justinian addressed to the senate and provinces his eternal oracles; and
his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of this
great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.

Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original composition, we
can only require, at his hands, method choice, and fidelity, the humble,
though indispensable, virtues of a compiler. Among the various
combinations of ideas, it is difficult to assign any reasonable
preference; but as the order of Justinian is different in his three
works, it is possible that all may be wrong; and it is certain that two
cannot be right. In the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have
viewed his predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the
series could not ascend above the reign of Adrian, and the narrow
distinction of Paganism and Christianity, introduced by the superstition
of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of mankind. But the
jurisprudence of the Pandects is circumscribed within a period of a
hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus
Alexander: the civilians who lived under the first Cæsars are seldom
permitted to speak, and only three names can be attributed to the age of
the republic. The favorite of Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was
fearful of encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman
sages. Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of
Cato, the Scævolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more
congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who flocked to
the Imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue, and jurisprudence
as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian,  were
instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but for the
immediate benefit of his subjects. It was their duty to select the
useful and practical parts of the Roman law; and the writings of the old
republicans, however curious on excellent, were no longer suited to the
new system of manners, religion, and government. Perhaps, if the
preceptors and friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would
acknowledge, that, except in purity of language,  their intrinsic merit
was excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the
laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage both
of method and materials, is naturally assumed by the most recent
authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had studied the
works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit had mitigated the
rigor of antiquity, simplified the forms of proceeding, and emerged from
the jealousy and prejudice of the rival sects. The choice of the
authorities that compose the Pandects depended on the judgment of
Tribonian: but the power of his sovereign could not absolve him from the
sacred obligations of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the
empire, Justinian might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn, as
seditious, the free principles, which were maintained by the last of the
Romanlawyers.  But the existence of past facts is placed beyond the
reach of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of fraud and forgery,
when he corrupted the integrity of their text, inscribed with their
venerable names the words and ideas of his servile reign,  and
suppressed, by the hand of power, the pure and authentic copies of their
sentiments. The changes and interpolations of Tribonian and his
colleagues are excused by the pretence of uniformity: but their cares
have been insufficient, and the antinomies, or contradictions of the
Code and Pandects, still exercise the patience and subtilty of modern
civilians.

A rumor devoid of evidence has been propagated by the enemies of
Justinian; that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to ashes
by the author of the Pandects, from the vain persuasion, that it was now
either false or superfluous. Without usurping an office so invidious,
the emperor might safely commit to ignorance and time the
accomplishments of this destructive wish. Before the invention of
printing and paper, the labor and the materials of writing could be
purchased only by the rich; and it may reasonably be computed, that the
price of books was a hundred fold their present value.  Copies were
slowly multiplied and cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted
the sacrilegious scribes to erase the characters of antiquity, * and
Sophocles or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals,
homilies, and the golden legend.  If such was the fate of the most
beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be expected for
the dull and barren works of an obsolete science? The books of
jurisprudence were interesting to few, and entertaining to none: their
value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as
that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit,
or public authority. In the age of peace and learning, between Cicero
and the last of the Antonines, many losses had been already sustained,
and some luminaries of the school, or forum, were known only to the
curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of
disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it may
fairly be presumed, that of the writings, which Justinian is accused of
neglecting, many were no longer to be found in the libraries of the
East.  The copies of Papinian, or Ulpian, which the reformer had
proscribed, were deemed unworthy of future notice: the Twelve Tables and
prætorian edicts insensibly vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome
were neglected or destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks.
Even the Pandects themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger
from the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that allthe
editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from oneoriginal.  It
was transcribed at Constantinople in the beginning of the seventh
century,  was successively transported by the accidents of war and
commerce to Amalphi,  Pisa,  and Florence,  and is now deposited as a
sacred relic  in the ancient palace of the republic.

It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation. To
maintain the text of the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Code, the use
of ciphers and abbreviations was rigorously proscribed; and as Justinian
recollected, that the perpetual edict had been buried under the weight
of commentators, he denounced the punishment of forgery against the rash
civilians who should presume to interpret or pervert the will of their
sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius, should
blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to dispute his right
of binding the authority of his successors, and the native freedom of
the mind. But the emperor was unable to fix his own inconstancy; and,
while he boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede, of transmuting
brass into gold,  discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from
the mixture of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the
publication of the Code, before he condemned the imperfect attempt, by a
new and more accurate edition of the same work; which he enriched with
two hundred of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest and most
intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year, or, according to
Procopius, each day, of his long reign, was marked by some legal
innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by himself; many were
rejected by his successors; many have been obliterated by time; but the
number of sixteen Edicts, and one hundred and sixty-eight Novels,  has
been admitted into the authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the
opinion of a philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession,
these incessant, and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be
only explained by the venal spirit of a prince, who sold without shame
his judgments and his laws.  The charge of the secret historian is
indeed explicit and vehement; but the sole instance, which he produces,
may be ascribed to the devotion as well as to the avarice of Justinian.
A wealthy bigot had bequeathed his inheritance to the church of Emesa;
and its value was enhanced by the dexterity of an artist, who subscribed
confessions of debt and promises of payment with the names of the
richest Syrians. They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or
forty years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict,
which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century; an
edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after serving this
occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in the same reign.  If
candor will acquit the emperor himself, and transfer the corruption to
his wife and favorites, the suspicion of so foul a vice must still
degrade the majesty of his laws; and the advocates of Justinian may
acknowledge, that such levity, whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of
a legislator and a man.

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects;
and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system
was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various
institutes of the Roman law,  those of Caius  were the most popular in
the East and West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of
their merit. They were selected by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian,
Theophilus, and Dorotheus; and the freedom and purity of the Antonines
was incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same
volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus,
to the gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still precious to the
historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The Institutes of
Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no
contemptible method, from, I. Persons, to, II. Things, and from things,
to, III. Actions; and the article IV., of Private Wrongs, is terminated
by the principles of Criminal Law. *

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part IV.

The distinction of ranks and personsis the firmest basis of a mixed and
limited government. In France, the remains of liberty are kept alive by
the spirit, the honors, and even the prejudices, of fifty thousand
nobles.  Two hundred families  supply, in lineal descent, the second
branch of English legislature, which maintains, between the king and
commons, the balance of the constitution. A gradation of patricians and
plebeians, of strangers and subjects, has supported the aristocracy of
Genoa, Venice, and ancient Rome. The perfect equality of men is the
point in which the extremes of democracy and despotism are confounded;
since the majesty of the prince or people would be offended, if any
heads were exalted above the level of their fellow-slaves or
fellow-citizens. In the decline of the Roman empire, the proud
distinctions of the republic were gradually abolished, and the reason or
instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy.
The emperor could not eradicate the popular reverence which always waits
on the possession of hereditary wealth, or the memory of famous
ancestors. He delighted to honor, with titles and emoluments, his
generals, magistrates, and senators; and his precarious indulgence
communicated some rays of their glory to the persons of their wives and
children. But in the eye of the law, all Roman citizens were equal, and
all subjects of the empire were citizens of Rome. That inestimable
character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a
Roman could no longer enact his laws, or create the annual ministers of
his power: his constitutional rights might have checked the arbitrary
will of a master: and the bold adventurer from Germany or Arabia was
admitted, with equal favor, to the civil and military command, which the
citizen alone had been once entitled to assume over the conquests of his
fathers. The first Cæsars had scrupulously guarded the distinction of
ingenuousand servilebirth, which was decided by the condition of the
mother; and the candor of the laws was satisfied, if her freedom could
be ascertained, during a single moment, between the conception and the
delivery. The slaves, who were liberated by a generous master,
immediately entered into the middle class of libertinesor freedmen; but
they could never be enfranchised from the duties of obedience and
gratitude; whatever were the fruits of their industry, their patron and
his family inherited the third part; or even the whole of their fortune,
if they died without children and without a testament. Justinian
respected the rights of patrons; but his indulgence removed the badge of
disgrace from the two inferior orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be
a slave, obtained, without reserve or delay, the station of a citizen;
and at length the dignity of an ingenuous birth, which nature had
refused, was created, or supposed, by the omnipotence of the emperor.
Whatever restraints of age, or forms, or numbers, had been formerly
introduced to check the abuse of manumissions, and the too rapid
increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and the
spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic servitude. Yet
the eastern provinces were filled, in the time of Justinian, with
multitudes of slaves, either born or purchased for the use of their
masters; and the price, from ten to seventy pieces of gold, was
determined by their age, their strength, and their education.  But the
hardships of this dependent state were continually diminished by the
influence of government and religion: and the pride of a subject was no
longer elated by his absolute dominion over the life and happiness of
his bondsman.

The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their
infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the
returns of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute, and perpetual
dominion of the father over his children, is peculiar to the Roman
jurisprudence,  and seems to be coeval with the foundation of the city.
The paternal power was instituted or confirmed by Romulus himself; and,
after the practice of three centuries, it was inscribed on the fourth
table of the Decemvirs. In the forum, the senate, or the camp, the adult
son of a Roman citizen enjoyed the public and private rights of a
person: in his father's house he was a mere thing;  confounded by the
laws with the movables, the cattle, and the slaves, whom the capricious
master might alienate or destroy, without being responsible to any
earthly tribunal. The hand which bestowed the daily sustenance might
resume the voluntary gift, and whatever was acquired by the labor or
fortune of the son was immediately lost in the property of the father.
His stolen goods (his oxen or his children) might be recovered by the
same action of theft;  and if either had been guilty of a trespass, it
was in his own option to compensate the damage, or resign to the injured
party the obnoxious animal. At the call of indigence or avarice, the
master of a family could dispose of his children or his slaves. But the
condition of the slave was far more advantageous, since he regained, by
the first manumission, his alienated freedom: the son was again restored
to his unnatural father; he might be condemned to servitude a second and
a third time, and it was not till after the third sale and deliverance,
that he was enfranchised from the domestic power which had been so
repeatedly abused. According to his discretion, a father might chastise
the real or imaginary faults of his children, by stripes, by
imprisonment, by exile, by sending them to the country to work in chains
among the meanest of his servants. The majesty of a parent was armed
with the power of life and death;  and the examples of such bloody
executions, which were sometimes praised and never punished, may be
traced in the annals of Rome beyond the times of Pompey and Augustus.
Neither age, nor rank, nor the consular office, nor the honors of a
triumph, could exempt the most illustrious citizen from the bonds of
filial subjection:  his own descendants were included in the family of
their common ancestor; and the claims of adoption were not less sacred
or less rigorous than those of nature. Without fear, though not without
danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed an unbounded
confidence in the sentiments of paternal love; and the oppression was
tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn
to the awful dignity of parent and master.

The first limitation of paternal power is ascribed to the justice and
humanity of Numa; and the maid who, with hisfather's consent, had
espoused a freeman, was protected from the disgrace of becoming the wife
of a slave. In the first ages, when the city was pressed, and often
famished, by her Latin and Tuscan neighbors, the sale of children might
be a frequent practice; but as a Roman could not legally purchase the
liberty of his fellow-citizen, the market must gradually fail, and the
trade would be destroyed by the conquests of the republic. An imperfect
right of property was at length communicated to sons; and the threefold
distinction of profectitious, adventitious, and professionalwas
ascertained by the jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects.  Of all that
proceeded from the father, he imparted only the use, and reserved the
absolute dominion; yet if his goods were sold, the filial portion was
excepted, by a favorable interpretation, from the demands of the
creditors. In whatever accrued by marriage, gift, or collateral
succession, the property was secured to the son; but the father, unless
he had been specially excluded, enjoyed the usufruct during his life. As
a just and prudent reward of military virtue, the spoils of the enemy
were acquired, possessed, and bequeathed by the soldier alone; and the
fair analogy was extended to the emoluments of any liberal profession,
the salary of public service, and the sacred liberality of the emperor
or empress. The life of a citizen was less exposed than his fortune to
the abuse of paternal power. Yet his life might be adverse to the
interest or passions of an unworthy father: the same crimes that flowed
from the corruption, were more sensibly felt by the humanity, of the
Augustan age; and the cruel Erixo, who whipped his son till he expired,
was saved by the emperor from the just fury of the multitude.  The Roman
father, from the license of servile dominion, was reduced to the gravity
and moderation of a judge. The presence and opinion of Augustus
confirmed the sentence of exile pronounced against an intentional
parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian transported to an
island the jealous parent, who, like a robber, had seized the
opportunity of hunting, to assassinate a youth, the incestuous lover of
his step-mother.  A private jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of
monarchy; the parent was again reduced from a judge to an accuser; and
the magistrates were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his
complaints and execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of
a son without incurring the guilt and punishment of murder; and the
pains of parricide, from which he had been excepted by the Pompeian law,
were finally inflicted by the justice of Constantine.  The same
protection was due to every period of existence; and reason must applaud
the humanity of Paulus, for imputing the crime of murder to the father
who strangles, or starves, or abandons his new-born infant; or exposes
him in a public place to find the mercy which he himself had denied. But
the exposition of children was the prevailing and stubborn vice of
antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often permitted, almost always
practised with impunity, by the nations who never entertained the Roman
ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic poets, who appeal to the human
heart, represent with indifference a popular custom which was palliated
by the motives of economy and compassion.  If the father could subdue
his own feelings, he might escape, though not the censure, at least the
chastisement, of the laws; and the Roman empire was stained with the
blood of infants, till such murders were included, by Valentinian and
his colleagues, in the letter and spirit of the Cornelian law. The
lessons of jurisprudence  and Christianity had been insufficient to
eradicate this inhuman practice, till their gentle influence was
fortified by the terrors of capital punishment.

Experience has proved, that savages are the tyrants of the female sex,
and that the condition of women is usually softened by the refinements
of social life. In the hope of a robust progeny, Lycurgus had delayed
the season of marriage: it was fixed by Numa at the tender age of twelve
years, that the Roman husband might educate to his will a pure and
obedient virgin.  According to the custom of antiquity, he bought his
bride of her parents, and she fulfilled the coemptionby purchasing, with
three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and household
deities. A sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in the
presence of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on the
same sheep-skin; they tasted a salt cake of faror rice; and this
confarreation,  which denoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an
emblem of their mystic union of mind and body. But this union on the
side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and she renounced the name
and worship of her father's house, to embrace a new servitude, decorated
only by the title of adoption, a fiction of the law, neither rational
nor elegant, bestowed on the mother of a family  (her proper
appellation) the strange characters of sister to her own children, and
of daughter to her husband or master, who was invested with the
plenitude of paternal power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was
approved, or censured, or chastised; he exercised the jurisdiction of
life and death; and it was allowed, that in the cases of adultery or
drunkenness,  the sentence might be properly inflicted. She acquired and
inherited for the sole profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman
defined, not as a person, but as a thing, that, if the original title
were deficient, she might be claimed, like other movables, by the use
and possession of an entire year. The inclination of the Roman husband
discharged or withheld the conjugal debt, so scrupulously exacted by the
Athenian and Jewish laws:  but as polygamy was unknown, he could never
admit to his bed a fairer or a more favored partner.

After the Punic triumphs, the matrons of Rome aspired to the common
benefits of a free and opulent republic: their wishes were gratified by
the indulgence of fathers and lovers, and their ambition was
unsuccessfully resisted by the gravity of Cato the Censor.  They
declined the solemnities of the old nuptials; defeated the annual
prescription by an absence of three days; and, without losing their name
or independence, subscribed the liberal and definite terms of a marriage
contract. Of their private fortunes, they communicated the use, and
secured the property: the estates of a wife could neither be alienated
nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; their mutual gifts were prohibited
by the jealousy of the laws; and the misconduct of either party might
afford, under another name, a future subject for an action of theft. To
this loose and voluntary compact, religious and civil rights were no
longer essential; and, between persons of a similar rank, the apparent
community of life was allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials.
The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians, who derived all
spiritual grace from the prayers of the faithful and the benediction of
the priest or bishop. The origin, validity, and duties of the holy
institution were regulated by the tradition of the synagogue, the
precepts of the gospel, and the canons of general or provincial synods;
and the conscience of the Christians was awed by the decrees and
censures of their ecclesiastical rulers. Yet the magistrates of
Justinian were not subject to the authority of the church: the emperor
consulted the unbelieving civilians of antiquity, and the choice of
matrimonial laws in the Code and Pandects, is directed by the earthly
motives of justice, policy, and the natural freedom of both sexes.

Besides the agreement of the parties, the essence of every rational
contract, the Roman marriage required the previous approbation of the
parents. A father might be forced by some recent laws to supply the
wants of a mature daughter; but even his insanity was not gradually
allowed to supersede the necessity of his consent. The causes of the
dissolution of matrimony have varied among the Romans;  but the most
solemn sacrament, the confarreation itself, might always be done away by
rites of a contrary tendency. In the first ages, the father of a family
might sell his children, and his wife was reckoned in the number of his
children: the domestic judge might pronounce the death of the offender,
or his mercy might expel her from his bed and house; but the slavery of
the wretched female was hopeless and perpetual, unless he asserted for
his own convenience the manly prerogative of divorce. * The warmest
applause has been lavished on the virtue of the Romans, who abstained
from the exercise of this tempting privilege above five hundred years:
but the same fact evinces the unequal terms of a connection in which the
slave was unable to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant was unwilling to
relinquish his slave. When the Roman matrons became the equal and
voluntary companions of their lords, a new jurisprudence was introduced,
that marriage, like other partnerships, might be dissolved by the
abdication of one of the associates. In three centuries of prosperity
and corruption, this principle was enlarged to frequent practice and
pernicious abuse. Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives
for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter,
the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of
human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or
pleasure. According to the various conditions of life, both sexes
alternately felt the disgrace and injury: an inconstant spouse
transferred her wealth to a new family, abandoning a numerous, perhaps a
spurious, progeny to the paternal authority and care of her late
husband; a beautiful virgin might be dismissed to the world, old,
indigent, and friendless; but the reluctance of the Romans, when they
were pressed to marriage by Augustus, sufficiently marks, that the
prevailing institutions were least favorable to the males. A specious
theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which
demonstrates, that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to
happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all
mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute: the minute
difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be
removed, might still more easily be forgotten; and the matron, who in
five years can submit to the embraces of eight husbands, must cease to
reverence the chastity of her own person.

Insufficient remedies followed with distant and tardy steps the rapid
progress of the evil. The ancient worship of the Romans afforded a
peculiar goddess to hear and reconcile the complaints of a married life;
but her epithet of Viriplaca,  the appeaser of husbands, too clearly
indicates on which side submission and repentance were always expected.
Every act of a citizen was subject to the judgment of the censors; the
first who used the privilege of divorce assigned, at their command, the
motives of his conduct;  and a senator was expelled for dismissing his
virgin spouse without the knowledge or advice of his friends. Whenever
an action was instituted for the recovery of a marriage portion, the
prtor, as the guardian of equity, examined the cause and the characters,
and gently inclined the scale in favor of the guiltless and injured
party. Augustus, who united the powers of both magistrates, adopted
their different modes of repressing or chastising the license of
divorce.  The presence of seven Roman witnesses was required for the
validity of this solemn and deliberate act: if any adequate provocation
had been given by the husband, instead of the delay of two years, he was
compelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months; but if
he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or levity was
expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of her marriage
portion. The Christian princes were the first who specified the just
causes of a private divorce; their institutions, from Constantine to
Justinian, appear to fluctuate between the custom of the empire and the
wishes of the church,  and the author of the Novels too frequently
reforms the jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects. In the most rigorous
laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a
libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in
which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved
by the hand of the executioner. But the sacred right of the husband was
invariably maintained, to deliver his name and family from the disgrace
of adultery: the list of mortalsins, either male or female, was
curtailed and enlarged by successive regulations, and the obstacles of
incurable impotence, long absence, and monastic profession, were allowed
to rescind the matrimonial obligation. Whoever transgressed the
permission of the law, was subject to various and heavy penalties. The
woman was stripped of her wealth and ornaments, without excepting the
bodkin of her hair: if the man introduced a new bride into his bed,
herfortune might be lawfully seized by the vengeance of his exiled wife.
Forfeiture was sometimes commuted to a fine; the fine was sometimes
aggravated by transportation to an island, or imprisonment in a
monastery; the injured party was released from the bonds of marriage;
but the offender, during life, or a term of years, was disabled from the
repetition of nuptials. The successor of Justinian yielded to the
prayers of his unhappy subjects, and restored the liberty of divorce by
mutual consent: the civilians were unanimous,  the theologians were
divided,  and the ambiguous word, which contains the precept of Christ,
is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislator can
demand.

The freedom of love and marriage was restrained among the Romans by
natural and civil impediments. An instinct, almost innate and universal,
appears to prohibit the incestuous commerce  of parents and children in
the infinite series of ascending and descending generations. Concerning
the oblique and collateral branches, nature is indifferent, reason mute,
and custom various and arbitrary. In Egypt, the marriage of brothers and
sisters was admitted without scruple or exception: a Spartan might
espouse the daughter of his father, an Athenian, that of his mother; and
the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens as a
happy union of the dearest relations. The profane lawgivers of Rome were
never tempted by interest or superstition to multiply the forbidden
degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the marriage of sisters and
brothers, hesitated whether first cousins should be touched by the same
interdict; revered the parental character of aunts and uncles, * and
treated affinity and adoption as a just imitation of the ties of blood.
According to the proud maxims of the republic, a legal marriage could
only be contracted by free citizens; an honorable, at least an ingenuous
birth, was required for the spouse of a senator: but the blood of kings
could never mingle in legitimate nuptials with the blood of a Roman; and
the name of Stranger degraded Cleopatra and Berenice,  to live the
concubinesof Mark Antony and Titus.  This appellation, indeed, so
injurious to the majesty, cannot without indulgence be applied to the
manners, of these Oriental queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of
the civilians, was a woman of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole
and faithful companion of a Roman citizen, who continued in a state of
celibacy. Her modest station, below the honors of a wife, above the
infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by the laws: from
the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of this secondary
marriage prevailed both in the West and East; and the humble virtues of
a concubine were often preferred to the pomp and insolence of a noble
matron. In this connection, the two Antonines, the best of princes and
of men, enjoyed the comforts of domestic love: the example was imitated
by many citizens impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families.
If at any time they desired to legitimate their natural children, the
conversion was instantly performed by the celebration of their nuptials
with a partner whose faithfulness and fidelity they had already tried. *
By this epithet of natural, the offspring of the concubine were
distinguished from the spurious brood of adultery, prostitution, and
incest, to whom Justinian reluctantly grants the necessary aliments of
life; and these natural children alone were capable of succeeding to a
sixth part of the inheritance of their reputed father. According to the
rigor of law, bastards were entitled only to the name and condition of
their mother, from whom they might derive the character of a slave, a
stranger, or a citizen. The outcasts of every family were adopted
without reproach as the children of the state.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part V.

The relation of guardian and ward, or in Roman words of tutorand pupil,
which covers so many titles of the Institutes and Pandects,  is of a
very simple and uniform nature. The person and property of an orphan
must always be trusted to the custody of some discreet friend. If the
deceased father had not signified his choice, the agnats, or paternal
kindred of the nearest degree, were compelled to act as the natural
guardians: the Athenians were apprehensive of exposing the infant to the
power of those most interested in his death; but an axiom of Roman
jurisprudence has pronounced, that the charge of tutelage should
constantly attend the emolument of succession. If the choice of the
father, and the line of consanguinity, afforded no efficient guardian,
the failure was supplied by the nomination of the prætor of the city, or
the president of the province. But the person whom they named to this
publicoffice might be legally excused by insanity or blindness, by
ignorance or inability, by previous enmity or adverse interest, by the
number of children or guardianships with which he was already burdened,
and by the immunities which were granted to the useful labors of
magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and professors. Till the infant could
speak, and think, he was represented by the tutor, whose authority was
finally determined by the age of puberty. Without his consent, no act of
the pupil could bind himself to his own prejudice, though it might
oblige others for his personal benefit. It is needless to observe, that
the tutor often gave security, and always rendered an account, and that
the want of diligence or integrity exposed him to a civil and almost
criminal action for the violation of his sacred trust. The age of
puberty had been rashly fixed by the civilians at fourteen; * but as the
faculties of the mind ripen more slowly than those of the body, a
curatorwas interposed to guard the fortunes of a Roman youth from his
own inexperience and headstrong passions. Such a trustee had been first
instituted by the prætor, to save a family from the blind havoc of a
prodigal or madman; and the minor was compelled, by the laws, to solicit
the same protection, to give validity to his acts till he accomplished
the full period of twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the
perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to
please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason
and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the
ancient law, which had been insensibly mollified before the time of
Justinian.

II. The original right of property can only be justified by the accident
or merit of prior occupancy; and on this foundation it is wisely
established by the philosophy of the civilians.  The savage who hollows
a tree, inserts a sharp stone into a wooden handle, or applies a string
to an elastic branch, becomes in a state of nature the just proprietor
of the canoe, the bow, or the hatchet. The materials were common to all,
the new form, the produce of his time and simple industry, belongs
solely to himself. His hungry brethren cannot, without a sense of their
own injustice, extort from the hunter the game of the forest overtaken
or slain by his personal strength and dexterity. If his provident care
preserves and multiplies the tame animals, whose nature is tractable to
the arts of education, he acquires a perpetual title to the use and
service of their numerous progeny, which derives its existence from him
alone. If he encloses and cultivates a field for their sustenance and
his own, a barren waste is converted into a fertile soil; the seed, the
manure, the labor, create a new value, and the rewards of harvest are
painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year. In the
successive states of society, the hunter, the shepherd, the husbandman,
may defend their possessions by two reasons which forcibly appeal to the
feelings of the human mind: that whatever they enjoy is the fruit of
their own industry; and that every man who envies their felicity, may
purchase similar acquisitions by the exercise of similar diligence.
Such, in truth, may be the freedom and plenty of a small colony cast on
a fruitful island. But the colony multiplies, while the space still
continues the same; the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind.
are engrossed by the bold and crafty; each field and forest is
circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master; and it is the
peculiar praise of the Roman jurisprudence, that i asserts the claim of
the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the air, and the
waters. In the progress from primitive equity to final injustice, the
steps are silent, the shades are almost imperceptible, and the absolute
monopoly is guarded by positive laws and artificial reason. The active,
insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and
the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive
property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of
the human race. Except in the singular institutions of Sparta, the
wisest legislators have disapproved an agrarian law as a false and
dangerous innovation. Among the Romans, the enormous disproportion of
wealth surmounted the ideal restraints of a doubtful tradition, and an
obsolete statute; a tradition that the poorest follower of Romulus had
been endowed with the perpetual inheritance of two jugera;  a statute
which confined the richest citizen to the measure of five hundred
jugera, or three hundred and twelve acres of land. The original
territory of Rome consisted only of some miles of wood and meadow along
the banks of the Tyber; and domestic exchange could add nothing to the
national stock. But the goods of an alien or enemy were lawfully exposed
to the first hostile occupier; the city was enriched by the profitable
trade of war; and the blood of her sons was the only price that was paid
for the Volscian sheep, the slaves of Briton, or the gems and gold of
Asiatic kingdoms. In the language of ancient jurisprudence, which was
corrupted and forgotten before the age of Justinian, these spoils were
distinguished by the name of mancepsor mancipium, taken with the hand;
and whenever they were sold or emancipated, the purchaser required some
assurance that they had been the property of an enemy, and not of a
fellow-citizen.  A citizen could only forfeit his rights by apparent
dereliction, and such dereliction of a valuable interest could not
easily be presumed. Yet, according to the Twelve Tables, a prescription
of one year for movables, and of two years for immovables, abolished the
claim of the ancient master, if the actual possessor had acquired them
by a fair transaction from the person whom he believed to be the lawful
proprietor.  Such conscientious injustice, without any mixture of fraud
or force could seldom injure the members of a small republic; but the
various periods of three, of ten, or of twenty years, determined by
Justinian, are more suitable to the latitude of a great empire. It is
only in the term of prescription that the distinction of real and
personal fortune has been remarked by the civilians; and their general
idea of property is that of simple, uniform, and absolute dominion. The
subordinate exceptions of use, of usufruct,  of servitude,  imposed for
the benefit of a neighbor on lands and houses, are abundantly explained
by the professors of jurisprudence. The claims of property, as far as
they are altered by the mixture, the division, or the transformation of
substances, are investigated with metaphysical subtilty by the same
civilians.

The personal title of the first proprietor must be determined by his
death: but the possession, without any appearance of change, is
peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his toil, and the
partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance has been protected by
the legislators of every climate and age, and the father is encouraged
to persevere in slow and distant improvements, by the tender hope, that
a long posterity will enjoy the fruits of his labor. The principleof
hereditary succession is universal; but the orderhas been variously
established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national
institutions, or by some partial example which was originally decided by
fraud or violence. The jurisprudence of the Romans appear to have
deviated from the inequality of nature much less than the Jewish,  the
Athenian,  or the English institutions.  On the death of a citizen, all
his descendants, unless they were already freed from his paternal power,
were called to the inheritance of his possessions. The insolent
prerogative of primogeniture was unknown; the two sexes were placed on a
just level; all the sons and daughters were entitled to an equal portion
of the patrimonial estate; and if any of the sons had been intercepted
by a premature death, his person was represented, and his share was
divided, by his surviving children. On the failure of the direct line,
the right of succession must diverge to the collateral branches. The
degrees of kindred  are numbered by the civilians, ascending from the
last possessor to a common parent, and descending from the common parent
to the next heir: my father stands in the first degree, my brother in
the second, his children in the third, and the remainder of the series
may be conceived by a fancy, or pictured in a genealogical table. In
this computation, a distinction was made, essential to the laws and even
the constitution of Rome; the agnats, or persons connected by a line of
males, were called, as they stood in the nearest degree, to an equal
partition; but a female was incapable of transmitting any legal claims;
and the cognatsof every rank, without excepting the dear relation of a
mother and a son, were disinherited by the Twelve Tables, as strangers
and aliens. Among the Romans agensor lineage was united by a common
nameand domestic rites; the various cognomensor surnamesof Scipio, or
Marcellus, distinguished from each other the subordinate branches or
families of the Cornelian or Claudian race: the default of the agnats,
of the same surname, was supplied by the larger denomination of
gentiles; and the vigilance of the laws maintained, in the same name,
the perpetual descent of religion and property. A similar principle
dictated the Voconian law,  which abolished the right of female
inheritance. As long as virgins were given or sold in marriage, the
adoption of the wife extinguished the hopes of the daughter. But the
equal succession of independent matrons supported their pride and
luxury, and might transport into a foreign house the riches of their
fathers. While the maxims of Cato  were revered, they tended to
perpetuate in each family a just and virtuous mediocrity: till female
blandishments insensibly triumphed; and every salutary restraint was
lost in the dissolute greatness of the republic. The rigor of the
decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the prætors. Their edicts
restored and emancipated posthumous children to the rights of nature;
and upon the failure of the agnats, they preferred the blood of the
cognatsto the name of the gentiles whose title and character were
insensibly covered with oblivion. The reciprocal inheritance of mothers
and sons was established in the Tertullian and Orphitian decrees by the
humanity of the senate. A new and more impartial order was introduced by
the Novels of Justinian, who affected to revive the jurisprudence of the
Twelve Tables. The lines of masculine and female kindred were
confounded: the descending, ascending, and collateral series was
accurately defined; and each degree, according tot he proximity of blood
and affection, succeeded to the vacant possessions of a Roman citizen.

The order of succession is regulated by nature, or at least by the
general and permanent reason of the lawgiver: but this order is
frequently violated by the arbitrary and partial wills, which prolong
the dominion of the testator beyond the grave.  In the simple state of
society, this last use or abuse of the right of property is seldom
indulged: it was introduced at Athens by the laws of Solon; and the
private testaments of the father of a family are authorized by the
Twelve Tables. Before the time of the decemvirs,  a Roman citizen
exposed his wishes and motives to the assembly of the thirty curiæor
parishes, and the general law of inheritance was suspended by an
occasional act of the legislature. After the permission of the
decemvirs, each private lawgiver promulgated his verbal or written
testament in the presence of five citizens, who represented the five
classes of the Roman people; a sixth witness attested their concurrence;
a seventh weighed the copper money, which was paid by an imaginary
purchaser; and the estate was emancipated by a fictitious sale and
immediate release. This singular ceremony,  which excited the wonder of
the Greeks, was still practised in the age of Severus; but the prætors
had already approved a more simple testament, for which they required
the seals and signatures of seven witnesses, free from all legal
exception, and purposely summoned for the execution of that important
act. A domestic monarch, who reigned over the lives and fortunes of his
children, might distribute their respective shares according to the
degrees of their merit or his affection; his arbitrary displeasure
chastised an unworthy son by the loss of his inheritance, and the
mortifying preference of a stranger. But the experience of unnatural
parents recommended some limitations of their testamentary powers. A
son, or, by the laws of Justinian, even a daughter, could no longer be
disinherited by their silence: they were compelled to name the criminal,
and to specify the offence; and the justice of the emperor enumerated
the sole causes that could justify such a violation of the first
principles of nature and society.  Unless a legitimate portion, a fourth
part, had been reserved for the children, they were entitled to
institute an action or complaint of inofficioustestament; to suppose
that their father's understanding was impaired by sickness or age; and
respectfully to appeal from his rigorous sentence to the deliberate
wisdom of the magistrate. In the Roman jurisprudence, an essential
distinction was admitted between the inheritance and the legacies. The
heirs who succeeded to the entire unity, or to any of the twelve
fractions of the substance of the testator, represented his civil and
religious character, asserted his rights, fulfilled his obligations, and
discharged the gifts of friendship or liberality, which his last will
had bequeathed under the name of legacies. But as the imprudence or
prodigality of a dying man might exhaust the inheritance, and leave only
risk and labor to his successor, he was empowered to retain the
Falcidianportion; to deduct, before the payment of the legacies, a clear
fourth for his own emolument. A reasonable time was allowed to examine
the proportion between the debts and the estate, to decide whether he
should accept or refuse the testament; and if he used the benefit of an
inventory, the demands of the creditors could not exceed the valuation
of the effects. The last will of a citizen might be altered during his
life, or rescinded after his death: the persons whom he named might die
before him, or reject the inheritance, or be exposed to some legal
disqualification. In the contemplation of these events, he was permitted
to substitute second and third heirs, to replace each other according to
the order of the testament; and the incapacity of a madman or an infant
to bequeath his property might be supplied by a similar substitution.
But the power of the testator expired with the acceptance of the
testament: each Roman of mature age and discretion acquired the absolute
dominion of his inheritance, and the simplicity of the civil law was
never clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine the
happiness and freedom of unborn generations.

Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of codicils. If
a Roman was surprised by death in a remote province of the empire, he
addressed a short epistle to his legitimate or testamentary heir; who
fulfilled with honor, or neglected with impunity, this last request,
which the judges before the age of Augustus were not authorized to
enforce. A codicil might be expressed in any mode, or in any language;
but the subscription of five witnesses must declare that it was the
genuine composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was
sometimes illegal; and the invention of fidei-commissa, or trusts, arose
form the struggle between natural justice and positive jurisprudence. A
stranger of Greece or Africa might be the friend or benefactor of a
childless Roman, but none, except a fellow-citizen, could act as his
heir. The Voconian law, which abolished female succession, restrained
the legacy or inheritance of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand
sesterces;  and an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien in her
father's house. The zeal of friendship, and parental affection,
suggested a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the
testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the
inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various was
the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation: they had sworn to
observe the laws of their country, but honor prompted them to violate
their oath; and if they preferred their interest under the mask of
patriotism, they forfeited the esteem of every virtuous mind. The
declaration of Augustus relieved their doubts, gave a legal sanction to
confidential testaments and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms
and restraints of the republican jurisprudence.  But as the new practice
of trusts degenerated into some abuse, the trustee was enabled, by the
Trebellian and Pegasian decrees, to reserve one fourth of the estate, or
to transfer on the head of the real heir all the debts and actions of
the succession. The interpretation of testaments was strict and literal;
but the language of trustsand codicils was delivered from the minute and
technical accuracy of the civilians.

III. The general duties of mankind are imposed by their public and
private relations: but their specific obligationsto each other can only
be the effect of, 1. a promise, 2. a benefit, or 3. an injury: and when
these obligations are ratified by law, the interested party may compel
the performance by a judicial action. On this principle, the civilians
of every country have erected a similar jurisprudence, the fair
conclusion of universal reason and justice.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part VI.

1. The goddess of faith(of human and social faith) was worshipped, not
only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation
was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and
generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple
performance of the most burdensome engagements.  Yet among the same
people, according to the rigid maxims of the patricians and decemvirs, a
naked pact, a promise, or even an oath, did not create any civil
obligation, unless it was confirmed by the legal form of a stipulation.
Whatever might be the etymology of the Latin word, it conveyed the idea
of a firm and irrevocable contract, which was always expressed in the
mode of a question and answer. Do you promise to pay me one hundred
pieces of gold? was the solemn interrogation of Seius. I do promise, was
the reply of Sempronius. The friends of Sempronius, who answered for his
ability and inclination, might be separately sued at the option of
Seius; and the benefit of partition, or order of reciprocal actions,
insensibly deviated from the strict theory of stipulation. The most
cautious and deliberate consent was justly required to sustain the
validity of a gratuitous promise; and the citizen who might have
obtained a legal security, incurred the suspicion of fraud, and paid the
forfeit of his neglect. But the ingenuity of the civilians successfully
labored to convert simple engagements into the form of solemn
stipulations. The prætors, as the guardians of social faith, admitted
every rational evidence of a voluntary and deliberate act, which in
their tribunal produced an equitable obligation, and for which they gave
an action and a remedy.

2. The obligations of the second class, as they were contracted by the
delivery of a thing, are marked by the civilians with the epithet of
real.  A grateful return is due to the author of a benefit; and whoever
is intrusted with the property of another, has bound himself to the
sacred duty of restitution. In the case of a friendly loan, the merit of
generosity is on the side of the lender only; in a deposit, on the side
of the receiver; but in a pledge, and the rest of the selfish commerce
of ordinary life, the benefit is compensated by an equivalent, and the
obligation to restore is variously modified by the nature of the
transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the fundamental
difference between the commodatumand the mutuum, which our poverty is
reduced to confound under the vague and common appellation of a loan. In
the former, the borrower was obliged to restore the same individual
thing with which he had been accommodatedfor the temporary supply of his
wants; in the latter, it was destined for his use and consumption, and
he discharged this mutualengagement, by substituting the same specific
value according to a just estimation of number, of weight, and of
measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute dominion is transferred
to the purchaser, and he repays the benefit with an adequate sum of gold
or silver, the price and universal standard of all earthly possessions.
The obligation of another contract, that of location, is of a more
complicated kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired for a
definite term; at the expiration of the time, the thing itself must be
restored to the owner, with an additional reward for the beneficial
occupation and employment. In these lucrative contracts, to which may be
added those of partnership and commissions, the civilians sometimes
imagine the delivery of the object, and sometimes presume the consent of
the parties. The substantial pledge has been refined into the invisible
rights of a mortgage or hypotheca; and the agreement of sale, for a
certain price, imputes, from that moment, the chances of gain or loss to
the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed, that every man
will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he accepts the benefit,
he is obliged to sustain the expense, of the transaction. In this
boundless subject, the historian will observe the locationof land and
money, the rent of the one and the interest of the other, as they
materially affect the prosperity of agriculture and commerce. The
landlord was often obliged to advance the stock and instruments of
husbandry, and to content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the
feeble tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion, or hostile violence,
he claimed a proportionable relief from the equity of the laws: five
years were the customary term, and no solid or costly improvements could
be expected from a farmer, who, at each moment might be ejected by the
sale of the estate.  Usury,  the inveterate grievance of the city, had
been discouraged by the Twelve Tables,  and abolished by the clamors of
the people. It was revived by their wants and idleness, tolerated by the
discretion of the prætors, and finally determined by the Code of
Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the moderate
profit of four per cent.; six was pronounced to be the ordinary and
legal standard of interest; eight was allowed for the convenience of
manufactures and merchants; twelve was granted to nautical insurance,
which the wiser ancients had not attempted to define; but, except in
this perilous adventure, the practice of exorbitant usury was severely
restrained.  The most simple interest was condemned by the clergy of the
East and West;  but the sense of mutual benefit, which had triumphed
over the law of the republic, has resisted with equal firmness the
decrees of the church, and even the prejudices of mankind.

3. Nature and society impose the strict obligation of repairing an
injury; and the sufferer by private injustice acquires a personal right
and a legitimate action. If the property of another be intrusted to our
care, the requisite degree of care may rise and fall according to the
benefit which we derive from such temporary possession; we are seldom
made responsible for inevitable accident, but the consequences of a
voluntary fault must always be imputed to the author.  A Roman pursued
and recovered his stolen goods by a civil action of theft; they might
pass through a succession of pure and innocent hands, but nothing less
than a prescription of thirty years could extinguish his original claim.
They were restored by the sentence of the prætor, and the injury was
compensated by double, or threefold, or even quadruple damages, as the
deed had been perpetrated by secret fraud or open rapine, as the robber
had been surprised in the fact, or detected by a subsequent research.
The Aquilian law  defended the living property of a citizen, his slaves
and cattle, from the stroke of malice or negligence: the highest price
was allowed that could be ascribed to the domestic animal at any moment
of the year preceding his death; a similar latitude of thirty days was
granted on the destruction of any other valuable effects. A personal
injury is blunted or sharpened by the manners of the times and the
sensibility of the individual: the pain or the disgrace of a word or
blow cannot easily be appreciated by a pecuniary equivalent. The rude
jurisprudence of the decemvirs had confounded all hasty insults, which
did not amount to the fracture of a limb, by condemning the aggressor to
the common penalty of twenty-five asses. But the same denomination of
money was reduced, in three centuries, from a pound to the weight of
half an ounce: and the insolence of a wealthy Roman indulged himself in
the cheap amusement of breaking and satisfying the law of the twelve
tables. Veratius ran through the streets striking on the face the
inoffensive passengers, and his attendant purse-bearer immediately
silenced their clamors by the legal tender of twenty-five pieces of
copper, about the value of one shilling.  The equity of the prætors
examined and estimated the distinct merits of each particular complaint.
In the adjudication of civil damages, the magistrate assumed a right to
consider the various circumstances of time and place, of age and
dignity, which may aggravate the shame and sufferings of the injured
person; but if he admitted the idea of a fine, a punishment, an example,
he invaded the province, though, perhaps, he supplied the defects, of
the criminal law.

The execution of the Alban dictator, who was dismembered by eight
horses, is represented by Livy as the first and the fast instance of
Roman cruelty in the punishment of the most atrocious crimes.  But this
act of justice, or revenge, was inflicted on a foreign enemy in the heat
of victory, and at the command of a single man. The twelve tables afford
a more decisive proof of the national spirit, since they were framed by
the wisest of the senate, and accepted by the free voices of the people;
yet these laws, like the statutes of Draco,  are written in characters
of blood.  They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of
retaliation; and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,
a limb for a limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the offender can redeem
his pardon by a fine of three hundred pounds of copper. The decemvirs
distributed with much liberality the slighter chastisements of
flagellation and servitude; and nine crimes of a very different
complexion are adjudged worthy of death. 1.Any act of treasonagainst the
state, or of correspondence with the public enemy. The mode of execution
was painful and ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was
shrouded in a veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he
had been scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the
forum on a cross, or inauspicious tree. 2.Nocturnal meetings in the
city; whatever might be the pretence, of pleasure, or religion, or the
public good. 3.The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of
mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more odious
than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to discover, in two
flagitious events, how early such subtle wickedness had infected the
simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.
The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast
into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a
dog, and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable
companions.  Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be
felt, till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of a
parricide.  4.The malice of an incendiary. After the previous ceremony
of whipping, he himself was delivered to the flames; and in this example
alone our reason is tempted to applaud the justice of retaliation.
5.Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown headlong
from the Tarpeian rock, to expiate his falsehood, which was rendered
still more fatal by the severity of the penal laws, and the deficiency
of written evidence. 6.The corruption of a judge, who accepted bribes to
pronounce an iniquitous sentence. 7.Libels and satires, whose rude
strains sometimes disturbed the peace of an illiterate city. The author
was beaten with clubs, a worthy chastisement, but it is not certain that
he was left to expire under the blows of the executioner.  8.The
nocturnal mischief of damaging or destroying a neighbor's corn. The
criminal was suspended as a grateful victim to Ceres. But the sylvan
deities were less implacable, and the extirpation of a more valuable
tree was compensated by the moderate fine of twenty-five pounds of
copper. 9.Magical incantations; which had power, in the opinion of the
Latin shepherds, to exhaust the strength of an enemy, to extinguish his
life, and to remove from their seats his deep-rooted plantations. The
cruelty of the twelve tables against insolvent debtors still remains to
be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense of antiquity to
the specious refinements of modern criticism.  * After the judicial
proof or confession of the debt, thirty days of grace were allowed
before a Roman was delivered into the power of his fellow-citizen. In
this private prison, twelve ounces of rice were his daily food; he might
be bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight; and his misery was
thrice exposed in the market place, to solicit the compassion of his
friends and countrymen. At the expiration of sixty days, the debt was
discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor was
either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tyber: but,
if several creditors were alike obstinate and unrelenting, they might
legally dismember his body, and satiate their revenge by this horrid
partition. The advocates for this savage law have insisted, that it must
strongly operate in deterring idleness and fraud from contracting debts
which they were unable to discharge; but experience would dissipate this
salutary terror, by proving that no creditor could be found to exact
this unprofitable penalty of life or limb. As the manners of Rome were
insensibly polished, the criminal code of the decemvirs was abolished by
the humanity of accusers, witnesses, and judges; and impunity became the
consequence of immoderate rigor. The Porcian and Valerian laws
prohibited the magistrates from inflicting on a free citizen any
capital, or even corporal, punishment; and the obsolete statutes of
blood were artfully, and perhaps truly, ascribed to the spirit, not of
patrician, but of regal, tyranny.

In the absence of penal laws, and the insufficiency of civil actions,
the peace and justice of the city were imperfectly maintained by the
private jurisdiction of the citizens. The malefactors who replenish our
jails are the outcasts of society, and the crimes for which they suffer
may be commonly ascribed to ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For
the perpetration of similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and
abuse the sacred character of a member of the republic: but, on the
proof or suspicion of guilt, the slave, or the stranger, was nailed to a
cross; and this strict and summary justice might be exercised without
restraint over the greatest part of the populace of Rome. Each family
contained a domestic tribunal, which was not confined, like that of the
prætor, to the cognizance of external actions: virtuous principles and
habits were inculcated by the discipline of education; and the Roman
father was accountable to the state for the manners of his children,
since he disposed, without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and
their inheritance. In some pressing emergencies, the citizen was
authorized to avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of the
Jewish, the Athenian, and the Roman laws approved the slaughter of the
nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a robber could not be slain
without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever
surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his
revenge;  the most bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the
provocation;  nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband
was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was
condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer. After the
expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Roman, who should dare to assume
their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted to the infernal gods:
each of his fellow-citizens was armed with the sword of justice; and the
act of Brutus, however repugnant to gratitude or prudence, had been
already sanctified by the judgment of his country.  The barbarous
practice of wearing arms in the midst of peace,  and the bloody maxims
of honor, were unknown to the Romans; and, during the two purest ages,
from the establishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars,
the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted with
atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was more sensibly felt, when
every vice was inflamed by faction at home and dominion abroad. In the
time of Cicero, each private citizen enjoyed the privilege of anarchy;
each minister of the republic was exalted to the temptations of regal
power, and their virtues are entitled to the warmest praise, as the
spontaneous fruits of nature or philosophy. After a triennial indulgence
of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only
be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand pounds
sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges, and perhaps
the accuser himself,  that, on refunding a thirteenth part of his
plunder, Verres could retire to an easy and luxurious exile.

The first imperfect attempt to restore the proportion of crimes and
punishments was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst of his
sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the license, rather than to
oppress the liberty, of the Romans. He gloried in the arbitrary
proscription of four thousand seven hundred citizens.  But, in the
character of a legislator, he respected the prejudices of the times;
and, instead of pronouncing a sentence of death against the robber or
assassin, the general who betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined
a province, Sylla was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the
penalty of exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the
interdiction of fire and water. The Cornelian, and afterwards the
Pompeian and Julian, laws introduced a new system of criminal
jurisprudence;  and the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised
their increasing rigor under the names of the original authors. But the
invention and frequent use of extraordinary painsproceeded from the
desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism. In the
condemnation of illustrious Romans, the senate was always prepared to
confound, at the will of their masters, the judicial and legislative
powers. It was the duty of the governors to maintain the peace of their
province, by the arbitrary and rigid administration of justice; the
freedom of the city evaporated in the extent of empire, and the Spanish
malefactor, who claimed the privilege of a Roman, was elevated by the
command of Galba on a fairer and more lofty cross.  Occasional rescripts
issued from the throne to decide the questions which, by their novelty
or importance, appeared to surpass the authority and discernment of a
proconsul. Transportation and beheading were reserved for honorable
persons; meaner criminals were either hanged, or burnt, or buried in the
mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. Armed robbers
were pursued and extirpated as the enemies of society; the driving away
horses or cattle was made a capital offence;  but simple theft was
uniformly considered as a mere civil and private injury. The degrees of
guilt, and the modes of punishment, were too often determined by the
discretion of the rulers, and the subject was left in ignorance of the
legal danger which he might incur by every action of his life.

A sin, a vice, a crime, are the objects of theology, ethics, and
jurisprudence. Whenever their judgments agree, they corroborate each
other; but, as often as they differ, a prudent legislator appreciates
the guilt and punishment according to the measure of social injury. On
this principle, the most daring attack on the life and property of a
private citizen is judged less atrocious than the crime of treason or
rebellion, which invades the majestyof the republic: the obsequious
civilians unanimously pronounced, that the republic is contained in the
person of its chief; and the edge of the Julian law was sharpened by the
incessant diligence of the emperors. The licentious commerce of the
sexes may be tolerated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a source
of disorder and corruption; but the fame, the fortunes, the family of
the husband, are seriously injured by the adultery of the wife. The
wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the freedom of revenge, applied to
this domestic offence the animadversion of the laws: and the guilty
parties, after the payment of heavy forfeitures and fines, were
condemned to long or perpetual exile in two separate islands.  Religion
pronounces an equal censure against the infidelity of the husband; but,
as it is not accompanied by the same civil effects, the wife was never
permitted to vindicate her wrongs;  and the distinction of simple or
double adultery, so familiar and so important in the canon law, is
unknown to the jurisprudence of the Code and the Pandects. I touch with
reluctance, and despatch with impatience, a more odious vice, of which
modesty rejects the name, and nature abominates the idea. The primitive
Romans were infected by the example of the Etruscans  and Greeks:  and
in the mad abuse of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is
innocent was deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law,  which had been
extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the lapse of
time and the multitude of criminals. By this law, the rape, perhaps the
seduction, of an ingenuous youth, was compensated, as a personal injury,
by the poor damages of ten thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the
ravisher might be slain by the resistance or revenge of chastity; and I
wish to believe, that at Rome, as in Athens, the voluntary and
effeminate deserter of his sex was degraded from the honors and the
rights of a citizen.  But the practice of vice was not discouraged by
the severity of opinion: the indelible stain of manhood was confounded
with the more venial transgressions of fornication and adultery, nor was
the licentious lover exposed to the same dishonor which he impressed on
the male or female partner of his guilt. From Catullus to Juvenal,  the
poets accuse and celebrate the degeneracy of the times; and the
reformation of manners was feebly attempted by the reason and authority
of the civilians till the most virtuous of the Cæsars proscribed the sin
against nature as a crime against society.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. -- Part VII.

A new spirit of legislation, respectable even in its error, arose in the
empire with the religion of Constantine.  The laws of Moses were
received as the divine original of justice, and the Christian princes
adapted their penal statutes to the degrees of moral and religious
turpitude. Adultery was first declared to be a capital offence: the
frailty of the sexes was assimilated to poison or assassination, to
sorcery or parricide; the same penalties were inflicted on the passive
and active guilt of pæderasty; and all criminals of free or servile
condition were either drowned or beheaded, or cast alive into the
avenging flames. The adulterers were spared by the common sympathy of
mankind; but the lovers of their own sex were pursued by general and
pious indignation: the impure manners of Greece still prevailed in the
cities of Asia, and every vice was fomented by the celibacy of the monks
and clergy. Justinian relaxed the punishment at least of female
infidelity: the guilty spouse was only condemned to solitude and
penance, and at the end of two years she might be recalled to the arms
of a forgiving husband. But the same emperor declared himself the
implacable enemy of unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can
scarcely be excused by the purity of his motives.  In defiance of every
principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future offences
the operations of his edicts, with the previous allowance of a short
respite for confession and pardon. A painful death was inflicted by the
amputation of the sinful instrument, or the insertion of sharp reeds
into the pores and tubes of most exquisite sensibility; and Justinian
defended the propriety of the execution, since the criminals would have
lost their hands, had they been convicted of sacrilege. In this state of
disgrace and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of
Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople, while
their brethren were admonished, by the voice of a crier, to observe this
awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of their character.
Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was
often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a
servant: the guilt of the green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies
of Theodora, was presumed by the judges, and pæderasty became the crime
of those to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher  has
dared to remark that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and that our
natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of tyranny. But the
favorable persuasion of the same writer, that a legislator may confide
in the taste and reason of mankind, is impeached by the unwelcome
discovery of the antiquity and extent of the disease.

The free citizens of Athens and Rome enjoyed, in all criminal cases, the
invaluable privilege of being tried by their country.  1. The
administration of justice is the most ancient office of a prince: it was
exercised by the Roman kings, and abused by Tarquin; who alone, without
law or council, pronounced his arbitrary judgments. The first consuls
succeeded to this regal prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon
abolished the jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes
were decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild
democracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the essential
principles, of justice: the pride of despotism was envenomed by plebeian
envy, and the heroes of Athens might sometimes applaud the happiness of
the Persian, whose fate depended on the caprice of a singletyrant. Some
salutary restraints, imposed by the people or their own passions, were
at once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the
Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates. A vote
of the thirty five tribes could inflict a fine; but the cognizance of
all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental law to the assembly of
the centuries, in which the weight of influence and property was sure to
preponderate. Repeated proclamations and adjournments were interposed,
to allow time for prejudice and resentment to subside: the whole
proceeding might be annulled by a seasonable omen, or the opposition of
a tribune; and such popular trials were commonly less formidable to
innocence than they were favorable to guilt. But this union of the
judicial and legislative powers left it doubtful whether the accused
party was pardoned or acquitted; and, in the defence of an illustrious
client, the orators of Rome and Athens address their arguments to the
policy and benevolence, as well as to the justice, of their sovereign.
2. The task of convening the citizens for the trial of each offender
became more difficult, as the citizens and the offenders continually
multiplied; and the ready expedient was adopted of delegating the
jurisdiction of the people to the ordinary magistrates, or to
extraordinary inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare
and occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they
were made perpetual: four prætors were annually empowered to sit in
judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion, peculation, and
bribery; and Sylla added new prætors and new questions for those crimes
which more directly injure the safety of individuals. By these
inquisitorsthe trial was prepared and directed; but they could only
pronounce the sentence of the majority of judges, who with some truth,
and more prejudice, have been compared to the English juries.  To
discharge this important, though burdensome office, an annual list of
ancient and respectable citizens was formed by the prætor. After many
constitutional struggles, they were chosen in equal numbers from the
senate, the equestrian order, and the people; four hundred and fifty
were appointed for single questions; and the various rolls or decuriesof
judges must have contained the names of some thousand Romans, who
represented the judicial authority of the state. In each particular
cause, a sufficient number was drawn from the urn; their integrity was
guarded by an oath; the mode of ballot secured their independence; the
suspicion of partiality was removed by the mutual challenges of the
accuser and defendant; and the judges of Milo, by the retrenchment of
fifteen on each side, were reduced to fifty-one voices or tablets, of
acquittal, of condemnation, or of favorable doubt.  3. In his civil
jurisdiction, the prætor of the city was truly a judge, and almost a
legislator; but, as soon as he had prescribed the action of law, he
often referred to a delegate the determination of the fact. With the
increase of legal proceedings, the tribunal of the centumvirs, in which
he presided, acquired more weight and reputation. But whether he acted
alone, or with the advice of his council, the most absolute powers might
be trusted to a magistrate who was annually chosen by the votes of the
people. The rules and precautions of freedom have required some
explanation; the order of despotism is simple and inanimate. Before the
age of Justinian, or perhaps of Diocletian, the decuries of Roman judges
had sunk to an empty title: the humble advice of the assessors might be
accepted or despised; and in each tribunal the civil and criminal
jurisdiction was administered by a single magistrate, who was raised and
disgraced by the will of the emperor.

A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the sentence of the
law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been legally
proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was free: till the
votes of the last centuryhad been counted and declared, he might
peaceably secede to any of the allied cities of Italy, or Greece, or
Asia.  His fame and fortunes were preserved, at least to his children,
by this civil death; and he might still be happy in every rational and
sensual enjoyment, if a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome
could support the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder
effort was required to escape from the tyranny of the Cæsars; but this
effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the stoics, the example of
the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of suicide. The bodies
of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their
children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the
confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the victims of Tiberius and Nero
anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and
despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent
honors of burial, and the validity of their testaments.  The exquisite
avarice and cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate
of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency
of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case of a capital
offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was
admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were
seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury.  Yet the civilians have
always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life;
and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin,  to check the despair
of his subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants.
The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him who is
resolved on death; and his arm can only be restrained by the religious
apprehension of a future state. Suicides are enumerated by Virgil among
the unfortunate, rather than the guilty;  and the poetical fables of the
infernal shades could not seriously influence the faith or practice of
mankind. But the precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length
imposed a pious servitude on the minds of Christians, and condemn them
to expect, without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the
executioner.

The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books
of the Code and Pandects; and in all judicial proceedings, the life or
death of a citizen is determined with less caution or delay than the
most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular
distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of
defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal
and civil jurisprudence. Our duties to the state are simple and uniform:
the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or
marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly
proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each
other are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled,
and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the
interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are often
dictated by fraud or ignorance, affords a long and laborious exercise to
the sagacity of the judge. The business of life is multiplied by the
extent of commerce and dominion, and the residence of the parties in the
distant provinces of an empire is productive of doubt, delay, and
inevitable appeals from the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian,
the Greek emperor of Constantinople and the East, was the legal
successor of the Latin shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of
the Tyber. In a period of thirteen hundred years, the laws had
reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners; and the
laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent institutions
destroyed the harmony, and swelled the magnitude, of the obscure and
irregular system. The laws which excuse, on any occasions, the ignorance
of their subjects, confess their own imperfections: the civil
jurisprudence, as it was abridged by Justinian, still continued a
mysterious science, and a profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of
the study was involved in tenfold darkness by the private industry of
the practitioners. The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the
value of the prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty
or prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate
the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to
increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the
poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader
obtains a more certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental
corruption of his judge. The experience of an abuse, from which our own
age and country are not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a
generous indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our
elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish
cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such forms and delays
are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the
discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny; and that the
laws of a free people should foresee and determine every question that
may probably arise in the exercise of power and the transactions of
industry. But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty
and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the
multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.

Part I.

Reign Of The Younger Justin. -- Embassy Of The Avars. -- Their
Settlement On The Danube. -- Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards. --
Adoption And Reign Of Tiberius. -- Of Maurice. -- State Of Italy Under
The Lombards And The Exarchs. -- Of Ravenna. -- Distress Of Rome. --
Character And Pontificate Of Gregory The First.

During the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was devoted to
heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the business of the lower
world. His subjects were impatient of the long continuance of his life
and reign: yet all who were capable of reflection apprehended the moment
of his death, which might involve the capital in tumult, and the empire
in civil war. Seven nephews  of the childless monarch, the sons or
grandsons of his brother and sister, had been educated in the splendor
of a princely fortune; they had been shown in high commands to the
provinces and armies; their characters were known, their followers were
zealous, and, as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of a
successor, they might expect with equal hopes the inheritance of their
uncle. He expired in his palace, after a reign of thirty-eight years;
and the decisive opportunity was embraced by the friends of Justin, the
son of Vigilantia.  At the hour of midnight, his domestics were awakened
by an importunate crowd, who thundered at his door, and obtained
admittance by revealing themselves to be the principal members of the
senate. These welcome deputies announced the recent and momentous secret
of the emperor's decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying
choice of the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and
conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude, if they
should perceive, with the return of light, that they were left without a
master. After composing his countenance to surprise, sorrow, and decent
modesty, Justin, by the advice of his wife Sophia, submitted to the
authority of the senate. He was conducted with speed and silence to the
palace; the guards saluted their new sovereign; and the martial and
religious rites of his coronation were diligently accomplished. By the
hands of the proper officers he was invested with the Imperial garments,
the red buskins, white tunic, and purple robe. A fortunate soldier, whom
he instantly promoted to the rank of tribune, encircled his neck with a
military collar; four robust youths exalted him on a shield; he stood
firm and erect to receive the adoration of his subjects; and their
choice was sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed
the diadem on the head of an orthodox prince. The hippodrome was already
filled with innumerable multitudes; and no sooner did the emperor appear
on his throne, than the voices of the blue and the green factions were
confounded in the same loyal acclamations. In the speeches which Justin
addressed to the senate and people, he promised to correct the abuses
which had disgraced the age of his predecessor, displayed the maxims of
a just and beneficent government, and declared that, on the approaching
calends of January,  he would revive in his own person the name and
liberty of a Roman consul. The immediate discharge of his uncle's debts
exhibited a solid pledge of his faith and generosity: a train of
porters, laden with bags of gold, advanced into the midst of the
hippodrome, and the hopeless creditors of Justinian accepted this
equitable payment as a voluntary gift. Before the end of three years,
his example was imitated and surpassed by the empress Sophia, who
delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of debt and usury: an
act of benevolence the best entitled to gratitude, since it relieves the
most intolerable distress; but in which the bounty of a prince is the
most liable to be abused by the claims of prodigality and fraud.

On the seventh day of his reign, Justin gave audience to the ambassadors
of the Avars, and the scene was decorated to impress the Barbarians with
astonishment, veneration, and terror. From the palace gate, the spacious
courts and long porticos were lined with the lofty crests and gilt
bucklers of the guards, who presented their spears and axes with more
confidence than they would have shown in a field of battle. The officers
who exercised the power, or attended the person, of the prince, were
attired in their richest habits, and arranged according to the military
and civil order of the hierarchy. When the veil of the sanctuary was
withdrawn, the ambassadors beheld the emperor of the East on his throne,
beneath a canopy, or dome, which was supported by four columns, and
crowned with a winged figure of Victory. In the first emotions of
surprise, they submitted to the servile adoration of the Byzantine
court; but as soon as they rose from the ground, Targetius, the chief of
the embassy, expressed the freedom and pride of a Barbarian. He
extolled, by the tongue of his interpreter, the greatness of the chagan,
by whose clemency the kingdoms of the South were permitted to exist,
whose victorious subjects had traversed the frozen rivers of Scythia,
and who now covered the banks of the Danube with innumerable tents. The
late emperor had cultivated, with annual and costly gifts, the
friendship of a grateful monarch, and the enemies of Rome had respected
the allies of the Avars. The same prudence would instruct the nephew of
Justinian to imitate the liberality of his uncle, and to purchase the
blessings of peace from an invincible people, who delighted and excelled
in the exercise of war. The reply of the emperor was delivered in the
same strain of haughty defiance, and he derived his confidence from the
God of the Christians, the ancient glory of Rome, and the recent
triumphs of Justinian. "The empire," said he, "abounds with men and
horses, and arms sufficient to defend our frontiers, and to chastise the
Barbarians. You offer aid, you threaten hostilities: we despise your
enmity and your aid. The conquerors of the Avars solicit our alliance;
shall we dread their fugitives and exiles?  The bounty of our uncle was
granted to your misery, to your humble prayers. From us you shall
receive a more important obligation, the knowledge of your own weakness.
Retire from our presence; the lives of ambassadors are safe; and, if you
return to implore our pardon, perhaps you will taste of our
benevolence."  On the report of his ambassadors, the chagan was awed by
the apparent firmness of a Roman emperor of whose character and
resources he was ignorant. Instead of executing his threats against the
Eastern empire, he marched into the poor and savage countries of
Germany, which were subject to the dominion of the Franks. After two
doubtful battles, he consented to retire, and the Austrasian king
relieve the distress of his camp with an immediate supply of corn and
cattle.  Such repeated disappointments had chilled the spirit of the
Avars, and their power would have dissolved away in the Sarmatian
desert, if the alliance of Alboin, king of the Lombards, had not given a
new object to their arms, and a lasting settlement to their wearied
fortunes.

While Alboin served under his father's standard, he encountered in
battle, and transpierced with his lance, the rival prince of the Gepidæ.
The Lombards, who applauded such early prowess, requested his father,
with unanimous acclamations, that the heroic youth, who had shared the
dangers of the field, might be admitted to the feast of victory. "You
are not unmindful," replied the inflexible Audoin, "of the wise customs
of our ancestors. Whatever may be his merit, a prince is incapable of
sitting at table with his father till he has received his arms from a
foreign and royal hand." Alboin bowed with reverence to the institutions
of his country, selected forty companions, and boldly visited the court
of Turisund, king of the Gepidæ, who embraced and entertained, according
to the laws of hospitality, the murderer of his son. At the banquet,
whilst Alboin occupied the seat of the youth whom he had slain, a tender
remembrance arose in the mind of Turisund. "How dear is that place! how
hateful is that person!" were the words that escaped, with a sigh, from
the indignant father. His grief exasperated the national resentment of
the Gepidæ; and Cunimund, his surviving son, was provoked by wine, or
fraternal affection, to the desire of vengeance. "The Lombards," said
the rude Barbarian, "resemble, in figure and in smell, the mares of our
Sarmatian plains." And this insult was a coarse allusion to the white
bands which enveloped their legs. "Add another resemblance," replied an
audacious Lombard; "you have felt how strongly they kick. Visit the
plain of Asfield, and seek for the bones of thy brother: they are
mingled with those of the vilest animals." The Gepidæ, a nation of
warriors, started from their seats, and the fearless Alboin, with his
forty companions, laid their hands on their swords. The tumult was
appeased by the venerable interposition of Turisund. He saved his own
honor, and the life of his guest; and, after the solemn rites of
investiture, dismissed the stranger in the bloody arms of his son; the
gift of a weeping parent. Alboin returned in triumph; and the Lombards,
who celebrated his matchless intrepidity, were compelled to praise the
virtues of an enemy.  In this extraordinary visit he had probably seen
the daughter of Cunimund, who soon after ascended the throne of the
Gepidæ. Her name was Rosamond, an appellation expressive of female
beauty, and which our own history or romance has consecrated to amorous
tales. The king of the Lombards (the father of Alboin no longer lived)
was contracted to the granddaughter of Clovis; but the restraints of
faith and policy soon yielded to the hope of possessing the fair
Rosamond, and of insulting her family and nation. The arts of persuasion
were tried without success; and the impatient lover, by force and
stratagem, obtained the object of his desires. War was the consequence
which he foresaw and solicited; but the Lombards could not long
withstand the furious assault of the Gepidæ, who were sustained by a
Roman army. And, as the offer of marriage was rejected with contempt,
Alboin was compelled to relinquish his prey, and to partake of the
disgrace which he had inflicted on the house of Cunimund.

When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is
not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which
allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new
encounter. The strength of Alboin had been found unequal to the
gratification of his love, ambition, and revenge: he condescended to
implore the formidable aid of the chagan; and the arguments that he
employed are expressive of the art and policy of the Barbarians. In the
attack of the Gepidæ, he had been prompted by the just desire of
extirpating a people whom their alliance with the Roman empire had
rendered the common enemies of the nations, and the personal adversaries
of the chagan. If the forces of the Avars and the Lombards should unite
in this glorious quarrel, the victory was secure, and the reward
inestimable: the Danube, the Hebrus, Italy, and Constantinople, would be
exposed, without a barrier, to their invincible arms. But, if they
hesitated or delayed to prevent the malice of the Romans, the same
spirit which had insulted would pursue the Avars to the extremity of the
earth. These specious reasons were heard by the chagan with coldness and
disdain: he detained the Lombard ambassadors in his camp, protracted the
negotiation, and by turns alleged his want of inclination, or his want
of ability, to undertake this important enterprise. At length he
signified the ultimate price of his alliance, that the Lombards should
immediately present him with a tithe of their cattle; that the spoils
and captives should be equally divided; but that the lands of the
Gepidæshould become the sole patrimony of the Avars. Such hard
conditions were eagerly accepted by the passions of Alboin; and, as the
Romans were dissatisfied with the ingratitude and perfidy of the Gepidæ,
Justin abandoned that incorrigible people to their fate, and remained
the tranquil spectator of this unequal conflict. The despair of Cunimund
was active and dangerous. He was informed that the Avars had entered his
confines; but, on the strong assurance that, after the defeat of the
Lombards, these foreign invaders would easily be repelled, he rushed
forwards to encounter the implacable enemy of his name and family. But
the courage of the Gepidæcould secure them no more than an honorable
death. The bravest of the nation fell in the field of battle; the king
of the Lombards contemplated with delight the head of Cunimund; and his
skull was fashioned into a cup to satiate the hatred of the conqueror,
or, perhaps, to comply with the savage custom of his country.  After
this victory, no further obstacle could impede the progress of the
confederates, and they faithfully executed the terms of their agreement.
The fair countries of Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and the other
parts of Hungary beyond the Danube, were occupied, without resistance,
by a new colony of Scythians; and the Dacian empire of the chagans
subsisted with splendor above two hundred and thirty years. The nation
of the Gepidæwas dissolved; but, in the distribution of the captives,
the slaves of the Avars were less fortunate than the companions of the
Lombards, whose generosity adopted a valiant foe, and whose freedom was
incompatible with cool and deliberate tyranny. One moiety of the spoil
introduced into the camp of Alboin more wealth than a Barbarian could
readily compute. The fair Rosamond was persuaded, or compelled, to
acknowledge the rights of her victorious lover; and the daughter of
Cunimund appeared to forgive those crimes which might be imputed to her
own irresistible charms.

The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of Alboin. In
the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the Saxons, and the other tribes
of the Teutonic language, still repeated the songs which described the
heroic virtues, the valor, liberality, and fortune of the king of the
Lombards.  But his ambition was yet unsatisfied; and the conqueror of
the Gepidæturned his eyes from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po,
and the Tyber. Fifteen years had not elapsed, since his subjects, the
confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of Italy: the
mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to their memory: the
report of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils, had kindled
in the rising generation the flame of emulation and enterprise. Their
hopes were encouraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin: and it is
affirmed, that he spoke to their senses, by producing at the royal
feast, the fairest and most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in
the garden of the world. No sooner had he erected his standard, than the
native strength of the Lombard was multiplied by the adventurous youth
of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and Pannonia had
resumed the manners of Barbarians; and the names of the Gepidæ,
Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be distinctly traced in the
provinces of Italy.  Of the Saxons, the old allies of the Lombards,
twenty thousand warriors, with their wives and children, accepted the
invitation of Alboin. Their bravery contributed to his success; but the
accession or the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the
magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely practised by
its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards had been educated in
the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in their public worship, were
allowed to pray for his conversion; while the more stubborn Barbarians
sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods of their
fathers.  The Lombards, and their confederates, were united by their
common attachment to a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices
of a savage hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine
of offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The
portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march: their lands they
cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise, which was
made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed in the conquest
of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be reinstated in their former
possessions.

They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of the
Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of his Gothic
victory, would have encountered with reluctance an enemy whom they
dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness of the Byzantine court was
subservient to the Barbarian cause; and it was for the ruin of Italy,
that the emperor once listened to the complaints of his subjects. The
virtues of Narses were stained with avarice; and, in his provincial
reign of fifteen years, he accumulated a treasure of gold and silver
which surpassed the modesty of a private fortune. His government was
oppressive or unpopular, and the general discontent was expressed with
freedom by the deputies of Rome. Before the throne of Justinian they
boldly declared, that their Gothic servitude had been more tolerable
than the despotism of a Greek eunuch; and that, unless their tyrant were
instantly removed, they would consult their own happiness in the choice
of a master. The apprehension of a revolt was urged by the voice of envy
and detraction, which had so recently triumphed over the merit of
Belisarius. A new exarch, Longinus, was appointed to supersede the
conqueror of Italy, and the base motives of his recall were revealed in
the insulting mandate of the empress Sophia, "that he should leave to
menthe exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the
maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the
hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not
easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and
conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave
and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples,
from whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times) Narses
invited the Lombards to chastise the ingratitude of the prince and
people.  But the passions of the people are furious and changeable, and
the Romans soon recollected the merits, or dreaded the resentment, of
their victorious general. By the mediation of the pope, who undertook a
special pilgrimage to Naples, their repentance was accepted; and Narses,
assuming a milder aspect and a more dutiful language, consented to fix
his residence in the Capitol. His death,  though in the extreme period
of old age, was unseasonable and premature, since hisgenius alone could
have repaired the last and fatal error of his life. The reality, or the
suspicion, of a conspiracy disarmed and disunited the Italians. The
soldiers resented the disgrace, and bewailed the loss, of their general.
They were ignorant of their new exarch; and Longinus was himself
ignorant of the state of the army and the province. In the preceding
years Italy had been desolated by pestilence and famine, and a
disaffected people ascribed the calamities of nature to the guilt or
folly of their rulers.

Whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither expected
nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended the Julian Alps,
and looked down with contempt and desire on the fruitful plains to which
his victory communicated the perpetual appellation of Lombardy. A
faithful chieftain, and a select band, were stationed at Forum Julii,
the modern Friuli, to guard the passes of the mountains. The Lombards
respected the strength of Pavia, and listened to the prayers of the
Trevisans: their slow and heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the
palace and city of Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was
invested by the powers of Alboin five months after his departure from
Pannonia. Terror preceded his march: he found every where, or he left, a
dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without a
trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or rocks, or
morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some fragments of their
wealth, and delayed the moment of their servitude. Paulinus, the
patriarch of Aquileia, removed his treasures, sacred and profane, to the
Isle of Grado,  and his successors were adopted by the infant republic
of Venice, which was continually enriched by the public calamities.
Honoratus, who filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted
the faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop, with the
clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin to seek
a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along the maritime
coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported by the facility of
supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of escape; but from the
Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome the inland regions of
Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the
Lombards. The submission of the people invited the Barbarian to assume
the character of a lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was
confined to the office of announcing to the emperor Justin the rapid and
irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities.  One city, which had
been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new
invader; and while Italy was subdued by the flying detachments of the
Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three years before the western
gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same courage which obtains the esteem of
a civilized enemy provokes the fury of a savage, and the impatient
besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and
dignity, should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine
at length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but, as Alboin entered
the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from the
ground. One of his attendants was prompted by compassion, or piety, to
interpret this miraculous sign of the wrath of Heaven: the conqueror
paused and relented; he sheathed his sword, and peacefully reposing
himself in the palace of Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling
multitude that they should live and obey. Delighted with the situation
of a city which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the
purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of
Milan; and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the
kingdom of Italy.

The reign of the founder was splendid and transient; and, before he
could regulate his new conquests, Alboin fell a sacrifice to domestic
treason and female revenge. In a palace near Verona, which had not been
erected for the Barbarians, he feasted the companions of his arms;
intoxication was the reward of valor, and the king himself was tempted
by appetite, or vanity, to exceed the ordinary measure of his
intemperance. After draining many capacious bowls of Rhætian or
Falernian wine, he called for the skull of Cunimund, the noblest and
most precious ornament of his sideboard. The cup of victory was accepted
with horrid applause by the circle of the Lombard chiefs. "Fill it again
with wine," exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, "fill it to the brim: carry
this goblet to the queen, and request in my name that she would rejoice
with her father." In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamond had strength
to utter, "Let the will of my lord be obeyed!" and, touching it with her
lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that the insult should be washed
away in the blood of Alboin. Some indulgence might be due to the
resentment of a daughter, if she had not already violated the duties of
a wife. Implacable in her enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen
of Italy had stooped from the throne to the arms of a subject, and
Helmichis, the king's armor-bearer, was the secret minister of her
pleasure and revenge. Against the proposal of the murder, he could no
longer urge the scruples of fidelity or gratitude; but Helmichis
trembled when he revolved the danger as well as the guilt, when he
recollected the matchless strength and intrepidity of a warrior whom he
had so often attended in the field of battle. He pressed and obtained,
that one of the bravest champions of the Lombards should be associated
to the enterprise; but no more than a promise of secrecy could be drawn
from the gallant Peredeus, and the mode of seduction employed by
Rosamond betrays her shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She
supplied the place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by
Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence, till she
could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen of the
Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin, must be the
consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this alternative he chose
rather to be the accomplice than the victim of Rosamond,  whose
undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or remorse. She expected and soon
found a favorable moment, when the king, oppressed with wine, had
retired from the table to his afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse
was anxious for his health and repose: the gates of the palace were
shut, the arms removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond, after
lulling him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber door,
and urged the reluctant conspirators to the instant execution of the
deed. On the first alarm, the warrior started from his couch: his sword,
which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the scabbard by the
hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only weapon, could not long
protect him from the spears of the assassins. The daughter of Cunimund
smiled in his fall: his body was buried under the staircase of the
palace; and the grateful posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and
the memory of their victorious leader.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards. -- Part II.

The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her lover; the
city and palace of Verona were awed by her power; and a faithful band of
her native Gepidæwas prepared to applaud the revenge, and to second the
wishes, of their sovereign. But the Lombard chiefs, who fled in the
first moments of consternation and disorder, had resumed their courage
and collected their powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her
reign, demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed
on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought a
refuge among the enemies of her country; and a criminal who deserved the
abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish policy of the exarch.
With her daughter, the heiress of the Lombard throne, her two lovers,
her trusty Gepidæ, and the spoils of the palace of Verona, Rosamond
descended the Adige and the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to
the safe harbor of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms and
the treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and her past conduct
might justify the most licentious proposals; and she readily listened to
the passion of a minister, who, even in the decline of the empire, was
respected as the equal of kings. The death of a jealous lover was an
easy and grateful sacrifice; and, as Helmichis issued from the bath, he
received the deadly potion from the hand of his mistress. The taste of
the liquor, its speedy operation, and his experience of the character of
Rosamond, convinced him that he was poisoned: he pointed his dagger to
her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the cup, and expired
in a few minutes, with the consolation that she could not survive to
enjoy the fruits of her wickedness. The daughter of Alboin and Rosamond,
with the richest spoils of the Lombards, was embarked for
Constantinople: the surprising strength of Peredeus amused and terrified
the Imperial court: * his blindness and revenge exhibited an imperfect
copy of the adventures of Samson. By the free suffrage of the nation, in
the assembly of Pavia, Clepho, one of their noblest chiefs, was elected
as the successor of Alboin. Before the end of eighteen months, the
throne was polluted by a second murder: Clepho was stabbed by the hand
of a domestic; the regal office was suspended above ten years during the
minority of his son Autharis; and Italy was divided and oppressed by a
ducal aristocracy of thirty tyrants.

When the nephew of Justinian ascended the throne, he proclaimed a new
æra of happiness and glory. The annals of the second Justin  are marked
with disgrace abroad and misery at home. In the West, the Roman empire
was afflicted by the loss of Italy, the desolation of Africa, and the
conquests of the Persians. Injustice prevailed both in the capital and
the provinces: the rich trembled for their property, the poor for their
safety, the ordinary magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional
remedies appear to have been arbitrary and violent, and the complaints
of the people could no longer be silenced by the splendid names of a
legislator and a conqueror. The opinion which imputes to the prince all
the calamities of his times may be countenanced by the historian as a
serious truth or a salutary prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will
arise, that the sentiments of Justin were pure and benevolent, and that
he might have filled his station without reproach, if the faculties of
his mind had not been impaired by disease, which deprived the emperor of
the use of his feet, and confined him to the palace, a stranger to the
complaints of the people and the vices of the government. The tardy
knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down the weight of
the diadem; and, in the choice of a worthy substitute, he showed some
symptoms of a discerning and even magnanimous spirit. The only son of
Justin and Sophia died in his infancy; their daughter Arabia was the
wife of Baduarius,  superintendent of the palace, and afterwards
commander of the Italian armies, who vainly aspired to confirm the
rights of marriage by those of adoption. While the empire appeared an
object of desire, Justin was accustomed to behold with jealousy and
hatred his brothers and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor could he
depend on the gratitude of those who would accept the purple as a
restitution, rather than a gift. Of these competitors, one had been
removed by exile, and afterwards by death; and the emperor himself had
inflicted such cruel insults on another, that he must either dread his
resentment or despise his patience. This domestic animosity was refined
into a generous resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family,
but in the republic; and the artful Sophia recommended Tiberius,  his
faithful captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the emperor
might cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice. The ceremony of his
elevation to the rank of Cæsar, or Augustus, was performed in the
portico of the palace, in the presence of the patriarch and the senate.
Justin collected the remaining strength of his mind and body; but the
popular belief that his speech was inspired by the Deity betrays a very
humble opinion both of the man and of the times.  "You behold," said the
emperor, "the ensigns of supreme power. You are about to receive them,
not from my hand, but from the hand of God. Honor them, and from them
you will derive honor. Respect the empress your mother: you are now her
son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood; abstain from
revenge; avoid those actions by which I have incurred the public hatred;
and consult the experience, rather than the example, of your
predecessor. As a man, I have sinned; as a sinner, even in this life, I
have been severely punished: but these servants, (and we pointed to his
ministers,) who have abused my confidence, and inflamed my passions,
will appear with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled
by the splendor of the diadem: be thou wise and modest; remember what
you have been, remember what you are. You see around us your slaves, and
your children: with the authority, assume the tenderness, of a parent.
Love your people like yourself; cultivate the affections, maintain the
discipline, of the army; protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the
necessities of the poor."  The assembly, in silence and in tears,
applauded the counsels, and sympathized with the repentance, of their
prince the patriarch rehearsed the prayers of the church; Tiberius
received the diadem on his knees; and Justin, who in his abdication
appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the new monarch in the
following words: "If you consent, I live; if you command, I die: may the
God of heaven and earth infuse into your heart whatever I have neglected
or forgotten." The four last years of the emperor Justin were passed in
tranquil obscurity: his conscience was no longer tormented by the
remembrance of those duties which he was incapable of discharging; and
his choice was justified by the filial reverence and gratitude of
Tiberius.

Among the virtues of Tiberius,  his beauty (he was one of the tallest
and most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the favor of
Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded, that she should preserve
her station and influence under the reign of a second and more youthful
husband. But, if the ambitious candidate had been tempted to flatter and
dissemble, it was no longer in his power to fulfil her expectations, or
his own promise. The factions of the hippodrome demanded, with some
impatience, the name of their new empress: both the people and Sophia
were astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret, though
lawful, wife of the emperor Tiberius. Whatever could alleviate the
disappointment of Sophia, Imperial honors, a stately palace, a numerous
household, was liberally bestowed by the piety of her adopted son; on
solemn occasions he attended and consulted the widow of his benefactor;
but her ambition disdained the vain semblance of royalty, and the
respectful appellation of mother served to exasperate, rather than
appease, the rage of an injured woman. While she accepted, and repaid
with a courtly smile, the fair expressions of regard and confidence, a
secret alliance was concluded between the dowager empress and her
ancient enemies; and Justinian, the son of Germanus, was employed as the
instrument of her revenge. The pride of the reigning house supported,
with reluctance, the dominion of a stranger: the youth was deservedly
popular; his name, after the death of Justin, had been mentioned by a
tumultuous faction; and his own submissive offer of his head with a
treasure of sixty thousand pounds, might be interpreted as an evidence
of guilt, or at least of fear. Justinian received a free pardon, and the
command of the eastern army. The Persian monarch fled before his arms;
and the acclamations which accompanied his triumph declared him worthy
of the purple. His artful patroness had chosen the month of the vintage,
while the emperor, in a rural solitude, was permitted to enjoy the
pleasures of a subject. On the first intelligence of her designs, he
returned to Constantinople, and the conspiracy was suppressed by his
presence and firmness. From the pomp and honors which she had abused,
Sophia was reduced to a modest allowance: Tiberius dismissed her train,
intercepted her correspondence, and committed to a faithful guard the
custody of her person. But the services of Justinian were not considered
by that excellent prince as an aggravation of his offences: after a mild
reproof, his treason and ingratitude were forgiven; and it was commonly
believed, that the emperor entertained some thoughts of contracting a
double alliance with the rival of his throne. The voice of an angel
(such a fable was propagated) might reveal to the emperor, that he
should always triumph over his domestic foes; but Tiberius derived a
firmer assurance from the innocence and generosity of his own mind.

With the odious name of Tiberius, he assumed the more popular
appellation of Constantine, and imitated the purer virtues of the
Antonines. After recording the vice or folly of so many Roman princes,
it is pleasing to repose, for a moment, on a character conspicuous by
the qualities of humanity, justice, temperance, and fortitude; to
contemplate a sovereign affable in his palace, pious in the church,
impartial on the seat of judgment, and victorious, at least by his
generals, in the Persian war. The most glorious trophy of his victory
consisted in a multitude of captives, whom Tiberius entertained,
redeemed, and dismissed to their native homes with the charitable spirit
of a Christian hero. The merit or misfortunes of his own subjects had a
dearer claim to his beneficence, and he measured his bounty not so much
by their expectations as by his own dignity. This maxim, however
dangerous in a trustee of the public wealth, was balanced by a principle
of humanity and justice, which taught him to abhor, as of the basest
alloy, the gold that was extracted from the tears of the people. For
their relief, as often as they had suffered by natural or hostile
calamities, he was impatient to remit the arrears of the past, or the
demands of future taxes: he sternly rejected the servile offerings of
his ministers, which were compensated by tenfold oppression; and the
wise and equitable laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret of
succeeding times. Constantinople believed that the emperor had
discovered a treasure: but his genuine treasure consisted in the
practice of liberal economy, and the contempt of all vain and
superfluous expense. The Romans of the East would have been happy, if
the best gift of Heaven, a patriot king, had been confirmed as a proper
and permanent blessing. But in less than four years after the death of
Justin, his worthy successor sunk into a mortal disease, which left him
only sufficient time to restore the diadem, according to the tenure by
which he held it, to the most deserving of his fellow-citizens. He
selected Maurice from the crowd, a judgment more precious than the
purple itself: the patriarch and senate were summoned to the bed of the
dying prince: he bestowed his daughter and the empire; and his last
advice was solemnly delivered by the voice of the quæstor. Tiberius
expressed his hope that the virtues of his son and successor would erect
the noblest mausoleum to his memory. His memory was embalmed by the
public affliction; but the most sincere grief evaporates in the tumult
of a new reign, and the eyes and acclamations of mankind were speedily
directed to the rising sun.

The emperor Maurice derived his origin from ancient Rome;  but his
immediate parents were settled at Arabissus in Cappadocia, and their
singular felicity preserved them alive to behold and partake the fortune
of their august son. The youth of Maurice was spent in the profession of
arms: Tiberius promoted him to the command of a new and favorite legion
of twelve thousand confederates; his valor and conduct were signalized
in the Persian war; and he returned to Constantinople to accept, as his
just reward, the inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended the throne
at the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned above twenty
years over the East and over himself;  expelling from his mind the wild
democracy of passions, and establishing (according to the quaint
expression of Evagrius) a perfect aristocracy of reason and virtue. Some
suspicion will degrade the testimony of a subject, though he protests
that his secret praise should never reach the ear of his sovereign,  and
some failings seem to place the character of Maurice below the purer
merit of his predecessor. His cold and reserved demeanor might be
imputed to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from cruelty,
nor his clemency from weakness; and his rigid economy too often exposed
him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes of an absolute
monarch must tend to the happiness of his people. Maurice was endowed
with sense and courage to promote that happiness, and his administration
was directed by the principles and example of Tiberius. The
pusillanimity of the Greeks had introduced so complete a separation
between the offices of king and of general, that a private soldier, who
had deserved and obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the
head of his armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of
restoring the Persian monarch to his throne; his lieutenants waged a
doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube; and he cast an eye of
pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and distressful state of his
Italian provinces.

From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales of misery
and demands of succor, which extorted the humiliating confession of
their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome was only marked by the
freedom and energy of her complaints: "If you are incapable," she said,
"of delivering us from the sword of the Lombards, save us at least from
the calamity of famine." Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the
distress: a supply of corn was transported from Egypt to the Tyber; and
the Roman people, invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St. Peter
repulsed the Barbarians from their walls. But the relief was accidental,
the danger was perpetual and pressing; and the clergy and senate,
collecting the remains of their ancient opulence, a sum of three
thousand pounds of gold, despatched the patrician Pamphronius to lay
their gifts and their complaints at the foot of the Byzantine throne.
The attention of the court, and the forces of the East, were diverted by
the Persian war: but the justice of Tiberius applied the subsidy to the
defence of the city; and he dismissed the patrician with his best
advice, either to bribe the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of
the kings of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy was
still afflicted, Rome was again besieged, and the suburb of Classe, only
three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied by the troops of a
simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audience to a second deputation of
priests and senators: the duties and the menaces of religion were
forcibly urged in the letters of the Roman pontiff; and his nuncio, the
deacon Gregory, was alike qualified to solicit the powers either of
heaven or of the earth. The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the
measures of his predecessor: some formidable chiefs were persuaded to
embrace the friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and
faithful Barbarian, lived and died in the service of the exarchs: the
passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope encouraged
them to violate, without scruple, their oaths and engagements to the
misbelievers. Childebert, the great-grandson of Clovis, was persuaded to
invade Italy by the payment of fifty thousand pieces; but, as he had
viewed with delight some Byzantine coin of the weight of one pound of
gold, the king of Austrasia might stipulate, that the gift should be
rendered more worthy of his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these
respectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by frequent
inroads their powerful neighbors of Gaul. As soon as they were
apprehensive of a just retaliation, they renounced their feeble and
disorderly independence: the advantages of real government, union,
secrecy, and vigor, were unanimously confessed; and Autharis, the son of
Clepho, had already attained the strength and reputation of a warrior.
Under the standard of their new king, the conquerors of Italy withstood
three successive invasions, one of which was led by Childebert himself,
the last of the Merovingian race who descended from the Alps. The first
expedition was defeated by the jealous animosity of the Franks and
Alemanni. In the second they were vanquished in a bloody battle, with
more loss and dishonor than they had sustained since the foundation of
their monarchy. Impatient for revenge, they returned a third time with
accumulated force, and Autharis yielded to the fury of the torrent. The
troops and treasures of the Lombards were distributed in the walled
towns between the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, less sensible of
danger than of fatigue and delay, soon murmured against the folly of
their twenty commanders; and the hot vapors of an Italian sun infected
with disease those tramontane bodies which had already suffered the
vicissitudes of intemperance and famine. The powers that were inadequate
to the conquest, were more than sufficient for the desolation, of the
country; nor could the trembling natives distinguish between their
enemies and their deliverers. If the junction of the Merovingian and
Imperial forces had been effected in the neighborhood of Milan, perhaps
they might have subverted the throne of the Lombards; but the Franks
expected six days the signal of a flaming village, and the arms of the
Greeks were idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which
were torn from them after the retreat of their transalpine allies. The
victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the dominion of Italy. At the
foot of the Rhætian Alps, he subdued the resistance, and rifled the
hidden treasures, of a sequestered island in the Lake of Comum. At the
extreme point of the Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the
sea-shore of Rhegium,  proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the
immovable boundary of his kingdom.

During a period of two hundred years, Italy was unequally divided
between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna. The
offices and professions, which the jealousy of Constantine had
separated, were united by the indulgence of Justinian; and eighteen
successive exarchs were invested, in the decline of the empire, with the
full remains of civil, of military, and even of ecclesiastical, power.
Their immediate jurisdiction, which was afterwards consecrated as the
patrimony of St. Peter, extended over the modern Romagna, the marshes or
valleys of Ferrara and Commachio,  five maritime cities from Rimini to
Ancona, and a second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast and
the hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces, of Rome, of
Venice, and of Naples, which were divided by hostile lands from the
palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both in peace and war, the supremacy of
the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have included the Tuscan,
Sabine, and Latin conquests, of the first four hundred years of the
city, and the limits may be distinctly traced along the coast, from
Civita Vecchia to Terracina, and with the course of the Tyber from
Ameria and Narni to the port of Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado
to Chiozza composed the infant dominion of Venice: but the more
accessible towns on the Continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who
beheld with impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power
of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent
isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony of
Amalphi,  whose industrious citizens, by the invention of the mariner's
compass, have unveiled the face of the globe. The three islands of
Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, still adhered to the empire; and the
acquisition of the farther Calabria removed the landmark of Autharis
from the shore of Rhegium to the Isthmus of Consentia. In Sardinia, the
savage mountaineers preserved the liberty and religion of their
ancestors; and the husbandmen of Sicily were chained to their rich and
cultivated soil. Rome was oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs,
and a Greek, perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her own
dukes:  the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce; and the
voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance
with the Eastern empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of the
exarchate occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample
proportion of wealth, industry, and population. The most faithful and
valuable subjects escaped from the Barbarian yoke; and the banners of
Pavia and Verona, of Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective
quarters by the new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their kingdom
was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the
confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and
Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it is now represented by
the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont,
the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy of
Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to
the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum,
survived the monarchy, and propagated the name of the Lombards. From
Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near five hundred years over the
greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples.

In comparing the proportion of the victorious and the vanquished people,
the change of language will afford the most probably inference.
According to this standard, it will appear, that the Lombards of Italy,
and the Visigoths of Spain, were less numerous than the Franks or
Burgundians; and the conquerors of Gaul must yield, in their turn, to
the multitude of Saxons and Angles who almost eradicated the idioms of
Britain. The modern Italian has been insensibly formed by the mixture of
nations: the awkwardness of the Barbarians in the nice management of
declensions and conjugations reduced them to the use of articles and
auxiliary verbs; and many new ideas have been expressed by Teutonic
appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical and familiar words is
found to be of Latin derivation;  and, if we were sufficiently
conversant with the obsolete, the rustic, and the municipal dialects of
ancient Italy, we should trace the origin of many terms which might,
perhaps, be rejected by the classic purity of Rome. A numerous army
constitutes but a small nation, and the powers of the Lombards were soon
diminished by the retreat of twenty thousand Saxons, who scorned a
dependent situation, and returned, after many bold and perilous
adventures, to their native country.  The camp of Alboin was of
formidable extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily
circumscribed within the limits of a city; and its martial in habitants
must be thinly scattered over the face of a large country. When Alboin
descended from the Alps, he invested his nephew, the first duke of
Friuli, with the command of the province and the people: but the prudent
Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office, unless he had been
permitted to choose, among the nobles of the Lombards, a sufficient
number of families  to form a perpetual colony of soldiers and subjects.
In the progress of conquest, the same option could not be granted to the
dukes of Brescia or Bergamo, ot Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto or
Beneventum; but each of these, and each of their colleagues, settled in
his appointed district with a band of followers who resorted to his
standard in war and his tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and
honorable: resigning the gifts and benefits which they had accepted,
they might emigrate with their families into the jurisdiction of another
duke; but their absence from the kingdom was punished with death, as a
crime of military desertion.  The posterity of the first conquerors
struck a deeper root into the soil, which, by every motive of interest
and honor, they were bound to defend. A Lombard was born the soldier of
his king and his duke; and the civil assemblies of the nation displayed
the banners, and assumed the appellation, of a regular army. Of this
army, the pay and the rewards were drawn from the conquered provinces;
and the distribution, which was not effected till after the death of
Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of injustice and rapine. Many of
the most wealthy Italians were slain or banished; the remainder were
divided among the strangers, and a tributary obligation was imposed
(under the name of hospitality) of paying to the Lombards a third part
of the fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this
artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid tenure.
Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his strong and insolent guest,
or the annual payment, a third of the produce, was exchanged by a more
equitable transaction for an adequate proportion of landed property.
Under these foreign masters, the business of agriculture, in the
cultivation of corn, wines, and olives, was exercised with degenerate
skill and industry by the labor of the slaves and natives. But the
occupations of a pastoral life were more pleasing to the idleness of the
Barbarian. In the rich meadows of Venetia, they restored and improved
the breed of horses, for which that province had once been illustrious;
and the Italians beheld with astonishment a foreign race of oxen or
buffaloes.  The depopulation of Lombardy, and the increase of forests,
afforded an ample range for the pleasures of the chase.  That marvellous
art which teaches the birds of the air to acknowledge the voice, and
execute the commands, of their master, had been unknown to the ingenuity
of the Greeks and Romans.  Scandinavia and Scythia produce the boldest
and most tractable falcons:  they were tamed and educated by the roving
inhabitants, always on horseback and in the field. This favorite
amusement of our ancestors was introduced by the Barbarians into the
Roman provinces; and the laws of Italy esteemed the sword and the hawk
as of equal dignity and importance in the hands of a noble Lombard.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards. -- Part III.

So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the Lombards of
the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and affright the portraits
of their savage forefathers.  Their heads were shaven behind, but the
shaggy locks hung over their eyes and mouth, and a long beard
represented the name and character of the nation. Their dress consisted
of loose linen garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which
were decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes or variegated
colors. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open sandals;
and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was constantly girt to
their side. Yet this strange apparel, and horrid aspect, often concealed
a gentle and generous disposition; and as soon as the rage of battle had
subsided, the captives and subjects were sometimes surprised by the
humanity of the victor. The vices of the Lombards were the effect of
passion, of ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more
laudable, as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners,
nor imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I should not
be apprehensive of deviating from my subject, if it were in my power to
delineate the private life of the conquerors of Italy; and I shall
relate with pleasure the adventurous gallantry of Autharis, which
breathes the true spirit of chivalry and romance.  After the loss of his
promised bride, a Merovingian princess, he sought in marriage the
daughter of the king of Bavaria; and Garribald accepted the alliance of
the Italian monarch. Impatient of the slow progress of negotiation, the
ardent lover escaped from his palace, and visited the court of Bavaria
in the train of his own embassy. At the public audience, the unknown
stranger advanced to the throne, and informed Garribald that the
ambassador was indeed the minister of state, but that he alone was the
friend of Autharis, who had trusted him with the delicate commission of
making a faithful report of the charms of his spouse. Theudelinda was
summoned to undergo this important examination; and, after a pause of
silent rapture, he hailed her as the queen of Italy, and humbly
requested that, according to the custom of the nation, she would present
a cup of wine to the first of her new subjects. By the command of her
father she obeyed: Autharis received the cup in his turn, and, in
restoring it to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and drew his
own finger over his face and lips. In the evening, Theudelinda imparted
to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity of the stranger, and was
comforted by the assurance, that such boldness could proceed only from
the king her husband, who, by his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of
her love. The ambassadors were dismissed: no sooner did they reach the
confines of Italy than Autharis, raising himself on his horse, darted
his battle-axe against a tree with incomparable strength and dexterity.
"Such," said he to the astonished Bavarians, "such are the strokes of
the king of the Lombards." On the approach of a French army, Garribald
and his daughter took refuge in the dominions of their ally; and the
marriage was consummated in the palace of Verona. At the end of one
year, it was dissolved by the death of Autharis: but the virtues of
Theudelinda  had endeared her to the nation, and she was permitted to
bestow, with her hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.

From this fact, as well as from similar events,  it is certain that the
Lombards possessed freedom to elect their sovereign, and sense to
decline the frequent use of that dangerous privilege. The public revenue
arose from the produce of land and the profits of justice. When the
independent dukes agreed that Autharis should ascend the throne of his
father, they endowed the regal office with a fair moiety of their
respective domains. The proudest nobles aspired to the honors of
servitude near the person of their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of
his vassals by the precarious gift of pensions and benefices; and atoned
for the injuries of war by the rich foundation of monasteries and
churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he never usurped the powers
of a sole and absolute legislator. The king of Italy convened the
national assemblies in the palace, or more probably in the fields, of
Pavia: his great council was composed of the persons most eminent by
their birth and dignities; but the validity, as well as the execution,
of their decrees depended on the approbation of the faithfulpeople, the
fortunatearmy of the Lombards. About fourscore years after the conquest
of Italy, their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin,
and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some new
regulations were introduced, more suitable to their present condition;
the example of Rotharis was imitated by the wisest of his successors;
and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed the least imperfect of
the Barbaric codes.  Secure by their courage in the possession of
liberty, these rude and hasty legislators were incapable of balancing
the powers of the constitution, or of discussing the nice theory of
political government. Such crimes as threatened the life of the
sovereign, or the safety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death;
but their attention was principally confined to the defence of the
person and property of the subject. According to the strange
jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed by a
fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold declares a just
sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less atrocious injuries, a
wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious word, were measured with
scrupulous and almost ridiculous diligence; and the prudence of the
legislator encouraged the ignoble practice of bartering honor and
revenge for a pecuniary compensation. The ignorance of the Lombards in
the state of Paganism or Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice
and mischief of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century
might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of Rotharis, who
derides the absurd superstition, and protects the wretched victims of
popular or judicial cruelty.  The same spirit of a legislator, superior
to his age and country, may be ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns,
while he tolerates, the impious and inveterate abuse of duels,
observing, from his own experience, that the juster cause had often been
oppressed by successful violence. Whatever merit may be discovered in
the laws of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of
the Barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in
their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is marked
with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their annals is adorned
with fair intervals of peace, order, and domestic happiness; and the
Italians enjoyed a milder and more equitable government, than any of the
other kingdoms which had been founded on the ruins of the Western
empire.

Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the Greeks,
we again inquire into the fate of Rome,  which had reached, about the
close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. By the
removal of the seat of empire, and the successive loss of the provinces,
the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted: the lofty
tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was
deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to
wither on the ground. The ministers of command, and the messengers of
victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the hostile
approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually feared. The
inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who visit without an
anxious thought the garden of the adjacent country, will faintly picture
in their fancy the distress of the Romans: they shut or opened their
gates with a trembling hand, beheld from the walls the flames of their
houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled
together like dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond the sea
and the mountains. Such incessant alarms must annihilate the pleasures
and interrupt the labors of a rural life; and the Campagna of Rome was
speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in which the land
is barren, the waters are impure, and the air is infectious. Curiosity
and ambition no longer attracted the nations to the capital of the
world: but, if chance or necessity directed the steps of a wandering
stranger, he contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the
city, and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are
the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tyber swelled above its
banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the valleys of the
seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from the stagnation of the
deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that fourscore persons expired
in an hour in the midst of a solemn procession, which implored the mercy
of Heaven.  A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry
prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war: but,
as the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless
indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and
the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the human
race.  Yet the number of citizens still exceeded the measure of
subsistence: their precarious food was supplied from the harvests of
Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of famine betrays the
inattention of the emperor to a distant province. The edifices of Rome
were exposed to the same ruin and decay: the mouldering fabrics were
easily overthrown by inundations, tempests, and earthquakes: and the
monks, who had occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their
base triumph over the ruins of antiquity.  It is commonly believed, that
Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated the statues of
the city; that, by the command of the Barbarian, the Palatine library
was reduced to ashes, and that the history of Livy was the peculiar mark
of his absurd and mischievous fanaticism. The writings of Gregory
himself reveal his implacable aversion to the monuments of classic
genius; and he points his severest censure against the profane learning
of a bishop, who taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin poets, and
pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and those of
Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful and recent:
the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus, have been demolished
by the slow operation of ages, and a formal proscription would have
multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy in the countries which were not
subject to the ecclesiastical dictator.

Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the names of Rome might have been
erased from the earth, if the city had not been animated by a vital
principle, which again restored her to honor and dominion. A vague
tradition was embraced, that two Jewish teachers, a tent-maker and a
fisherman, had formerly been executed in the circus of Nero, and at the
end of five hundred years, their genuine or fictitious relics were
adored as the Palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the East and
West resorted to the holy threshold; but the shrines of the apostles
were guarded by miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not without
fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his worship. It
was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the bodies of the
saints; and those who, from the purest motives, presumed to disturb the
repose of the sanctuary, were affrighted by visions, or punished with
sudden death. The unreasonable request of an empress, who wished to
deprive the Romans of their sacred treasure, the head of St. Paul, was
rejected with the deepest abhorrence; and the pope asserted, most
probably with truth, that a linen which had been sanctified in the
neighborhood of his body, or the filings of his chain, which it was
sometimes easy and sometimes impossible to obtain, possessed an equal
degree of miraculous virtue.  But the power as well as virtue of the
apostles resided with living energy in the breast of their successors;
and the chair of St. Peter was filled under the reign of Maurice by the
first and greatest of the name of Gregory.  His grandfather Felix had
himself been pope, and as the bishops were already bound by the laws of
celibacy, his consecration must have been preceded by the death of his
wife. The parents of Gregory, Sylvia, and Gordian, were the noblest of
the senate, and the most pious of the church of Rome; his female
relations were numbered among the saints and virgins; and his own
figure, with those of his father and mother, were represented near three
hundred years in a family portrait,  which he offered to the monastery
of St. Andrew. The design and coloring of this picture afford an
honorable testimony that the art of painting was cultivated by the
Italians of the sixth century; but the most abject ideas must be
entertained of their taste and learning, since the epistles of Gregory,
his sermons, and his dialogues, are the work of a man who was second in
erudition to none of his contemporaries:  his birth and abilities had
raised him to the office of præfect of the city, and he enjoyed the
merit of renouncing the pomps and vanities of this world. His ample
patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries,  one in
Rome,  and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of Gregory that he might
be unknown in this life, and glorious only in the next. Yet his devotion
(and it might be sincere) pursued the path which would have been chosen
by a crafty and ambitious statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the
splendor which accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to
the church; and implicit obedience has always been inculcated as the
first duty of a monk. As soon as he had received the character of
deacon, Gregory was sent to reside at the Byzantine court, the nuncio or
minister of the apostolic see; and he boldly assumed, in the name of St.
Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which would have been criminal and
dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the empire. He returned to
Rome with a just increase of reputation, and, after a short exercise of
the monastic virtues, he was dragged from the cloister to the papal
throne, by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the
people. He alone resisted, or seemed to resist, his own elevation; and
his humble petition, that Maurice would be pleased to reject the choice
of the Romans, could only serve to exalt his character in the eyes of
the emperor and the public. When the fatal mandate was proclaimed,
Gregory solicited the aid of some friendly merchants to convey him in a
basket beyond the gates of Rome, and modestly concealed himself some
days among the woods and mountains, till his retreat was discovered, as
it is said, by a celestial light.

The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which lasted thirteen years, six
months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying periods of the history
of the church. His virtues, and even his faults, a singular mixture of
simplicity and cunning, of pride and humility, of sense and
superstition, were happily suited to his station and to the temper of
the times. In his rival, the patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned
the anti-Christian title of universal bishop, which the successor of St.
Peter was too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume; and the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Gregory was confined to the triple
character of Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy, and Apostle of the West.
He frequently ascended the pulpit, and kindled, by his rude, though
pathetic, eloquence, the congenial passions of his audience: the
language of the Jewish prophets was interpreted and applied; and the
minds of a people, depressed by their present calamities, were directed
to the hopes and fears of the invisible world. His precepts and example
defined the model of the Roman liturgy;  the distribution of the
parishes, the calendar of the festivals, the order of processions, the
service of the priests and deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal
garments. Till the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon of
the mass, which continued above three hours: the Gregorian chant  has
preserved the vocal and instrumental music of the theatre, and the rough
voices of the Barbarians attempted to imitate the melody of the Roman
school.  Experience had shown him the efficacy of these solemn and
pompous rites, to soothe the distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate
the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar, and he
readily forgave their tendency to promote the reign of priesthood and
superstition. The bishops of Italy and the adjacent islands acknowledged
the Roman pontiff as their special metropolitan. Even the existence, the
union, or the translation of episcopal seats was decided by his absolute
discretion: and his successful inroads into the provinces of Greece, of
Spain, and of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty pretensions of
succeeding popes. He interposed to prevent the abuses of popular
elections; his jealous care maintained the purity of faith and
discipline; and the apostolic shepherd assiduously watched over the
faith and discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his reign, the
Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the Catholic church, and
the conquest of Britain reflects less glory on the name of Cæsar, than
on that of Gregory the First. Instead of six legions, forty monks were
embarked for that distant island, and the pontiff lamented the austere
duties which forbade him to partake the perils of their spiritual
warfare. In less than two years, he could announce to the archbishop of
Alexandria, that they had baptized the king of Kent with ten thousand of
his Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman missionaries, like those of the
primitive church, were armed only with spiritual and supernatural
powers. The credulity or the prudence of Gregory was always disposed to
confirm the truths of religion by the evidence of ghosts, miracles, and
resurrections;  and posterity has paid to hismemory the same tribute
which he freely granted to the virtue of his own or the preceding
generation. The celestial honors have been liberally bestowed by the
authority of the popes, but Gregory is the last of their own order whom
they have presumed to inscribe in the calendar of saints.

Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of the times:
and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and Asia with blood, were
compelled to reign as the ministers of charity and peace. I. The church
of Rome, as it has been formerly observed, was endowed with ample
possessions in Italy, Sicily, and the more distant provinces; and her
agents, who were commonly sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even
criminal, jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor
of St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a vigilant
and moderate landlord;  and the epistles of Gregory are filled with
salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or vexatious lawsuits; to
preserve the integrity of weights and measures; to grant every
reasonable delay; and to reduce the capitation of the slaves of the
glebe, who purchased the right of marriage by the payment of an
arbitrary fine.  The rent or the produce of these estates was
transported to the mouth of the Tyber, at the risk and expense of the
pope: in the use of wealth he acted like a faithful steward of the
church and the poor, and liberally applied to their wants the
inexhaustible resources of abstinence and order. The voluminous account
of his receipts and disbursements was kept above three hundred years in
the Lateran, as the model of Christian economy. On the four great
festivals, he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his
domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of burial, the
almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest of the diocese. On
the first day of every month, he distributed to the poor, according to
the season, their stated portion of corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil,
fish, fresh provisions, clothes, and money; and his treasurers were
continually summoned to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands
of indigence and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless,
of strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day, and
of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a frugal repast,
till he had sent the dishes from his own table to some objects deserving
of his compassion. The misery of the times had reduced the nobles and
matrons of Rome to accept, without a blush, the benevolence of the
church: three thousand virgins received their food and raiment from the
hand of their benefactor; and many bishops of Italy escaped from the
Barbarians to the hospitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might
justly be styled the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme
sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a beggar who had
perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during several days from
the exercise of sacerdotal functions. II. The misfortunes of Rome
involved the apostolical pastor in the business of peace and war; and it
might be doubtful to himself, whether piety or ambition prompted him to
supply the place of his absent sovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor
from a long slumber; exposed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and
his inferior ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn from
Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to guard their
cities and altars; and condescended, in the crisis of danger, to name
the tribunes, and to direct the operations, of the provincial troops.
But the martial spirit of the pope was checked by the scruples of
humanity and religion: the imposition of tribute, though it was employed
in the Italian war, he freely condemned as odious and oppressive; whilst
he protected, against the Imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the
soldiers who deserted a military for a monastic life If we may credit
his own declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to exterminate
the Lombards by their domestic factions, without leaving a king, a duke,
or a count, to save that unfortunate nation from the vengeance of their
foes As a Christian bishop, he preferred the salutary offices of peace;
his mediation appeased the tumult of arms: but he was too conscious of
the arts of the Greeks, and the passions of the Lombards, to engage his
sacred promise for the observance of the truce. Disappointed in the hope
of a general and lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without
the consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy was
suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and seasonable
gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of heretics and
Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by the Byzantine court
with reproach and insult; but in the attachment of a grateful people, he
found the purest reward of a citizen, and the best right of a sovereign.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.

Part I.

Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On Nushirvan. -- His
Son Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed. -- Usurpation Of Baharam. -- Flight
And Restoration Of Chosroes II. -- His Gratitude To The Romans. -- The
Chagan Of The Avars. -- Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice. -- His
Death. -- Tyranny Of Phocas. -- Elevation Of Heraclius. -- The Persian
War. -- Chosroes Subdues Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor. -- Siege Of
Constantinople By The Persians And Avars. -- Persian Expeditions. --
Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.

The conflict of Rome and Persia was prolonged from the death of Crassus
to the reign of Heraclius. An experience of seven hundred years might
convince the rival nations of the impossibility of maintaining their
conquests beyond the fatal limits of the Tigris and Euphrates. Yet the
emulation of Trajan and Julian was awakened by the trophies of
Alexander, and the sovereigns of Persia indulged the ambitious hope of
restoring the empire of Cyrus.  Such extraordinary efforts of power and
courage will always command the attention of posterity; but the events
by which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a faint
impression on the page of history, and the patience of the reader would
be exhausted by the repetition of the same hostilities, undertaken
without cause, prosecuted without glory, and terminated without effect.
The arts of negotiation, unknown to the simple greatness of the senate
and the Cæsars, were assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes;
and the memorials of their perpetual embassies  repeat, with the same
uniform prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the
insolence of the Barbarians, and the servile temper of the tributary
Greeks. Lamenting the barren superfluity of materials, I have studied to
compress the narrative of these uninteresting transactions: but the just
Nushirvan is still applauded as the model of Oriental kings, and the
ambition of his grandson Chosroes prepared the revolution of the East,
which was speedily accomplished by the arms and the religion of the
successors of Mahomet.

In the useless altercations, that precede and justify the quarrels of
princes, the Greeks and the Barbarians accused each other of violating
the peace which had been concluded between the two empires about four
years before the death of Justinian. The sovereign of Persia and India
aspired to reduce under his obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia
Felix; the distant land of myrrh and frankincense, which had escaped,
rather than opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the defeat of
Abrahah under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons and brothers
gave an easy entrance to the Persians: they chased the strangers of
Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea; and a native prince of the ancient
Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or viceroy of the
great Nushirvan.  But the nephew of Justinian declared his resolution to
avenge the injuries of his Christian ally the prince of Abyssinia, as
they suggested a decent pretence to discontinue the annual tribute,
which was poorly disguised by the name of pension. The churches of
Persarmenia were oppressed by the intolerant spirit of the Magi; * they
secretly invoked the protector of the Christians, and, after the pious
murder of their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported as the
brethren and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of Nushirvan
were disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded to the
importunities of the Turks, who offered an alliance against the common
enemy; and the Persian monarchy was threatened at the same instant by
the united forces of Europe, of Æthiopia, and of Scythia. At the age of
fourscore the sovereign of the East would perhaps have chosen the
peaceful enjoyment of his glory and greatness; but as soon as war became
inevitable, he took the field with the alacrity of youth, whilst the
aggressor trembled in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or
Chosroes, conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
important fortress had been left destitute of troops and magazines, the
valor of the inhabitants resisted above five months the archers, the
elephants, and the military engines of the Great King. In the mean while
his general Adarman advanced from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed
the Euphrates, insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the
city of Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,
whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the
bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the provinces
and the court, produced a salutary effect in the repentance and
abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit arose in the Byzantine
councils; and a truce of three years was obtained by the prudence of
Tiberius. That seasonable interval was employed in the preparations of
war; and the voice of rumor proclaimed to the world, that from the
distant countries of the Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Mæsia,
Pannonia, Illyricum, and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry
was reënforced with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Yet the
king of Persia, without fear, or without faith, resolved to prevent the
attack of the enemy; again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing the
ambassadors of Tiberius, arrogantly commanded them to await his arrival
at Cæsarea, the metropolis of the Cappadocian provinces. The two armies
encountered each other in the battle of Melitene: * the Barbarians, who
darkened the air with a cloud of arrows, prolonged their line, and
extended their wings across the plain; while the Romans, in deep and
solid bodies, expected to prevail in closer action, by the weight of
their swords and lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their right
wing, suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard
in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp,
pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a train of
camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the Persian host,
and returned with songs of victory to his friends, who had consumed the
day in single combats, or ineffectual skirmishes. The darkness of the
night, and the separation of the Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an
opportunity of revenge; and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid
and impetuous assault. But the review of his loss, and the consciousness
of his danger, determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat: he burnt, in his
passage, the vacant town of Melitene; and, without consulting the safety
of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an elephant.
After this unsuccessful campaign, the want of magazines, and perhaps
some inroad of the Turks, obliged him to disband or divide his forces;
the Romans were left masters of the field, and their general Justinian,
advancing to the relief of the Persarmenian rebels, erected his standard
on the banks of the Araxes. The great Pompey had formerly halted within
three days' march of the Caspian:  that inland sea was explored, for the
first time, by a hostile fleet,  and seventy thousand captives were
transplanted from Hyrcania to the Isle of Cyprus. On the return of
spring, Justinian descended into the fertile plains of Assyria; the
flames of war approached the residence of Nushirvan; the indignant
monarch sunk into the grave; and his last edict restrained his
successors from exposing their person in battle against the Romans. *
Yet the memory of this transient affront was lost in the glories of a
long reign; and his formidable enemies, after indulging their dream of
conquest, again solicited a short respite from the calamities of war.

The throne of Chosroes Nushirvan was filled by Hormouz, or Hormisdas,
the eldest or the most favored of his sons. With the kingdoms of Persia
and India, he inherited the reputation and example of his father, the
service, in every rank, of his wise and valiant officers, and a general
system of administration, harmonized by time and political wisdom to
promote the happiness of the prince and people. But the royal youth
enjoyed a still more valuable blessing, the friendship of a sage who had
presided over his education, and who always preferred the honor to the
interest of his pupil, his interest to his inclination. In a dispute
with the Greek and Indian philosophers, Buzurg  had once maintained,
that the most grievous misfortune of life is old age without the
remembrance of virtue; and our candor will presume that the same
principle compelled him, during three years, to direct the councils of
the Persian empire. His zeal was rewarded by the gratitude and docility
of Hormouz, who acknowledged himself more indebted to his preceptor than
to his parent: but when age and labor had impaired the strength, and
perhaps the faculties, of this prudent counsellor, he retired from
court, and abandoned the youthful monarch to his own passions and those
of his favorites. By the fatal vicissitude of human affairs, the same
scenes were renewed at Ctesiphon, which had been exhibited at Rome after
the death of Marcus Antoninus. The ministers of flattery and corruption,
who had been banished by his father, were recalled and cherished by the
son; the disgrace and exile of the friends of Nushirvan established
their tyranny; and virtue was driven by degrees from the mind of
Hormouz, from his palace, and from the government of the state. The
faithful agents, the eyes and ears of the king, informed him of the
progress of disorder, that the provincial governors flew to their prey
with the fierceness of lions and eagles, and that their rapine and
injustice would teach the most loyal of his subjects to abhor the name
and authority of their sovereign. The sincerity of this advice was
punished with death; the murmurs of the cities were despised, their
tumults were quelled by military execution: the intermediate powers
between the throne and the people were abolished; and the childish
vanity of Hormouz, who affected the daily use of the tiara, was fond of
declaring, that he alone would be the judge as well as the master of his
kingdom. In every word, and in every action, the son of Nushirvan
degenerated from the virtues of his father. His avarice defrauded the
troops; his jealous caprice degraded the satraps; the palace, the
tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were stained with the blood of the
innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings and execution of
thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his cruelty, he sometimes
condescended to observe, that the fears of the Persians would be
productive of hatred, and that their hatred must terminate in rebellion
but he forgot that his own guilt and folly had inspired the sentiments
which he deplored, and prepared the event which he so justly
apprehended. Exasperated by long and hopeless oppression, the provinces
of Babylon, Susa, and Carmania, erected the standard of revolt; and the
princes of Arabia, India, and Scythia, refused the customary tribute to
the unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow
sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of Mesopotamia and
Assyria: one of their generals professed himself the disciple of Scipio;
and the soldiers were animated by a miraculous image of Christ, whose
mild aspect should never have been displayed in the front of battle.  At
the same time, the eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great
khan, who passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand
Turks. The imprudent Hormouz accepted their perfidious and formidable
aid; the cities of Khorassan or Bactriana were commanded to open their
gates the march of the Barbarians towards the mountains of Hyrcania
revealed the correspondence of the Turkish and Roman arms; and their
union must have subverted the throne of the house of Sassan.

Persia had been lost by a king; it was saved by a hero. After his
revolt, Varanes or Bahram is stigmatized by the son of Hormouz as an
ungrateful slave; the proud and ambiguous reproach of despotism, since
he was truly descended from the ancient princes of Rei,  one of the
seven families whose splendid, as well as substantial, prerogatives
exalted them above the heads of the Persian nobility.  At the siege of
Dara, the valor of Bahram was signalized under the eyes of Nushirvan,
and both the father and son successively promoted him to the command of
armies, the government of Media, and the superintendence of the palace.
The popular prediction which marked him as the deliverer of Persia,
might be inspired by his past victories and extraordinary figure: the
epithet Giubin* is expressive of the quality of dry wood: he had the
strength and stature of a giant; and his savage countenance was
fancifully compared to that of a wild cat. While the nation trembled,
while Hormouz disguised his terror by the name of suspicion, and his
servants concealed their disloyalty under the mask of fear, Bahram alone
displayed his undaunted courage and apparent fidelity: and as soon as he
found that no more than twelve thousand soldiers would follow him
against the enemy; he prudently declared, that to this fatal number
Heaven had reserved the honors of the triumph.  The steep and narrow
descent of the Pule Rudbar,  or Hyrcanian rock, is the only pass through
which an army can penetrate into the territory of Rei and the plains of
Media. From the commanding heights, a band of resolute men might
overwhelm with stones and darts the myriads of the Turkish host: their
emperor and his son were transpierced with arrows; and the fugitives
were left, without counsel or provisions, to the revenge of an injured
people. The patriotism of the Persian general was stimulated by his
affection for the city of his forefathers: in the hour of victory, every
peasant became a soldier, and every soldier a hero; and their ardor was
kindled by the gorgeous spectacle of beds, and thrones, and tables of
massy gold, the spoils of Asia, and the luxury of the hostile camp. A
prince of a less malignant temper could not easily have forgiven his
benefactor; and the secret hatred of Hormouz was envenomed by a
malicious report, that Bahram had privately retained the most precious
fruits of his Turkish victory. But the approach of a Roman army on the
side of the Araxes compelled the implacable tyrant to smile and to
applaud; and the toils of Bahram were rewarded with the permission of
encountering a new enemy, by their skill and discipline more formidable
than a Scythian multitude. Elated by his recent success, he despatched a
herald with a bold defiance to the camp of the Romans, requesting them
to fix a day of battle, and to choose whether they would pass the river
themselves, or allow a free passage to the arms of the great king. The
lieutenant of the emperor Maurice preferred the safer alternative; and
this local circumstance, which would have enhanced the victory of the
Persians, rendered their defeat more bloody and their escape more
difficult. But the loss of his subjects, and the danger of his kingdom,
were overbalanced in the mind of Hormouz by the disgrace of his personal
enemy; and no sooner had Bahram collected and reviewed his forces, than
he received from a royal messenger the insulting gift of a distaff, a
spinning-wheel, and a complete suit of female apparel. Obedient to the
will of his sovereign he showed himself to the soldiers in this unworthy
disguise they resented his ignominy and their own; a shout of rebellion
ran through the ranks; and the general accepted their oath of fidelity
and vows of revenge. A second messenger, who had been commanded to bring
the rebel in chains, was trampled under the feet of an elephant, and
manifestos were diligently circulated, exhorting the Persians to assert
their freedom against an odious and contemptible tyrant. The defection
was rapid and universal; his loyal slaves were sacrificed to the public
fury; the troops deserted to the standard of Bahram; and the provinces
again saluted the deliverer of his country.

As the passes were faithfully guarded, Hormouz could only compute the
number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty conscience, and the
daily defection of those who, in the hour of his distress, avenged their
wrongs, or forgot their obligations. He proudly displayed the ensigns of
royalty; but the city and palace of Modain had already escaped from the
hand of the tyrant. Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a
Sassanian prince, had been cast into a dungeon; his fetters were broken
by the zeal and courage of a brother; and he stood before the king at
the head of those trusty guards, who had been chosen as the ministers of
his confinement, and perhaps of his death. Alarmed by the hasty
intrusion and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormouz looked round, but
in vain, for advice or assistance; discovered that his strength
consisted in the obedience of others; and patiently yielded to the
single arm of Bindoes, who dragged him from the throne to the same
dungeon in which he himself had been so lately confined. At the first
tumult, Chosroes, the eldest of the sons of Hormouz, escaped from the
city; he was persuaded to return by the pressing and friendly invitation
of Bindoes, who promised to seat him on his father's throne, and who
expected to reign under the name of an inexperienced youth. In the just
assurance, that his accomplices could neither forgive nor hope to be
forgiven, and that every Persian might be trusted as the judge and enemy
of the tyrant, he instituted a public trial without a precedent and
without a copy in the annals of the East. The son of Nushirvan, who had
requested to plead in his own defence, was introduced as a criminal into
the full assembly of the nobles and satraps.  He was heard with decent
attention as long as he expatiated on the advantages of order and
obedience, the danger of innovation, and the inevitable discord of those
who had encouraged each other to trample on their lawful and hereditary
sovereign. By a pathetic appeal to their humanity, he extorted that pity
which is seldom refused to the fallen fortunes of a king; and while they
beheld the abject posture and squalid appearance of the prisoner, his
tears, his chains, and the marks of ignominious stripes, it was
impossible to forget how recently they had adored the divine splendor of
his diadem and purple. But an angry murmur arose in the assembly as soon
as he presumed to vindicate his conduct, and to applaud the victories of
his reign. He defined the duties of a king, and the Persian nobles
listened with a smile of contempt; they were fired with indignation when
he dared to vilify the character of Chosroes; and by the indiscreet
offer of resigning the sceptre to the second of his sons, he subscribed
his own condemnation, and sacrificed the life of his own innocent
favorite. The mangled bodies of the boy and his mother were exposed to
the people; the eyes of Hormouz were pierced with a hot needle; and the
punishment of the father was succeeded by the coronation of his eldest
son. Chosroes had ascended the throne without guilt, and his piety
strove to alleviate the misery of the abdicated monarch; from the
dungeon he removed Hormouz to an apartment of the palace, supplied with
liberality the consolations of sensual enjoyment, and patiently endured
the furious sallies of his resentment and despair. He might despise the
resentment of a blind and unpopular tyrant, but the tiara was trembling
on his head, till he could subvert the power, or acquire the friendship,
of the great Bahram, who sternly denied the justice of a revolution, in
which himself and his soldiers, the true representatives of Persia, had
never been consulted. The offer of a general amnesty, and of the second
rank in his kingdom, was answered by an epistle from Bahram, friend of
the gods, conqueror of men, and enemy of tyrants, the satrap of satraps,
general of the Persian armies, and a prince adorned with the title of
eleven virtues.  He commands Chosroes, the son of Hormouz, to shun the
example and fate of his father, to confine the traitors who had been
released from their chains, to deposit in some holy place the diadem
which he had usurped, and to accept from his gracious benefactor the
pardon of his faults and the government of a province. The rebel might
not be proud, and the king most assuredly was not humble; but the one
was conscious of his strength, the other was sensible of his weakness;
and even the modest language of his reply still left room for treaty and
reconciliation. Chosroes led into the field the slaves of the palace and
the populace of the capital: they beheld with terror the banners of a
veteran army; they were encompassed and surprised by the evolutions of
the general; and the satraps who had deposed Hormouz, received the
punishment of their revolt, or expiated their first treason by a second
and more criminal act of disloyalty. The life and liberty of Chosroes
were saved, but he was reduced to the necessity of imploring aid or
refuge in some foreign land; and the implacable Bindoes, anxious to
secure an unquestionable title, hastily returned to the palace, and
ended, with a bowstring, the wretched existence of the son of Nushirvan.

While Chosroes despatched the preparations of his retreat, he
deliberated with his remaining friends,  whether he should lurk in the
valleys of Mount Caucasus, or fly to the tents of the Turks, or solicit
the protection of the emperor. The long emulation of the successors of
Artaxerxes and Constantine increased his reluctance to appear as a
suppliant in a rival court; but he weighed the forces of the Romans, and
prudently considered that the neighborhood of Syria would render his
escape more easy and their succors more effectual. Attended only by his
concubines, and a troop of thirty guards, he secretly departed from the
capital, followed the banks of the Euphrates, traversed the desert, and
halted at the distance of ten miles from Circesium. About the third
watch of the night, the Roman præfect was informed of his approach, and
he introduced the royal stranger to the fortress at the dawn of day.
From thence the king of Persia was conducted to the more honorable
residence of Hierapolis; and Maurice dissembled his pride, and displayed
his benevolence, at the reception of the letters and ambassadors of the
grandson of Nushirvan. They humbly represented the vicissitudes of
fortune and the common interest of princes, exaggerated the ingratitude
of Bahram, the agent of the evil principle, and urged, with specious
argument, that it was for the advantage of the Romans themselves to
support the two monarchies which balance the world, the two great
luminaries by whose salutary influence it is vivified and adorned. The
anxiety of Chosroes was soon relieved by the assurance, that the emperor
had espoused the cause of justice and royalty; but Maurice prudently
declined the expense and delay of his useless visit to Constantinople.
In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich diadem was presented to
the fugitive prince, with an inestimable gift of jewels and gold; a
powerful army was assembled on the frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under
the command of the valiant and faithful Narses,  and this general, of
his own nation, and his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris, and
never to sheathe his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne
of his ancestors. * The enterprise, however splendid, was less arduous
than it might appear. Persia had already repented of her fatal rashness,
which betrayed the heir of the house of Sassan to the ambition of a
rebellious subject: and the bold refusal of the Magi to consecrate his
usurpation, compelled Bahram to assume the sceptre, regardless of the
laws and prejudices of the nation. The palace was soon distracted with
conspiracy, the city with tumult, the provinces with insurrection; and
the cruel execution of the guilty and the suspected served to irritate
rather than subdue the public discontent. No sooner did the grandson of
Nushirvan display his own and the Roman banners beyond the Tigris, than
he was joined, each day, by the increasing multitudes of the nobility
and people; and as he advanced, he received from every side the grateful
offerings of the keys of his cities and the heads of his enemies. As
soon as Modain was freed from the presence of the usurper, the loyal
inhabitants obeyed the first summons of Mebodes at the head of only two
thousand horse, and Chosroes accepted the sacred and precious ornaments
of the palace as the pledge of their truth and the presage of his
approaching success. After the junction of the Imperial troops, which
Bahram vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two
battles on the banks of the Zab, and the confines of Media. The Romans,
with the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty thousand, while
the whole force of the usurper did not exceed forty thousand men: the
two generals signalized their valor and ability; but the victory was
finally determined by the prevalence of numbers and discipline. With the
remnant of a broken army, Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of
the Oxus: the enmity of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days
were shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the
stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost glory.
Yet the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of Bahram; and
some excellent laws have prolonged the duration of his troubled and
transitory reign. *

The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and executions;
and the music of the royal banquet was often disturbed by the groans of
dying or mutilated criminals. A general pardon might have diffused
comfort and tranquillity through a country which had been shaken by the
late revolutions; yet, before the sanguinary temper of Chosroes is
blamed, we should learn whether the Persians had not been accustomed
either to dread the rigor, or to despise the weakness, of their
sovereign. The revolt of Bahram, and the conspiracy of the satraps, were
impartially punished by the revenge or justice of the conqueror; the
merits of Bindoes himself could not purify his hand from the guilt of
royal blood: and the son of Hormouz was desirous to assert his own
innocence, and to vindicate the sanctity of kings. During the vigor of
the Roman power, several princes were seated on the throne of Persia by
the arms and the authority of the first Cæsars. But their new subjects
were soon disgusted with the vices or virtues which they had imbibed in
a foreign land; the instability of their dominion gave birth to a vulgar
observation, that the choice of Rome was solicited and rejected with
equal ardor by the capricious levity of Oriental slaves.  But the glory
of Maurice was conspicuous in the long and fortunate reign of his sonand
his ally. A band of a thousand Romans, who continued to guard the person
of Chosroes, proclaimed his confidence in the fidelity of the strangers;
his growing strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he
steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his adopted
father; and till the death of Maurice, the peace and alliance of the two
empires were faithfully maintained. Yet the mercenary friendship of the
Roman prince had been purchased with costly and important gifts; the
strong cities of Martyropolis and Dara * were restored, and the
Persarmenians became the willing subjects of an empire, whose eastern
limit was extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the
banks of the Araxes, and the neighborhood of the Caspian. A pious hope
was indulged, that the church as well as the state might triumph in this
revolution: but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the Christian
bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and eloquence of the
Magi: if he was armed with philosophic indifference, he accommodated his
belief, or rather his professions, to the various circumstances of an
exile and a sovereign. The imaginary conversion of the king of Persia
was reduced to a local and superstitious veneration for Sergius,  one of
the saints of Antioch, who heard his prayers and appeared to him in
dreams; he enriched the shrine with offerings of gold and silver, and
ascribed to this invisible patron the success of his arms, and the
pregnancy of Sira, a devout Christian and the best beloved of his wives.
The beauty of Sira, or Schirin,  her wit, her musical talents, are still
famous in the history, or rather in the romances, of the East: her own
name is expressive, in the Persian tongue, of sweetness and grace; and
the epithet of Parvizalludes to the charms of her royal lover. Yet Sira
never shared the passions which she inspired, and the bliss of Chosroes
was tortured by a jealous doubt, that while he possessed her person, she
had bestowed her affections on a meaner favorite.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia. -- Part II.

While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the
prospect of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the departure
of the Lombards, and the ruin of the Gepidæ, the balance of power was
destroyed on the Danube; and the Avars spread their permanent dominion
from the foot of the Alps to the sea-coast of the Euxine. The reign of
Baian is the brightest æra of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied
the rustic palace of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and
policy;  but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a
minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the greatness and
novelty of the original. The pride of the second Justin, of Tiberius,
and Maurice, was humbled by a proud Barbarian, more prompt to inflict,
than exposed to suffer, the injuries of war; and as often as Asia was
threatened by the Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous
inroads, or costly friendship, of the Avars. When the Roman envoys
approached the presence of the chagan, they were commanded to wait at
the door of his tent, till, at the end perhaps of ten or twelve days, he
condescended to admit them. If the substance or the style of their
message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with real or affected
fury, their own dignity, and that of their prince; their baggage was
plundered, and their lives were only saved by the promise of a richer
present and a more respectful address. But hissacred ambassadors enjoyed
and abused an unbounded license in the midst of Constantinople: they
urged, with importunate clamors, the increase of tribute, or the
restitution of captives and deserters: and the majesty of the empire was
almost equally degraded by a base compliance, or by the false and
fearful excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands. The chagan
had never seen an elephant; and his curiosity was excited by the
strange, and perhaps fabulous, portrait of that wonderful animal. At his
command, one of the largest elephants of the Imperial stables was
equipped with stately caparisons, and conducted by a numerous train to
the royal village in the plains of Hungary. He surveyed the enormous
beast with surprise, with disgust, and possibly with terror; and smiled
at the vain industry of the Romans, who, in search of such useless
rarities, could explore the limits of the land and sea. He wished, at
the expense of the emperor, to repose in a golden bed. The wealth of
Constantinople, and the skilful diligence of her artists, were instantly
devoted to the gratification of his caprice; but when the work was
finished, he rejected with scorn a present so unworthy the majesty of a
great king.  These were the casual sallies of his pride; but the avarice
of the chagan was a more steady and tractable passion: a rich and
regular supply of silk apparel, furniture, and plate, introduced the
rudiments of art and luxury among the tents of the Scythians; their
appetite was stimulated by the pepper and cinnamon of India;  the annual
subsidy or tribute was raised from fourscore to one hundred and twenty
thousand pieces of gold; and after each hostile interruption, the
payment of the arrears, with exorbitant interest, was always made the
first condition of the new treaty. In the language of a Barbarian,
without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to complain of the
insincerity of the Greeks;  yet he was not inferior to the most
civilized nations in the refinement of dissimulation and perfidy. As the
successor of the Lombards, the chagan asserted his claim to the
important city of Sirmium, the ancient bulwark of the Illyrian
provinces.  The plains of the Lower Hungary were covered with the Avar
horse and a fleet of large boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to
descend the Danube, and to transport into the Save the materials of a
bridge. But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the
conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and baffled
his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn oath that his
views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by his sword, the symbol
of the god of war, that he did not, as the enemy of Rome, construct a
bridge upon the Save. "If I violate my oath," pursued the intrepid
Baian, "may I myself, and the last of my nation, perish by the sword!
May the heavens, and fire, the deity of the heavens, fall upon our
heads! May the forests and mountains bury us in their ruins! and the
Save returning, against the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us
in his angry waters!" After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly
inquired, what oath was most sacred and venerable among the Christians,
what guilt or perjury it was most dangerous to incur. The bishop of
Singidunum presented the gospel, which the chagan received with devout
reverence. "I swear," said he, "by the God who has spoken in this holy
book, that I have neither falsehood on my tongue, nor treachery in my
heart." As soon as he rose from his knees, he accelerated the labor of
the bridge, and despatched an envoy to proclaim what he no longer wished
to conceal. "Inform the emperor," said the perfidious Baian, "that
Sirmium is invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the
citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now
impossible to relieve or defend." Without the hope of relief, the
defence of Sirmium was prolonged above three years: the walls were still
untouched; but famine was enclosed within the walls, till a merciful
capitulation allowed the escape of the naked and hungry inhabitants.
Singidunum, at the distance of fifty miles, experienced a more cruel
fate: the buildings were razed, and the vanquished people was condemned
to servitude and exile. Yet the ruins of Sirmium are no longer visible;
the advantageous situation of Singidunum soon attracted a new colony of
Sclavonians, and the conflux of the Save and Danube is still guarded by
the fortifications of Belgrade, or the White City, so often and so
obstinately disputed by the Christian and Turkish arms.  From Belgrade
to the walls of Constantinople a line may be measured of six hundred
miles: that line was marked with flames and with blood; the horses of
the Avars were alternately bathed in the Euxine and the Adriatic; and
the Roman pontiff, alarmed by the approach of a more savage enemy,  was
reduced to cherish the Lombards, as the protectors of Italy. The despair
of a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the Avars
the invention and practice of military engines.  But in the first
attempts they were rudely framed, and awkwardly managed; and the
resistance of Diocletianopolis and Beræa, of Philippopolis and
Adrianople, soon exhausted the skill and patience of the besiegers. The
warfare of Baian was that of a Tartar; yet his mind was susceptible of a
humane and generous sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary
waters had restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and the
Romans confessed, that their starving army was fed and dismissed by the
liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary, Poland, and
Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the Oder;  and his new
subjects were divided and transplanted by the jealous policy of the
conqueror.  The eastern regions of Germany, which had been left vacant
by the emigration of the Vandals, were replenished with Sclavonian
colonists; the same tribes are discovered in the neighborhood of the
Adriatic and of the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself, the
Illyrian cities of Neyss and Lissa are again found in the heart of
Silesia. In the disposition both of his troops and provinces the chagan
exposed the vassals, whose lives he disregarded,  to the first assault;
and the swords of the enemy were blunted before they encountered the
native valor of the Avars.

The Persian alliance restored the troops of the East to the defence of
Europe: and Maurice, who had supported ten years the insolence of the
chagan, declared his resolution to march in person against the
Barbarians. In the space of two centuries, none of the successors of
Theodosius had appeared in the field: their lives were supinely spent in
the palace of Constantinople; and the Greeks could no longer understand,
that the name of emperor, in its primitive sense, denoted the chief of
the armies of the republic. The martial ardor of Maurice was opposed by
the grave flattery of the senate, the timid superstition of the
patriarch, and the tears of the empress Constantina; and they all
conjured him to devolve on some meaner general the fatigues and perils
of a Scythian campaign. Deaf to their advice and entreaty, the emperor
boldly advanced  seven miles from the capital; the sacred ensign of the
cross was displayed in the front; and Maurice reviewed, with conscious
pride, the arms and numbers of the veterans who had fought and conquered
beyond the Tigris. Anchialus was the last term of his progress by sea
and land; he solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his
nocturnal prayers; his mind was confounded by the death of a favorite
horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain, and the
birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best of omens is to
unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country.  Under the pretence
of receiving the ambassadors of Persia, the emperor returned to
Constantinople, exchanged the thoughts of war for those of devotion, and
disappointed the public hope by his absence and the choice of his
lieutenants. The blind partiality of fraternal love might excuse the
promotion of his brother Peter, who fled with equal disgrace from the
Barbarians, from his own soldiers and from the inhabitants of a Roman
city. That city, if we may credit the resemblance of name and character,
was the famous Azimuntium,  which had alone repelled the tempest of
Attila. The example of her warlike youth was propagated to succeeding
generations; and they obtained, from the first or the second Justin, an
honorable privilege, that their valor should be always reserved for the
defence of their native country. The brother of Maurice attempted to
violate this privilege, and to mingle a patriot band with the
mercenaries of his camp; they retired to the church, he was not awed by
the sanctity of the place; the people rose in their cause, the gates
were shut, the ramparts were manned; and the cowardice of Peter was
found equal to his arrogance and injustice. The military fame of
Commentiolus  is the object of satire or comedy rather than of serious
history, since he was even deficient in the vile and vulgar
qualification of personal courage. His solemn councils, strange
evolutions, and secret orders, always supplied an apology for flight or
delay. If he marched against the enemy, the pleasant valleys of Mount
Hæmus opposed an insuperable barrier; but in his retreat, he explored,
with fearless curiosity, the most difficult and obsolete paths, which
had almost escaped the memory of the oldest native. The only blood which
he lost was drawn, in a real or affected malady, by the lancet of a
surgeon; and his health, which felt with exquisite sensibility the
approach of the Barbarians, was uniformly restored by the repose and
safety of the winter season. A prince who could promote and support this
unworthy favorite must derive no glory from the accidental merit of his
colleague Priscus.  In five successive battles, which seem to have been
conducted with skill and resolution, seventeen thousand two hundred
Barbarians were made prisoners: near sixty thousand, with four sons of
the chagan, were slain: the Roman general surprised a peaceful district
of the Gepidæ, who slept under the protection of the Avars; and his last
trophies were erected on the banks of the Danube and the Teyss. Since
the death of Trajan the arms of the empire had not penetrated so deeply
into the old Dacia: yet the success of Priscus was transient and barren;
and he was soon recalled by the apprehension that Baian, with dauntless
spirit and recruited forces, was preparing to avenge his defeat under
the walls of Constantinople.

The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Cæsar and
Trajan, than to those of Justinian and Maurice.  The iron of Tuscany or
Pontus still received the keenest temper from the skill of the Byzantine
workmen. The magazines were plentifully stored with every species of
offensive and defensive arms. In the construction and use of ships,
engines, and fortifications, the Barbarians admired the superior
ingenuity of a people whom they had so often vanquished in the field.
The science of tactics, the order, evolutions, and stratagems of
antiquity, was transcribed and studied in the books of the Greeks and
Romans. But the solitude or degeneracy of the provinces could no longer
supply a race of men to handle those weapons, to guard those walls, to
navigate those ships, and to reduce the theory of war into bold and
successful practice. The genius of Belisarius and Narses had been formed
without a master, and expired without a disciple Neither honor, nor
patriotism, nor generous superstition, could animate the lifeless bodies
of slaves and strangers, who had succeeded to the honors of the legions:
it was in the camp alone that the emperor should have exercised a
despotic command; it was only in the camps that his authority was
disobeyed and insulted: he appeased and inflamed with gold the
licentiousness of the troops; but their vices were inherent, their
victories were accidental, and their costly maintenance exhausted the
substance of a state which they were unable to defend. After a long and
pernicious indulgence, the cure of this inveterate evil was undertaken
by Maurice; but the rash attempt, which drew destruction on his own
head, tended only to aggravate the disease. A reformer should be exempt
from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the confidence and
esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim. The troops of Maurice might
listen to the voice of a victorious leader; they disdained the
admonitions of statesmen and sophists; and, when they received an edict
which deducted from their pay the price of their arms and clothing, they
execrated the avarice of a prince insensible of the dangers and fatigues
from which he had escaped. The camps both of Asia and Europe were
agitated with frequent and furious seditions;  the enraged soldiers of
Edessa pursued with reproaches, with threats, with wounds, their
trembling generals; they overturned the statues of the emperor, cast
stones against the miraculous image of Christ, and either rejected the
yoke of all civil and military laws, or instituted a dangerous model of
voluntary subordination. The monarch, always distant and often deceived,
was incapable of yielding or persisting, according to the exigence of
the moment. But the fear of a general revolt induced him too readily to
accept any act of valor, or any expression of loyalty, as an atonement
for the popular offence; the new reform was abolished as hastily as it
had been announced, and the troops, instead of punishment and restraint,
were agreeably surprised by a gracious proclamation of immunities and
rewards. But the soldiers accepted without gratitude the tardy and
reluctant gifts of the emperor: their insolence was elated by the
discovery of his weakness and their own strength; and their mutual
hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of forgiveness or the hope of
reconciliation. The historians of the times adopt the vulgar suspicion,
that Maurice conspired to destroy the troops whom he had labored to
reform; the misconduct and favor of Commentiolus are imputed to this
malevolent design; and every age must condemn the inhumanity of avarice
of a prince, who, by the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of gold,
might have prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in the
hands of the chagan. In the just fervor of indignation, an order was
signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the
magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in the
hostile country of the Avars. The measure of their grievances was full:
they pronounced Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or slaughtered his
faithful adherents, and, under the command of Phocas, a simple
centurion, returned by hasty marches to the neighborhood of
Constantinople. After a long series of legal succession, the military
disorders of the third century were again revived; yet such was the
novelty of the enterprise, that the insurgents were awed by their own
rashness. They hesitated to invest their favorite with the vacant
purple; and, while they rejected all treaty with Maurice himself, they
held a friendly correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with
Germanus, the father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the
former condition of Phocas, that the emperor was ignorant of the name
and character of his rival; but as soon as he learned, that the
centurion, though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of danger,
"Alas!" cried the desponding prince, "if he is a coward, he will surely
be a murderer."

Yet if Constantinople had been firm and faithful, the murderer might
have spent his fury against the walls; and the rebel army would have
been gradually consumed or reconciled by the prudence of the emperor. In
the games of the Circus, which he repeated with unusual pomp, Maurice
disguised, with smiles of confidence, the anxiety of his heart,
condescended to solicit the applause of the factions, and flattered
their pride by accepting from their respective tribunes a list of nine
hundred bluesand fifteen hundred greens, whom he affected to esteem as
the solid pillars of his throne Their treacherous or languid support
betrayed his weakness and hastened his fall: the green faction were the
secret accomplices of the rebels, and the blues recommended lenity and
moderation in a contest with their Roman brethren The rigid and
parsimonious virtues of Maurice had long since alienated the hearts of
his subjects: as he walked barefoot in a religious procession, he was
rudely assaulted with stones, and his guards were compelled to present
their iron maces in the defence of his person. A fanatic monk ran
through the streets with a drawn sword, denouncing against him the wrath
and the sentence of God; and a vile plebeian, who represented his
countenance and apparel, was seated on an ass, and pursued by the
imprecations of the multitude.  The emperor suspected the popularity of
Germanus with the soldiers and citizens: he feared, he threatened, but
he delayed to strike; the patrician fled to the sanctuary of the church;
the people rose in his defence, the walls were deserted by the guards,
and the lawless city was abandoned to the flames and rapine of a
nocturnal tumult. In a small bark, the unfortunate Maurice, with his
wife and nine children, escaped to the Asiatic shore; but the violence
of the wind compelled him to land at the church of St. Autonomus,  near
Chalcedon, from whence he despatched Theodosius, he eldest son, to
implore the gratitude and friendship of the Persian monarch. For
himself, he refused to fly: his body was tortured with sciatic pains,
his mind was enfeebled by superstition; he patiently awaited the event
of the revolution, and addressed a fervent and public prayer to the
Almighty, that the punishment of his sins might be inflicted in this
world rather than in a future life. After the abdication of Maurice, the
two factions disputed the choice of an emperor; but the favorite of the
blues was rejected by the jealousy of their antagonists, and Germanus
himself was hurried along by the crowds who rushed to the palace of
Hebdomon, seven miles from the city, to adore the majesty of Phocas the
centurion. A modest wish of resigning the purple to the rank and merit
of Germanus was opposed by hisresolution, more obstinate and equally
sincere; the senate and clergy obeyed his summons; and, as soon as the
patriarch was assured of his orthodox belief, he consecrated the
successful usurper in the church of St. John the Baptist. On the third
day, amidst the acclamations of a thoughtless people, Phocas made his
public entry in a chariot drawn by four white horses: the revolt of the
troops was rewarded by a lavish donative; and the new sovereign, after
visiting the palace, beheld from his throne the games of the hippodrome.
In a dispute of precedency between the two factions, his partial
judgment inclined in favor of the greens. "Remember that Maurice is
still alive," resounded from the opposite side; and the indiscreet
clamor of the blues admonished and stimulated the cruelty of the tyrant.
The ministers of death were despatched to Chalcedon: they dragged the
emperor from his sanctuary; and the five sons of Maurice were
successively murdered before the eyes of their agonizing parent. At each
stroke, which he felt in his heart, he found strength to rehearse a
pious ejaculation: "Thou art just, O Lord! and thy judgments are
righteous." And such, in the last moments, was his rigid attachment to
truth and justice, that he revealed to the soldiers the pious falsehood
of a nurse who presented her own child in the place of a royal infant.
The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the emperor
himself, in the twentieth year of his reign, and the sixty-third of his
age. The bodies of the father and his five sons were cast into the sea;
their heads were exposed at Constantinople to the insults or pity of the
multitude; and it was not till some signs of putrefaction had appeared,
that Phocas connived at the private burial of these venerable remains.
In that grave, the faults and errors of Maurice were kindly interred.
His fate alone was remembered; and at the end of twenty years, in the
recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful tale was interrupted
by the tears of the audience.

Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would have
been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably acknowledged
in the provinces of the East and West. The images of the emperor and his
wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to the veneration of the clergy
and senate of Rome, and afterwards deposited in the palace of the
Cæsars, between those of Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and a
Christian, it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established
government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of
the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the
saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent
firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is
content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the
oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been
raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may
be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps
a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be
transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom.  I have already
traced the steps of a revolution so pleasing, in Gregory's opinion, both
to heaven and earth; and Phocas does not appear less hateful in the
exercise than in the acquisition of power The pencil of an impartial
historian has delineated the portrait of a monster:  his diminutive and
deformed person, the closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his
beardless chin, and his cheek disfigured and discolored by a formidable
scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in the
supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness; and his
brutal pleasures were either injurious to his subjects or disgraceful to
himself. Without assuming the office of a prince, he renounced the
profession of a soldier; and the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with
ignominious peace, and Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was
inflamed by passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance of
reproach. The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been
intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was beheaded
at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were soothed by the
comforts of religion and the consciousness of innocence. Yet his phantom
disturbed the repose of the usurper: a whisper was circulated through
the East, that the son of Maurice was still alive: the people expected
their avenger, and the widow and daughters of the late emperor would
have adopted as their son and brother the vilest of mankind. In the
massacre of the Imperial family,  the mercy, or rather the discretion,
of Phocas had spared these unhappy females, and they were decently
confined to a private house. But the spirit of the empress Constantina,
still mindful of her father, her husband, and her sons, aspired to
freedom and revenge. At the dead of night, she escaped to the sanctuary
of St. Sophia; but her tears, and the gold of her associate Germanus,
were insufficient to provoke an insurrection. Her life was forfeited to
revenge, and even to justice: but the patriarch obtained and pledged an
oath for her safety: a monastery was allotted for her prison, and the
widow of Maurice accepted and abused the lenity of his assassin. The
discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy, dissolved the
engagements, and rekindled the fury, of Phocas. A matron who commanded
the respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife, and mother of
emperors, was tortured like the vilest malefactor, to force a confession
of her designs and associates; and the empress Constantina, with her
three innocent daughters, was beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same ground
which had been stained with the blood of her husband and five sons.
After such an example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names
and sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom preceded
by the forms of trial, and their punishment was embittered by the
refinements of cruelty: their eyes were pierced, their tongues were torn
from the root, the hands and feet were amputated; some expired under the
lash, others in the flames; others again were transfixed with arrows;
and a simple speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The
hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of the
Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs, and mangled bodies; and the
companions of Phocas were the most sensible, that neither his favor, nor
their services, could protect them from a tyrant, the worthy rival of
the Caligulas and Domitians of the first age of the empire.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia. -- Part III.

A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to the
patrician Crispus,  and the royalimages of the bride and bridegroom were
indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of the emperor. The
father must desire that his posterity should inherit the fruit of his
crimes, but the monarch was offended by this premature and popular
association: the tribunes of the green faction, who accused the
officious error of their sculptors, were condemned to instant death:
their lives were granted to the prayers of the people; but Crispus might
reasonably doubt, whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his
involuntary competition. The green faction was alienated by the
ingratitude of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every province
of the empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa,
persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience to the
centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By the secret
emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent exarch was
solicited to save and to govern his country; but his ambition was
chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous enterprise to his son
Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of Gregory, his friend and
lieutenant. The powers of Africa were armed by the two adventurous
youths; they agreed that the one should navigate the fleet from Carthage
to Constantinople, that the other should lead an army through Egypt and
Asia, and that the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence and
success. A faint rumor of their undertaking was conveyed to the ears of
Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius were secured as
the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous heart of Crispus
extenuated the distant peril, the means of defence were neglected or
delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept till the African navy cast anchor
in the Hellespont. Their standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives
and exiles who thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty
masts were adorned with the holy symbols of religion,  steered their
triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from the
windows of the palace his approaching and inevitable fate. The green
faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to oppose a feeble and
fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans: but the people, and
even the guards, were determined by the well-timed defection of Crispus;
and they tyrant was seized by a private enemy, who boldly invaded the
solitude of the palace. Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a
vile habit, and loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat
to the Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes
of his abominable reign. "Wilt thou govern better?" were the last words
of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of insult and
torture, his head was severed from his body, the mangled trunk was cast
into the flames, and the same treatment was inflicted on the statues of
the vain usurper, and the seditious banner of the green faction. The
voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to
ascend the throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after
some graceful hesitation, he yielded to their entreaties. His coronation
was accompanied by that of his wife Eudoxia; and their posterity, till
the fourth generation, continued to reign over the empire of the East.
The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and prosperous; the tedious march
of Nicetas was not accomplished before the decision of the contest: but
he submitted without a murmur to the fortune of his friend, and his
laudable intentions were rewarded with an equestrian statue, and a
daughter of the emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of
Crispus, whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the
Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to excuse, the
ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of the senate, the
son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the monastic life; and the
sentence was justified by the weighty observation of Heraclius, that the
man who had betrayed his father could never be faithful to his friend.

Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of Phocas,
which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her enemies.
According to the friendly and equal forms of the Byzantine and Persian
courts, he announced his exaltation to the throne; and his ambassador
Lilius, who had presented him with the heads of Maurice and his sons,
was the best qualified to describe the circumstances of the tragic
scene.  However it might be varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes
turned with horror from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy,
disclaimed the usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father
and benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment, which humanity
would feel, and honor would dictate, promoted on this occasion the
interest of the Persian king; and his interest was powerfully magnified
by the national and religious prejudices of the Magi and satraps. In a
strain of artful adulation, which assumed the language of freedom, they
presumed to censure the excess of his gratitude and friendship for the
Greeks; a nation with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or
alliance; whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who
must be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most
atrocious of crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign.  For the
crime of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he oppressed was
chastised with the calamities of war; and the same calamities, at the
end of twenty years, were retaliated and redoubled on the heads of the
Persians.  The general who had restored Chosroes to the throne still
commanded in the East; and the name of Narses was the formidable sound
with which the Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their
infants. It is not improbable, that a native subject of Persia should
encourage his master and his friend to deliver and possess the provinces
of Asia. It is still more probable, that Chosroes should animate his
troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded the most would
remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favor. The hero could not
depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the tyrant was conscious how little
he deserved the obedience of a hero. Narses was removed from his
military command; he reared an independent standard at Hierapolis, in
Syria: he was betrayed by fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the
market-place of Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief whom they
could fear or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory were twice
broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced by the
arrows of the Barbarians; and a great number of the captives were
beheaded on the field of battle by the sentence of the victor, who might
justly condemn these seditious mercenaries as the authors or accomplices
of the death of Maurice. Under the reign of Phocas, the fortifications
of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and Edessa, were successively besieged, reduced,
and destroyed, by the Persian monarch: he passed the Euphrates, occupied
the Syrian cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and Berrhæa or Aleppo, and soon
encompassed the walls of Antioch with his irresistible arms. The rapid
tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the incapacity of
Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and Chosroes provided a
decent apology for their submission or revolt, by an impostor, who
attended his camp as the son of Maurice  and the lawful heir of the
monarchy.

The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received,  was that
of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so often overturned by
earthquakes, and pillaged by the enemy, could supply but a small and
languid stream of treasure and blood. The Persians were equally
successful, and more fortunate, in the sack of Cæsarea, the capital of
Cappadocia; and as they advanced beyond the ramparts of the frontier,
the boundary of ancient war, they found a less obstinate resistance and
a more plentiful harvest. The pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned
in every age with a royal city: her obscure felicity has hitherto
escaped the historian of the Roman empire: but Chosroes reposed his
troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the hills of
Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phnician coast. The conquest of
Jerusalem,  which had been meditated by Nushirvan, was achieved by the
zeal and avarice of his grandson; the ruin of the proudest monument of
Christianity was vehemently urged by the intolerant spirit of the Magi;
and he could enlist for this holy warfare with an army of six-and-twenty
thousand Jews, whose furious bigotry might compensate, in some degree,
for the want of valor and discipline. * After the reduction of Galilee,
and the region beyond the Jordan, whose resistance appears to have
delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem itself was taken by assault.
The sepulchre of Christ, and the stately churches of Helena and
Constantine, were consumed, or at least damaged, by the flames; the
devout offerings of three hundred years were rifled in one sacrilegious
day; the Patriarch Zachariah, and the true cross, were transported into
Persia; and the massacre of ninety thousand Christians is imputed to the
Jews and Arabs, who swelled the disorder of the Persian march. The
fugitives of Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the charity of
John the Archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of saints by the
epithet of almsgiver:  and the revenues of the church, with a treasure
of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the true proprietors,
the poor of every country and every denomination. But Egypt itself, the
only province which had been exempt, since the time of Diocletian, from
foreign and domestic war, was again subdued by the successors of Cyrus.
Pelusium, the key of that impervious country, was surprised by the
cavalry of the Persians: they passed, with impunity, the innumerable
channels of the Delta, and explored the long valley of the Nile, from
the pyramids of Memphis to the confines of Æthiopia. Alexandria might
have been relieved by a naval force, but the archbishop and the præfect
embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes entered the second city of the empire,
which still preserved a wealthy remnant of industry and commerce. His
western trophy was erected, not on the walls of Carthage,  but in the
neighborhood of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene were finally
extirpated; and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps of Alexander,
returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert. In the same
campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates to the Thracian
Bosphorus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege, and a Persian camp
was maintained above ten years in the presence of Constantinople. The
sea-coast of Pontus, the city of Ancyra, and the Isle of Rhodes, are
enumerated among the last conquests of the great king; and if Chosroes
had possessed any maritime power, his boundless ambition would have
spread slavery and desolation over the provinces of Europe.

From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the reign of
the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the Hellespont and
the Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian monarchy. But the provinces,
which had been fashioned by the habits of six hundred years to the
virtues and vices of the Roman government, supported with reluctance the
yoke of the Barbarians. The idea of a republic was kept alive by the
institutions, or at least by the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and
the subjects of Heraclius had been educated to pronounce the words of
liberty and law. But it has always been the pride and policy of Oriental
princes to display the titles and attributes of their omnipotence; to
upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name and abject condition,
and to enforce, by cruel and insolent threats, the rigor of their
absolute commands. The Christians of the East were scandalized by the
worship of fire, and the impious doctrine of the two principles: the
Magi were not less intolerant than the bishops; and the martyrdom of
some native Persians, who had deserted the religion of Zoroaster,  was
conceived to be the prelude of a fierce and general persecution. By the
oppressive laws of Justinian, the adversaries of the church were made
the enemies of the state; the alliance of the Jews, Nestorians, and
Jacobites, had contributed to the success of Chosroes, and his partial
favor to the sectaries provoked the hatred and fears of the Catholic
clergy. Conscious of their fear and hatred, the Persian conqueror
governed his new subjects with an iron sceptre; and, as if he suspected
the stability of his dominion, he exhausted their wealth by exorbitant
tributes and licentious rapine despoiled or demolished the temples of
the East; and transported to his hereditary realms the gold, the silver,
the precious marbles, the arts, and the artists of the Asiatic cities.
In the obscure picture of the calamities of the empire,  it is not easy
to discern the figure of Chosroes himself, to separate his actions from
those of his lieutenants, or to ascertain his personal merit in the
general blaze of glory and magnificence. He enjoyed with ostentation the
fruits of victory, and frequently retired from the hardships of war to
the luxury of the palace. But in the space of twenty-four years, he was
deterred by superstition or resentment from approaching the gates of
Ctesiphon: and his favorite residence of Artemita, or Dastagerd, was
situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to the north of the
capital.  The adjacent pastures were covered with flocks and herds: the
paradise or park was replenished with pheasants, peacocks, ostriches,
roebucks, and wild boars, and the noble game of lions and tigers was
sometimes turned loose for the bolder pleasures of the chase. Nine
hundred and sixty elephants were maintained for the use or splendor of
the great king: his tents and baggage were carried into the field by
twelve thousand great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size;  and
the royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses, among
whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their speed or
beauty. * Six thousand guards successively mounted before the palace
gate; the service of the interior apartments was performed by twelve
thousand slaves, and in the number of three thousand virgins, the
fairest of Asia, some happy concubine might console her master for the
age or the indifference of Sira. The various treasures of gold, silver,
gems, silks, and aromatics, were deposited in a hundred subterraneous
vaults and the chamber Badaverddenoted the accidental gift of the winds
which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the Syrian harbors
of his rival. The vice of flattery, and perhaps of fiction, is not
ashamed to compute the thirty thousand rich hangings that adorned the
walls; the forty thousand columns of silver, or more probably of marble,
and plated wood, that supported the roof; and the thousand globes of
gold suspended in the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and
the constellations of the zodiac.  While the Persian monarch
contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an epistle
from an obscure citizen of Mecca, inviting him to acknowledge Mahomet as
the apostle of God. He rejected the invitation, and tore the epistle.
"It is thus," exclaimed the Arabian prophet, "that God will tear the
kingdom, and reject the supplications of Chosroes."   Placed on the
verge of the two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret
joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and in the midst of the
Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before many years should
elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the Romans.

At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no
prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since the first
twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching dissolution of the
empire. If the motives of Chosroes had been pure and honorable, he must
have ended the quarrel with the death of Phocas, and he would have
embraced, as his best ally, the fortunate African who had so generously
avenged the injuries of his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the
war revealed the true character of the Barbarian; and the suppliant
embassies of Heraclius to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the
innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were rejected
with contemptuous silence or insolent menace. Syria, Egypt, and the
provinces of Asia, were subdued by the Persian arms, while Europe, from
the confines of Istria to the long wall of Thrace, was oppressed by the
Avars, unsatiated with the blood and rapine of the Italian war. They had
coolly massacred their male captives in the sacred field of Pannonia;
the women and children were reduced to servitude, and the noblest
virgins were abandoned to the promiscuous lust of the Barbarians. The
amorous matron who opened the gates of Friuli passed a short night in
the arms of her royal lover; the next evening, Romilda was condemned to
the embraces of twelve Avars, and the third day the Lombard princess was
impaled in the sight of the camp, while the chagan observed with a cruel
smile, that such a husband was the fit recompense of her lewdness and
perfidy.  By these implacable enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was
insulted and besieged: and the Roman empire was reduced to the walls of
Constantinople, with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some
maritime cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the
loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and pestilence; and
the emperor, incapable of resistance, and hopeless of relief, had
resolved to transfer his person and government to the more secure
residence of Carthage. His ships were already laden with the treasures
of the palace; but his flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed
the powers of religion in the defence of his country; led Heraclius to
the altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would live
and die with the people whom God had intrusted to his care. The chagan
was encamped in the plains of Thrace; but he dissembled his perfidious
designs, and solicited an interview with the emperor near the town of
Heraclea. Their reconciliation was celebrated with equestrian games; the
senate and people, in their gayest apparel, resorted to the festival of
peace; and the Avars beheld, with envy and desire, the spectacle of
Roman luxury. On a sudden the hippodrome was encompassed by the Scythian
cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal march: the
tremendous sound of the chagan's whip gave the signal of the assault,
and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm, was saved with extreme
hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So rapid was the pursuit, that
the Avars almost entered the golden gate of Constantinople with the
flying crowds:  but the plunder of the suburbs rewarded their treason,
and they transported beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy thousand
captives. On the shore of Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference
with a more honorable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his
galley, saluted with reverence and pity the majesty of the purple. The
friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to conduct an embassy to
the presence of the great king, was accepted with the warmest gratitude,
and the prayer for pardon and peace was humbly presented by the
Prætorian præfect, the præfect of the city, and one of the first
ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church.  But the lieutenant of Chosroes
had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master. "It was not an
embassy," said the tyrant of Asia, "it was the person of Heraclius,
bound in chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne. I
will never give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had abjured his
crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." Sain was flayed
alive, according to the inhuman practice of his country; and the
separate and rigorous confinement of the ambassadors violated the law of
nations, and the faith of an express stipulation. Yet the experience of
six years at length persuaded the Persian monarch to renounce the
conquest of Constantinople, and to specify the annual tribute or ransom
of the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents of
silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand
virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms; but the time and
space which he obtained to collect such treasures from the poverty of
the East, was industriously employed in the preparations of a bold and
desperate attack.

Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of
the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of
a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure,
or of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of the public
calamities. But the languid mists of the morning and evening are
separated by the brightness of the meridian sun; the Arcadius of the
palace arose the Cæsar of the camp; and the honor of Rome and Heraclius
was gloriously retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous
campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have revealed
the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this distance we can only
conjecture, that he was endowed with more personal courage than
political resolution; that he was detained by the charms, and perhaps
the arts, of his niece Martina, with whom, after the death of Eudocia,
he contracted an incestuous marriage;  and that he yielded to the base
advice of the counsellors, who urged, as a fundamental law, that the
life of the emperor should never be exposed in the field.  Perhaps he
was awakened by the last insolent demand of the Persian conqueror; but
at the moment when Heraclius assumed the spirit of a hero, the only
hopes of the Romans were drawn from the vicissitudes of fortune, which
might threaten the proud prosperity of Chosroes, and must be favorable
to those who had attained the lowest period of depression.  To provide
for the expenses of war, was the first care of the emperor; and for the
purpose of collecting the tribute, he was allowed to solicit the
benevolence of the eastern provinces. But the revenue no longer flowed
in the usual channels; the credit of an arbitrary prince is annihilated
by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was first displayed in daring
to borrow the consecrated wealth of churches, under the solemn vow of
restoring, with usury, whatever he had been compelled to employ in the
service of religion and the empire. The clergy themselves appear to have
sympathized with the public distress; and the discreet patriarch of
Alexandria, without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted his
sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret
treasure.  Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only two were
found to have survived the stroke of time and of the Barbarians;  the
loss, even of these seditious veterans, was imperfectly supplied by the
new levies of Heraclius, and the gold of the sanctuary united, in the
same camp, the names, and arms, and languages of the East and West. He
would have been content with the neutrality of the Avars; and his
friendly entreaty, that the chagan would act, not as the enemy, but as
the guardian, of the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive
donative of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two days after the
festival of Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple for the simple
garb of a penitent and warrior,  gave the signal of his departure. To
the faith of the people Heraclius recommended his children; the civil
and military powers were vested in the most deserving hands, and the
discretion of the patriarch and senate was authorized to save or
surrender the city, if they should be oppressed in his absence by the
superior forces of the enemy.

The neighboring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and arms:
but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to the attack,
the victory of the Persians in the sight of Constantinople might have
been the last day of the Roman empire. As imprudent would it have been
to advance into the provinces of Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry
to intercept his convoys, and continually to hang on the lassitude and
disorder of his rear. But the Greeks were still masters of the sea; a
fleet of galleys, transports, and store-ships, was assembled in the
harbor; the Barbarians consented to embark; a steady wind carried them
through the Hellespont the western and southern coast of Asia Minor lay
on their left hand; the spirit of their chief was first displayed in a
storm, and even the eunuchs of his train were excited to suffer and to
work by the example of their master. He landed his troops on the
confines of Syria and Cilicia, in the Gulf of Scanderoon, where the
coast suddenly turns to the south;  and his discernment was expressed in
the choice of this important post.  From all sides, the scattered
garrisons of the maritime cities and the mountains might repair with
speed and safety to his Imperial standard. The natural fortifications of
Cilicia protected, and even concealed, the camp of Heraclius, which was
pitched near Issus, on the same ground where Alexander had vanquished
the host of Darius. The angle which the emperor occupied was deeply
indented into a vast semicircle of the Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian
provinces; and to whatsoever point of the circumference he should direct
his attack, it was easy for him to dissemble his own motions, and to
prevent those of the enemy. In the camp of Issus, the Roman general
reformed the sloth and disorder of the veterans, and educated the new
recruits in the knowledge and practice of military virtue. Unfolding the
miraculous image of Christ, he urged them to revengethe holy altars
which had been profaned by the worshippers of fire; addressing them by
the endearing appellations of sons and brethren, he deplored the public
and private wrongs of the republic. The subjects of a monarch were
persuaded that they fought in the cause of freedom; and a similar
enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign mercenaries, who must have
viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome and of Persia.
Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a centurion,
inculcated the lessons of the school of tactics, and the soldiers were
assiduously trained in the use of their weapons, and the exercises and
evolutions of the field. The cavalry and infantry in light or heavy
armor were divided into two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the
centre, and their signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat or
pursuit; the direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to
represent in fictitious combat the operations of genuine war. Whatever
hardships the emperor imposed on the troops, he inflicted with equal
severity on himself; their labor, their diet, their sleep, were measured
by the inflexible rules of discipline; and, without despising the enemy,
they were taught to repose an implicit confidence in their own valor and
the wisdom of their leader. Cilicia was soon encompassed with the
Persian arms; but their cavalry hesitated to enter the defiles of Mount
Taurus, till they were circumvented by the evolutions of Heraclius, who
insensibly gained their rear, whilst he appeared to present his front in
order of battle. By a false motion, which seemed to threaten Armenia, he
drew them, against their wishes, to a general action. They were tempted
by the artful disorder of his camp; but when they advanced to combat,
the ground, the sun, and the expectation of both armies, were
unpropitious to the Barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their
tactics in a field of battle,  and the event of the day declared to the
world, that the Persians were not invincible, and that a hero was
invested with the purple. Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius boldly
ascended the heights of Mount Taurus, directed his march through the
plains of Cappadocia, and established his troops, for the winter season,
in safe and plentiful quarters on the banks of the River Halys.  His
soul was superior to the vanity of entertaining Constantinople with an
imperfect triumph; but the presence of the emperor was indispensably
required to soothe the restless and rapacious spirit of the Avars.

Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been
attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the
empire  He permitted the Persians to oppress for a while the provinces,
and to insult with impunity the capital of the East; while the Roman
emperor explored his perilous way through the Black Sea,  and the
mountains of Armenia, penetrated into the heart of Persia,  and recalled
the armies of the great king to the defence of their bleeding country.
With a select band of five thousand soldiers, Heraclius sailed from
Constantinople to Trebizond; assembled his forces which had wintered in
the Pontic regions; and, from the mouth of the Phasis to the Caspian
Sea, encouraged his subjects and allies to march with the successor of
Constantine under the faithful and victorious banner of the cross. When
the legions of Lucullus and Pompey first passed the Euphrates, they
blushed at their easy victory over the natives of Armenia. But the long
experience of war had hardened the minds and bodies of that effeminate
people; their zeal and bravery were approved in the service of a
declining empire; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the house
of Sassan, and the memory of persecution envenomed their pious hatred of
the enemies of Christ. The limits of Armenia, as it had been ceded to
the emperor Maurice, extended as far as the Araxes: the river submitted
to the indignity of a bridge,  and Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark
Antony, advanced towards the city of Tauris or Gandzaca,  the ancient
and modern capital of one of the provinces of Media. At the head of
forty thousand men, Chosroes himself had returned from some distant
expedition to oppose the progress of the Roman arms; but he retreated on
the approach of Heraclius, declining the generous alternative of peace
or of battle. Instead of half a million of inhabitants, which have been
ascribed to Tauris under the reign of the Sophys, the city contained no
more than three thousand houses; but the value of the royal treasures
was enhanced by a tradition, that they were the spoils of Crsus, which
had been transported by Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes. The rapid
conquests of Heraclius were suspended only by the winter season; a
motive of prudence, or superstition,  determined his retreat into the
province of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian; and his tents were
most probably pitched in the plains of Mogan,  the favorite encampment
of Oriental princes. In the course of this successful inroad, he
signalized the zeal and revenge of a Christian emperor: at his command,
the soldiers extinguished the fire, and destroyed the temples, of the
Magi; the statues of Chosroes, who aspired to divine honors, were
abandoned to the flames; and the ruins of Thebarma or Ormia,  which had
given birth to Zoroaster himself, made some atonement for the injuries
of the holy sepulchre. A purer spirit of religion was shown in the
relief and deliverance of fifty thousand captives. Heraclius was
rewarded by their tears and grateful acclamations; but this wise
measure, which spread the fame of his benevolence, diffused the murmurs
of the Persians against the pride and obstinacy of their own sovereign.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia. -- Part IV.

Amidst the glories of the succeeding campaign, Heraclius is almost lost
to our eyes, and to those of the Byzantine historians.  From the
spacious and fruitful plains of Albania, the emperor appears to follow
the chain of Hyrcanian Mountains, to descend into the province of Media
or Irak, and to carry his victorious arms as far as the royal cities of
Casbin and Ispahan, which had never been approached by a Roman
conqueror. Alarmed by the danger of his kingdom, the powers of Chosroes
were already recalled from the Nile and the Bosphorus, and three
formidable armies surrounded, in a distant and hostile land, the camp of
the emperor. The Colchian allies prepared to desert his standard; and
the fears of the bravest veterans were expressed, rather than concealed,
by their desponding silence. "Be not terrified," said the intrepid
Heraclius, "by the multitude of your foes. With the aid of Heaven, one
Roman may triumph over a thousand Barbarians. But if we devote our lives
for the salvation of our brethren, we shall obtain the crown of
martyrdom, and our immortal reward will be liberally paid by God and
posterity." These magnanimous sentiments were supported by the vigor of
his actions. He repelled the threefold attack of the Persians, improved
the divisions of their chiefs, and, by a well-concerted train of
marches, retreats, and successful actions, finally chased them from the
field into the fortified cities of Media and Assyria. In the severity of
the winter season, Sarbaraza deemed himself secure in the walls of
Salban: he was surprised by the activity of Heraclius, who divided his
troops, and performed a laborious march in the silence of the night. The
flat roofs of the houses were defended with useless valor against the
darts and torches of the Romans: the satraps and nobles of Persia, with
their wives and children, and the flower of their martial youth, were
either slain or made prisoners. The general escaped by a precipitate
flight, but his golden armor was the prize of the conqueror; and the
soldiers of Heraclius enjoyed the wealth and repose which they had so
nobly deserved. On the return of spring, the emperor traversed in seven
days the mountains of Curdistan, and passed without resistance the rapid
stream of the Tigris. Oppressed by the weight of their spoils and
captives, the Roman army halted under the walls of Amida; and Heraclius
informed the senate of Constantinople of his safety and success, which
they had already felt by the retreat of the besiegers. The bridges of
the Euphrates were destroyed by the Persians; but as soon as the emperor
had discovered a ford, they hastily retired to defend the banks of the
Sarus,  in Cilicia. That river, an impetuous torrent, was about three
hundred feet broad; the bridge was fortified with strong turrets; and
the banks were lined with Barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict,
which continued till the evening, the Romans prevailed in the assault;
and a Persian of gigantic size was slain and thrown into the Sarus by
the hand of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed and
dismayed; Heraclius pursued his march to Sebaste in Cappadocia; and at
the expiration of three years, the same coast of the Euxine applauded
his return from a long and victorious expedition.

Instead of skirmishing on the frontier, the two monarchs who disputed
the empire of the East aimed their desperate strokes at the heart of
their rival. The military force of Persia was wasted by the marches and
combats of twenty years, and many of the veterans, who had survived the
perils of the sword and the climate, were still detained in the
fortresses of Egypt and Syria. But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes
exhausted his kingdom; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and
slaves, were divided into three formidable bodies.  The first army of
fifty thousand men, illustrious by the ornament and title of the golden
spears, was destined to march against Heraclius; the second was
stationed to prevent his junction with the troops of his brother
Theodore's; and the third was commanded to besiege Constantinople, and
to second the operations of the chagan, with whom the Persian king had
ratified a treaty of alliance and partition. Sarbar, the general of the
third army, penetrated through the provinces of Asia to the well-known
camp of Chalcedon, and amused himself with the destruction of the sacred
and profane buildings of the Asiatic suburbs, while he impatiently
waited the arrival of his Scythian friends on the opposite side of the
Bosphorus. On the twenty-ninth of June, thirty thousand Barbarians, the
vanguard of the Avars, forced the long wall, and drove into the capital
a promiscuous crowd of peasants, citizens, and soldiers. Fourscore
thousand  of his native subjects, and of the vassal tribes of Gepidæ,
Russians, Bulgarians, and Sclavonians, advanced under the standard of
the chagan; a month was spent in marches and negotiations, but the whole
city was invested on the thirty-first of July, from the suburbs of Pera
and Galata to the Blachernæand seven towers; and the inhabitants
descried with terror the flaming signals of the European and Asiatic
shores. In the mean while, the magistrates of Constantinople repeatedly
strove to purchase the retreat of the chagan; but their deputies were
rejected and insulted; and he suffered the patricians to stand before
his throne, while the Persian envoys, in silk robes, were seated by his
side. "You see," said the haughty Barbarian, "the proofs of my perfect
union with the great king; and his lieutenant is ready to send into my
camp a select band of three thousand warriors. Presume no longer to
tempt your master with a partial and inadequate ransom your wealth and
your city are the only presents worthy of my acceptance. For yourselves,
I shall permit you to depart, each with an under-garment and a shirt;
and, at my entreaty, my friend Sarbar will not refuse a passage through
his lines. Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has
left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of the
Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into the air like birds,
unless like fishes you could dive into the waves."  During ten
successive days, the capital was assaulted by the Avars, who had made
some progress in the science of attack; they advanced to sap or batter
the wall, under the cover of the impenetrable tortoise; their engines
discharged a perpetual volley of stones and darts; and twelve lofty
towers of wood exalted the combatants to the height of the neighboring
ramparts. But the senate and people were animated by the spirit of
Heraclius, who had detached to their relief a body of twelve thousand
cuirassiers; the powers of fire and mechanics were used with superior
art and success in the defence of Constantinople; and the galleys, with
two and three ranks of oars, commanded the Bosphorus, and rendered the
Persians the idle spectators of the defeat of their allies. The Avars
were repulsed; a fleet of Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor;
the vassals of the chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were
exhausted, and after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow
and formidable retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this signal
deliverance to the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ would surely
have condemned their inhuman murder of the Persian envoys, who were
entitled to the rights of humanity, if they were not protected by the
laws of nations.

After the division of his army, Heraclius prudently retired to the banks
of the Phasis, from whence he maintained a defensive war against the
fifty thousand gold spears of Persia. His anxiety was relieved by the
deliverance of Constantinople; his hopes were confirmed by a victory of
his brother Theodorus; and to the hostile league of Chosroes with the
Avars, the Roman emperor opposed the useful and honorable alliance of
the Turks. At his liberal invitation, the horde of Chozars  transported
their tents from the plains of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia;
Heraclius received them in the neighborhood of Teflis, and the khan with
his nobles dismounted from their horses, if we may credit the Greeks,
and fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the purple of the Cæsars.
Such voluntary homage and important aid were entitled to the warmest
acknowledgments; and the emperor, taking off his own diadem, placed it
on the head of the Turkish prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace
and the appellation of son. After a sumptuous banquet, he presented
Ziebel with the plate and ornaments, the gold, the gems, and the silk,
which had been used at the Imperial table, and, with his own hand,
distributed rich jewels and ear-rings to his new allies. In a secret
interview, he produced the portrait of his daughter Eudocia,
condescended to flatter the Barbarian with the promise of a fair and
august bride; obtained an immediate succor of forty thousand horse, and
negotiated a strong diversion of the Turkish arms on the side of the
Oxus.  The Persians, in their turn, retreated with precipitation; in the
camp of Edessa, Heraclius reviewed an army of seventy thousand Romans
and strangers; and some months were successfully employed in the
recovery of the cities of Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia, whose
fortifications had been imperfectly restored. Sarbar still maintained
the important station of Chalcedon; but the jealousy of Chosroes, or the
artifice of Heraclius, soon alienated the mind of that powerful satrap
from the service of his king and country. A messenger was intercepted
with a real or fictitious mandate to the cadarigan, or second in
command, directing him to send, without delay, to the throne, the head
of a guilty or unfortunate general. The despatches were transmitted to
Sarbar himself; and as soon as he read the sentence of his own death, he
dexterously inserted the names of four hundred officers, assembled a
military council, and asked the cadariganwhether he was prepared to
execute the commands of their tyrant. The Persians unanimously declared,
that Chosroes had forfeited the sceptre; a separate treaty was concluded
with the government of Constantinople; and if some considerations of
honor or policy restrained Sarbar from joining the standard of
Heraclius, the emperor was assured that he might prosecute, without
interruption, his designs of victory and peace.

Deprived of his firmest support, and doubtful of the fidelity of his
subjects, the greatness of Chosroes was still conspicuous in its ruins.
The number of five hundred thousand may be interpreted as an Oriental
metaphor, to describe the men and arms, the horses and elephants, that
covered Media and Assyria against the invasion of Heraclius. Yet the
Romans boldly advanced from the Araxes to the Tigris, and the timid
prudence of Rhazates was content to follow them by forced marches
through a desolate country, till he received a peremptory mandate to
risk the fate of Persia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at
the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been
erected:  the city, and even the ruins of the city, had long since
disappeared;  the vacant space afforded a spacious field for the
operations of the two armies. But these operations are neglected by the
Byzantine historians, and, like the authors of epic poetry and romance,
they ascribe the victory, not to the military conduct, but to the
personal valor, of their favorite hero. On this memorable day,
Heraclius, on his horse Phallas, surpassed the bravest of his warriors:
his lip was pierced with a spear; the steed was wounded in the thigh;
but he carried his master safe and victorious through the triple phalanx
of the Barbarians. In the heat of the action, three valiant chiefs were
successively slain by the sword and lance of the emperor: among these
was Rhazates himself; he fell like a soldier, but the sight of his head
scattered grief and despair through the fainting ranks of the Persians.
His armor of pure and massy gold, the shield of one hundred and twenty
plates, the sword and belt, the saddle and cuirass, adorned the triumph
of Heraclius; and if he had not been faithful to Christ and his mother,
the champion of Rome might have offered the fourth opimespoils to the
Jupiter of the Capitol.  In the battle of Nineveh, which was fiercely
fought from daybreak to the eleventh hour, twenty-eight standards,
besides those which might be broken or torn, were taken from the
Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut in pieces, and the
victors, concealing their own loss, passed the night on the field. They
acknowledged, that on this occasion it was less difficult to kill than
to discomfit the soldiers of Chosroes; amidst the bodies of their
friends, no more than two bow-shot from the enemy the remnant of the
Persian cavalry stood firm till the seventh hour of the night; about the
eighth hour they retired to their unrifled camp, collected their
baggage, and dispersed on all sides, from the want of orders rather than
of resolution. The diligence of Heraclius was not less admirable in the
use of victory; by a march of forty-eight miles in four-and-twenty
hours, his vanguard occupied the bridges of the great and the lesser
Zab; and the cities and palaces of Assyria were open for the first time
to the Romans. By a just gradation of magnificent scenes, they
penetrated to the royal seat of Dastagerd, * and, though much of the
treasure had been removed, and much had been expended, the remaining
wealth appears to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have satiated
their avarice. Whatever could not be easily transported, they consumed
with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of those wounds which he
had so often inflicted on the provinces of the empire: and justice might
allow the excuse, if the desolation had been confined to the works of
regal luxury, if national hatred, military license, and religious zeal,
had not wasted with equal rage the habitations and the temples of the
guiltless subject. The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and
the deliverance of the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria,
reflect a purer glory on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace of
Dastagerd, he pursued his march within a few miles of Modain or
Ctesiphon, till he was stopped, on the banks of the Arba, by the
difficulty of the passage, the rigor of the season, and perhaps the fame
of an impregnable capital. The return of the emperor is marked by the
modern name of the city of Sherhzour: he fortunately passed Mount Zara,
before the snow, which fell incessantly thirty-four days; and the
citizens of Gandzca, or Tauris, were compelled to entertain the soldiers
and their horses with a hospitable reception.

When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even the sense of shame,
should have urged him to meet his rival in the field. In the battle of
Nineveh, his courage might have taught the Persians to vanquish, or he
might have fallen with honor by the lance of a Roman emperor. The
successor of Cyrus chose rather, at a secure distance, to expect the
event, to assemble the relics of the defeat, and to retire, by measured
steps, before the march of Heraclius, till he beheld with a sigh the
once loved mansions of Dastagerd. Both his friends and enemies were
persuaded, that it was the intention of Chosroes to bury himself under
the ruins of the city and palace: and as both might have been equally
adverse to his flight, the monarch of Asia, with Sira, * and three
concubines, escaped through a hole in the wall nine days before the
arrival of the Romans. The slow and stately procession in which he
showed himself to the prostrate crowd, was changed to a rapid and secret
journey; and the first evening he lodged in the cottage of a peasant,
whose humble door would scarcely give admittance to the great king.  His
superstition was subdued by fear: on the third day, he entered with joy
the fortifications of Ctesiphon; yet he still doubted of his safety till
he had opposed the River Tigris to the pursuit of the Romans. The
discovery of his flight agitated with terror and tumult the palace, the
city, and the camp of Dastagerd: the satraps hesitated whether they had
most to fear from their sovereign or the enemy; and the females of the
harem were astonished and pleased by the sight of mankind, till the
jealous husband of three thousand wives again confined them to a more
distant castle. At his command, the army of Dastagerd retreated to a new
camp: the front was covered by the Arba, and a line of two hundred
elephants; the troops of the more distant provinces successively
arrived, and the vilest domestics of the king and satraps were enrolled
for the last defence of the throne. It was still in the power of
Chosroes to obtain a reasonable peace; and he was repeatedly pressed by
the messengers of Heraclius to spare the blood of his subjects, and to
relieve a humane conqueror from the painful duty of carrying fire and
sword through the fairest countries of Asia. But the pride of the
Persian had not yet sunk to the level of his fortune; he derived a
momentary confidence from the retreat of the emperor; he wept with
impotent rage over the ruins of his Assyrian palaces, and disregarded
too long the rising murmurs of the nation, who complained that their
lives and fortunes were sacrificed to the obstinacy of an old man. That
unhappy old man was himself tortured with the sharpest pains both of
mind and body; and, in the consciousness of his approaching end, he
resolved to fix the tiara on the head of Merdaza, the most favored of
his sons. But the will of Chosroes was no longer revered, and Siroes, *
who gloried in the rank and merit of his mother Sira, had conspired with
the malecontents to assert and anticipate the rights of primogeniture.
Twenty-two satraps (they styled themselves patriots) were tempted by the
wealth and honors of a new reign: to the soldiers, the heir of Chosroes
promised an increase of pay; to the Christians, the free exercise of
their religion; to the captives, liberty and rewards; and to the nation,
instant peace and the reduction of taxes. It was determined by the
conspirators, that Siroes, with the ensigns of royalty, should appear in
the camp; and if the enterprise should fail, his escape was contrived to
the Imperial court. But the new monarch was saluted with unanimous
acclamations; the flight of Chosroes (yet where could he have fled?) was
rudely arrested, eighteen sons were massacred * before his face, and he
was thrown into a dungeon, where he expired on the fifth day. The Greeks
and modern Persians minutely describe how Chosroes was insulted, and
famished, and tortured, by the command of an inhuman son, who so far
surpassed the example of his father: but at the time of his death, what
tongue would relate the story of the parricide? what eye could penetrate
into the tower of darkness?According to the faith and mercy of his
Christian enemies, he sunk without hope into a still deeper abyss;  and
it will not be denied, that tyrants of every age and sect are the best
entitled to such infernal abodes. The glory of the house of Sassan ended
with the life of Chosroes: his unnatural son enjoyed only eight months
the fruit of his crimes: and in the space of four years, the regal title
was assumed by nine candidates, who disputed, with the sword or dagger,
the fragments of an exhausted monarchy. Every province, and each city of
Persia, was the scene of independence, of discord, and of blood; and the
state of anarchy prevailed about eight years longer,  till the factions
were silenced and united under the common yoke of the Arabian caliphs.

As soon as the mountains became passable, the emperor received the
welcome news of the success of the conspiracy, the death of Chosroes,
and the elevation of his eldest son to the throne of Persia. The authors
of the revolution, eager to display their merits in the court or camp of
Tauris, preceded the ambassadors of Siroes, who delivered the letters of
their master to his brotherthe emperor of the Romans.  In the language
of the usurpers of every age, he imputes his own crimes to the Deity,
and, without degrading his equal majesty, he offers to reconcile the
long discord of the two nations, by a treaty of peace and alliance more
durable than brass or iron. The conditions of the treaty were easily
defined and faithfully executed. In the recovery of the standards and
prisoners which had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the emperor
imitated the example of Augustus: their care of the national dignity was
celebrated by the poets of the times, but the decay of genius may be
measured by the distance between Horace and George of Pisidia: the
subjects and brethren of Heraclius were redeemed from persecution,
slavery, and exile; but, instead of the Roman eagles, the true wood of
the holy cross was restored to the importunate demands of the successor
of Constantine. The victor was not ambitious of enlarging the weakness
of the empire; the son of Chosroes abandoned without regret the
conquests of his father; the Persians who evacuated the cities of Syria
and Egypt were honorably conducted to the frontier, and a war which had
wounded the vitals of the two monarchies, produced no change in their
external and relative situation. The return of Heraclius from Tauris to
Constantinople was a perpetual triumph; and after the exploits of six
glorious campaigns, he peaceably enjoyed the Sabbath of his toils. After
a long impatience, the senate, the clergy, and the people, went forth to
meet their hero, with tears and acclamations, with olive branches and
innumerable lamps; he entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four
elephants; and as soon as the emperor could disengage himself from the
tumult of public joy, he tasted more genuine satisfaction in the
embraces of his mother and his son.

The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very different
kind, the restitution of the true cross to the holy sepulchre. Heraclius
performed in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, the identity of the
relic was verified by the discreet patriarch,  and this august ceremony
has been commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the
cross. Before the emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he
was instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp and
vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the persecution
of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the precepts of the gospel.
* He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the
ambassadors of France and India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and
Hercules,  was eclipsed in the popular estimation, by the superior merit
and glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was
indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable portion
had been expended in the war, distributed to the soldiers, or buried, by
an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the Euxine. The conscience of the
emperor was oppressed by the obligation of restoring the wealth of the
clergy, which he had borrowed for their own defence: a perpetual fund
was required to satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces,
already wasted by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled
to a second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple
citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of one
hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred thousand
soldiers  who had fallen by the sword, was of less fatal importance than
the decay of arts, agriculture, and population, in this long and
destructive war: and although a victorious army had been formed under
the standard of Heraclius, the unnatural effort appears to have
exhausted rather than exercised their strength. While the emperor
triumphed at Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the
confines of Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces
some troops who advanced to its relief; an ordinary and trifling
occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution. These
robbers were the apostles of Mahomet; their fanatic valor had emerged
from the desert; and in the last eight years of his reign, Heraclius
lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he had rescued from the
Persians.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.

Part I.

Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation. -- The Human And
Divine Nature Of Christ. -- Enmity Of The Patriarchs Of Alexandria And
Constantinople. -- St. Cyril And Nestorius. -- Third General Council Of
Ephesus. -- Heresy Of Eutyches. -- Fourth General Council Of Chalcedon.
-- Civil And Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Intolerance Of Justinian. -- The
Three Chapters. -- The Monothelite Controversy. -- State Of The Oriental
Sects: -- I. The Nestorians. -- II. The Jacobites. -- III. The
Maronites. -- IV. The Armenians. -- V. The Copts And Abyssinians.

After the extinction of paganism, the Christians in peace and piety
might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle of discord
was alive in their bosom, and they were more solicitous to explore the
nature, than to practice the laws, of their founder. I have already
observed, that the disputes of the Trinity were succeeded by those of
the Incarnation; alike scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the
state, still more minute in their origin, still more durable in their
effects. It is my design to comprise in the present chapter a religious
war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the ecclesiastical and
political schism of the Oriental sects, and to introduce their clamorous
or sanguinary contests, by a modest inquiry into the doctrines of the
primitive church.

I. A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselyte has
countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites, or at
least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their obstinate
perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their churches have
disappeared, their books are obliterated: their obscure freedom might
allow a latitude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would
be variously moulded by the zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet
the most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge
of the pure and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of
Jewish prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate
their hopes above a human and temporal Messiah.  If they had courage to
hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb, their grosser
apprehensions were incapable of discerning their God, who had studiously
disguised his celestial character under the name and person of a mortal.
The familiar companions of Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their friend
and countryman, who, in all the actions of rational and animal life,
appeared of the same species with themselves. His progress from infancy
to youth and manhood was marked by a regular increase in stature and
wisdom; and after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on the
cross. He lived and died for the service of mankind: but the life and
death of Socrates had likewise been devoted to the cause of religion and
justice; and although the stoic or the hero may disdain the humble
virtues of Jesus, the tears which he shed over his friend and country
may be esteemed the purest evidence of his humanity. The miracles of the
gospel could not astonish a people who held with intrepid faith the more
splendid prodigies of the Mosaic law. The prophets of ancient days had
cured diseases, raised the dead, divided the sea, stopped the sun, and
ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot. And the metaphorical style of the
Hebrews might ascribe to a saint and martyr the adoptive title of Son of
God.

Yet in the insufficient creed of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, a
distinction is faintly noticed between the heretics, who confounded the
generation of Christ in the common order of nature, and the less guilty
schismatics, who revered the virginity of his mother, and excluded the
aid of an earthly father. The incredulity of the former was countenanced
by the visible circumstances of his birth, the legal marriage of the
reputed parents, Joseph and Mary, and his lineal claim to the kingdom of
David and the inheritance of Judah. But the secret and authentic history
has been recorded in several copies of the Gospel according to St.
Matthew,  which these sectaries long preserved in the original Hebrew,
as the sole evidence of their faith. The natural suspicions of the
husband, conscious of his own chastity, were dispelled by the assurance
(in a dream) that his wife was pregnant of the Holy Ghost: and as this
distant and domestic prodigy could not fall under the personal
observation of the historian, he must have listened to the same voice
which dictated to Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of a
virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit, was a
creature without example or resemblance, superior in every attribute of
mind and body to the children of Adam. Since the introduction of the
Greek or Chaldean philosophy,  the Jews  were persuaded of the
preexistence, transmigration, and immortality of souls; and providence
was justified by a supposition, that they were confined in their earthly
prisons to expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former
state.  But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost
immeasurable. It might be fairly presumed, that the most sublime and
virtuous of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the
Holy Ghost;  that his abasement was the result of his voluntary choice;
and that the object of his mission was, to purify, not his own, but the
sins of the world. On his return to his native skies, he received the
immense reward of his obedience; the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah,
which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images
of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the
human faculties of Christ to the extend of is celestial office. In the
language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined
to the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his only-begotten
son, might claim, without presumption, the religious, though secondary,
worship of a subject of a subject world.

II. The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky and
ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full maturity, to the
happier climes of the Gentiles; and the strangers of Rome or Asia, who
never beheld the manhood, were the more readily disposed to embrace the
divinity, of Christ. The polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and
the Barbarian, were alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an
infinite chain of angels or dæmons, or deities, or æons, or emanations,
issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange or
incredible, that the first of these æons, the Logos, or Word of God, of
the same substance with the Father, should descend upon earth, to
deliver the human race from vice and error, and to conduct them in the
paths of life and immortality. But the prevailing doctrine of the
eternity and inherent pravity of matter infected the primitive churches
of the East. Many among the Gentile proselytes refused to believe that a
celestial spirit, an undivided portion of the first essence, had been
personally united with a mass of impure and contaminated flesh; and, in
their zeal for the divinity, they piously abjured the humanity, of
Christ. While his blood was still recent on Mount Calvary,  the Docetes,
a numerous and learned sect of Asiatics, invented the phantasticsystem,
which was afterwards propagated by the Marcionites, the Manichæans, and
the various names of the Gnostic heresy.  They denied the truth and
authenticity of the Gospels, as far as they relate the conception of
Mary, the birth of Christ, and the thirty years that preceded the
exercise of his ministry. He first appeared on the banks of the Jordan
in the form of perfect manhood; but it was a form only, and not a
substance; a human figure created by the hand of Omnipotence to imitate
the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion
on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on
the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their
optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they
enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God.
The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and
the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and
ascension, of Christ were represented on the theatre of Jerusalem for
the benefit of mankind. If it were urged, that such ideal mimicry, such
incessant deception, was unworthy of the God of truth, the Docetes
agreed with too many of their orthodox brethren in the justification of
pious falsehood. In the system of the Gnostics, the Jehovah of Israel,
the Creator of this lower world, was a rebellious, or at least an
ignorant, spirit. The Son of God descended upon earth to abolish his
temple and his law; and, for the accomplishment of this salutary end, he
dexterously transferred to his own person the hope and prediction of a
temporal Messiah.

One of the most subtile disputants of the Manichæan school has pressed
the danger and indecency of supposing, that the God of the Christians,
in the state of a human ftus, emerged at the end of nine months from a
female womb. The pious horror of his antagonists provoked them to
disclaim all sensual circumstances of conception and delivery; to
maintain that the divinity passed through Mary like a sunbeam through a
plate of glass; and to assert, that the seal of her virginity remained
unbroken even at the moment when she became the mother of Christ. But
the rashness of these concessions has encouraged a milder sentiment of
those of the Docetes, who taught, not that Christ was a phantom, but
that he was clothed with an impassible and incorruptible body. Such,
indeed, in the more orthodox system, he has acquired since his
resurrection, and such he must have always possessed, if it were capable
of pervading, without resistance or injury, the density of intermediate
matter. Devoid of its most essential properties, it might be exempt from
the attributes and infirmities of the flesh. A ftus that could increase
from an invisible point to its full maturity; a child that could attain
the stature of perfect manhood without deriving any nourishment from the
ordinary sources, might continue to exist without repairing a daily
waste by a daily supply of external matter. Jesus might share the
repasts of his disciples without being subject to the calls of thirst or
hunger; and his virgin purity was never sullied by the involuntary
stains of sensual concupiscence. Of a body thus singularly constituted,
a question would arise, by what means, and of what materials, it was
originally framed; and our sounder theology is startled by an answer
which was not peculiar to the Gnostics, that both the form and the
substance proceeded from the divine essence. The idea of pure and
absolute spirit is a refinement of modern philosophy: the incorporeal
essence, ascribed by the ancients to human souls, celestial beings, and
even the Deity himself, does not exclude the notion of extended space;
and their imagination was satisfied with a subtile nature of air, or
fire, or æther, incomparably more perfect than the grossness of the
material world. If we define the place, we must describe the figure, of
the Deity. Our experience, perhaps our vanity, represents the powers of
reason and virtue under a human form. The Anthropomorphites, who swarmed
among the monks of Egypt and the Catholics of Africa, could produce the
express declaration of Scripture, that man was made after the image of
his Creator.  The venerable Serapion, one of the saints of the Nitrian
deserts, relinquished, with many a tear, his darling prejudice; and
bewailed, like an infant, his unlucky conversion, which had stolen away
his God, and left his mind without any visible object of faith or
devotion.

III. Such were the fleeting shadows of the Docetes. A more substantial,
though less simple, hypothesis, was contrived by Cerinthus of Asia,  who
dared to oppose the last of the apostles. Placed on the confines of the
Jewish and Gentile world, he labored to reconcile the Gnostic with the
Ebionite, by confessing in the same Messiah the supernatural union of a
man and a God; and this mystic doctrine was adopted with many fanciful
improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentine,  the heretics of
the Egyptian school. In their eyes, Jesus of Nazareth was a mere mortal,
the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary: but he was the best and wisest of
the human race, selected as the worthy instrument to restore upon earth
the worship of the true and supreme Deity. When he was baptized in the
Jordan, the Christ, the first of the æons, the Son of God himself,
descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, to inhabit his mind, and
direct his actions during the allotted period of his ministry. When the
Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ, an
immortal and impassible being, forsook his earthly tabernacle, flew back
to the pleromaor world of spirits, and left the solitary Jesus to
suffer, to complain, and to expire. But the justice and generosity of
such a desertion are strongly questionable; and the fate of an innocent
martyr, at first impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine
companion, might provoke the pity and indignation of the profane. Their
murmurs were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and
modified the double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged, that when Jesus
was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a miraculous apathy of mind
and body, which rendered him insensible of his apparent sufferings. It
was affirmed, that these momentary, though real, pangs would be
abundantly repaid by the temporal reign of a thousand years reserved for
the Messiah in his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It was insinuated, that
if he suffered, he deserved to suffer; that human nature is never
absolutely perfect; and that the cross and passion might serve to
expiate the venial transgressions of the son of Joseph, before his
mysterious union with the Son of God.

IV. All those who believe the immateriality of the soul, a specious and
noble tenet, must confess, from their present experience, the
incomprehensible union of mind and matter. A similar union is not
inconsistent with a much higher, or even with the highest, degree of
mental faculties; and the incarnation of an æon or archangel, the most
perfect of created spirits, does not involve any positive contradiction
or absurdity. In the age of religious freedom, which was determined by
the council of Nice, the dignity of Christ was measured by private
judgment according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or
tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established on
the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics trembled on the edge
of a precipice where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand,
dreadful to fall and the manifold inconveniences of their creed were
aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to
pronounce; thatGod himself, the second person of an equal and
consubstantial trinity, was manifested in the flesh;  thata being who
pervades the universe, had been confined in the womb of Mary; thathis
eternal duration had been marked by the days, and months, and years of
human existence; thatthe Almighty had been scourged and crucified;
thathis impassible essence had felt pain and anguish; thathis
omniscience was not exempt from ignorance; and that the source of life
and immortality expired on Mount Calvary. These alarming consequences
were affirmed with unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris,  bishop of
Laodicea, and one of the luminaries of the church. The son of a learned
grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece; eloquence,
erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes of Apollinaris,
were humbly devoted to the service of religion. The worthy friend of
Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian, he bravely wrestled with
the Arians and Polytheists, and though he affected the rigor of
geometrical demonstration, his commentaries revealed the literal and
allegorical sense of the Scriptures. A mystery, which had long floated
in the looseness of popular belief, was defined by his perverse
diligence in a technical form; and he first proclaimed the memorable
words, "One incarnate nature of Christ," which are still reëchoed with
hostile clamors in the churches of Asia, Egypt, and Æthiopia. He taught
that the Godhead was united or mingled with the body of a man; and that
the Logos, the eternal wisdom, supplied in the flesh the place and
office of a human soul. Yet as the profound doctor had been terrified at
his own rashness, Apollinaris was heard to mutter some faint accents of
excuse and explanation. He acquiesced in the old distinction of the
Greek philosophers between the rational and sensitive soul of man; that
he might reserve the Logosfor intellectual functions, and employ the
subordinate human principle in the meaner actions of animal life. With
the moderate Docetes, he revered Mary as the spiritual, rather than as
the carnal, mother of Christ, whose body either came from heaven,
impassible and incorruptible, or was absorbed, and as it were
transformed, into the essence of the Deity. The system of Apollinaris
was strenuously encountered by the Asiatic and Syrian divines whose
schools are honored by the names of Basil, Gregory and Chrysostom, and
tainted by those of Diodorus, Theodore, and Nestorius. But the person of
the aged bishop of Laodicea, his character and dignity, remained
inviolate; and his rivals, since we may not suspect them of the weakness
of toleration, were astonished, perhaps, by the novelty of the argument,
and diffident of the final sentence of the Catholic church. Her judgment
at length inclined in their favor; the heresy of Apollinaris was
condemned, and the separate congregations of his disciples were
proscribed by the Imperial laws. But his principles were secretly
entertained in the monasteries of Egypt, and his enemies felt the hatred
of Theophilus and Cyril, the successive patriarchs of Alexandria.

V. The grovelling Ebionite, and the fantastic Docetes, were rejected and
forgotten: the recent zeal against the errors of Apollinaris reduced the
Catholics to a seeming agreement with the double nature of Cerinthus.
But instead of a temporary and occasional alliance, theyestablished, and
we still embrace, the substantial, indissoluble, and everlasting union
of a perfect God with a perfect man, of the second person of the trinity
with a reasonable soul and human flesh. In the beginning of the fifth
century, the unityof the two natureswas the prevailing doctrine of the
church. On all sides, it was confessed, that the mode of their
coexistence could neither be represented by our ideas, nor expressed by
our language. Yet a secret and incurable discord was cherished, between
those who were most apprehensive of confounding, and those who were most
fearful of separating, the divinity, and the humanity, of Christ.
Impelled by religious frenzy, they fled with adverse haste from the
error which they mutually deemed most destructive of truth and
salvation. On either hand they were anxious to guard, they were jealous
to defend, the union and the distinction of the two natures, and to
invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were least
susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and language
tempted them to ransack art and nature for every possible comparison,
and each comparison mislead their fancy in the explanation of an
incomparable mystery. In the polemic microscope, an atom is enlarged to
a monster, and each party was skilful to exaggerate the absurd or
impious conclusions that might be extorted from the principles of their
adversaries. To escape from each other, they wandered through many a
dark and devious thicket, till they were astonished by the horrid
phantoms of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded the opposite issues
of the theological labyrinth. As soon as they beheld the twilight of
sense and heresy, they started, measured back their steps, and were
again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy. To purge
themselves from the guilt or reproach of damnable error, they disavowed
their consequences, explained their principles, excused their
indiscretions, and unanimously pronounced the sounds of concord and
faith. Yet a latent and almost invisible spark still lurked among the
embers of controversy: by the breath of prejudice and passion, it was
quickly kindled to a mighty flame, and the verbal disputes  of the
Oriental sects have shaken the pillars of the church and state.

The name of Cyril of Alexandria is famous in controversial story, and
the title of saintis a mark that his opinions and his party have finally
prevailed. In the house of his uncle, the archbishop Theophilus, he
imbibed the orthodox lessons of zeal and dominion, and five years of his
youth were profitably spent in the adjacent monasteries of Nitria. Under
the tuition of the abbot Serapion, he applied himself to ecclesiastical
studies, with such indefatigable ardor, that in the course of
onesleepless night, he has perused the four Gospels, the Catholic
Epistles, and the Epistle to the Romans. Origen he detested; but the
writings of Clemens and Dionysius, of Athanasius and Basil, were
continually in his hands: by the theory and practice of dispute, his
faith was confirmed and his wit was sharpened; he extended round his
cell the cobwebs of scholastic theology, and meditated the works of
allegory and metaphysics, whose remains, in seven verbose folios, now
peaceably slumber by the side of their rivals.  Cyril prayed and fasted
in the desert, but his thoughts (it is the reproach of a friend)  were
still fixed on the world; and the call of Theophilus, who summoned him
to the tumult of cities and synods, was too readily obeyed by the
aspiring hermit. With the approbation of his uncle, he assumed the
office, and acquired the fame, of a popular preacher. His comely person
adorned the pulpit; the harmony of his voice resounded in the cathedral;
his friends were stationed to lead or second the applause of the
congregation;  and the hasty notes of the scribes preserved his
discourses, which in their effect, though not in their composition,
might be compared with those of the Athenian orators. The death of
Theophilus expanded and realized the hopes of his nephew. The clergy of
Alexandria was divided; the soldiers and their general supported the
claims of the archdeacon; but a resistless multitude, with voices and
with hands, asserted the cause of their favorite; and after a period of
thirty-nine years, Cyril was seated on the throne of Athanasius.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Part II.

The prize was not unworthy of his ambition. At a distance from the
court, and at the head of an immense capital, the patriarch, as he was
now styled, of Alexandria had gradually usurped the state and authority
of a civil magistrate. The public and private charities of the city were
blindly obeyed by his numerous and fanatic parabolani,  familiarized in
their daily office with scenes of death; and the præfects of Egypt were
awed or provoked by the temporal power of these Christian pontiffs.
Ardent in the prosecution of heresy, Cyril auspiciously opened his reign
by oppressing the Novatians, the most innocent and harmless of the
sectaries. The interdiction of their religious worship appeared in his
eyes a just and meritorious act; and he confiscated their holy vessels,
without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege. The toleration, and even
the privileges of the Jews, who had multiplied to the number of forty
thousand, were secured by the laws of the Cæsars and Ptolemies, and a
long prescription of seven hundred years since the foundation of
Alexandria. Without any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the
patriarch, at the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack
of the synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews were incapable of
resistance; their houses of prayer were levelled with the ground, and
the episcopal warrior, after-rewarding his troops with the plunder of
their goods, expelled from the city the remnant of the unbelieving
nation. Perhaps he might plead the insolence of their prosperity, and
their deadly hatred of the Christians, whose blood they had recently
shed in a malicious or accidental tumult. Such crimes would have
deserved the animadversion of the magistrate; but in this promiscuous
outrage, the innocent were confounded with the guilty, and Alexandria
was impoverished by the loss of a wealthy and industrious colony. The
zeal of Cyril exposed him to the penalties of the Julian law; but in a
feeble government and a superstitious age, he was secure of impunity,
and even of praise. Orestes complained; but his just complaints were too
quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and too deeply
remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and continued to hate,
the præfect of Egypt. As he passed through the streets, his chariot was
assaulted by a band of five hundred of the Nitrian monks his guards fled
from the wild beasts of the desert; his protestations that he was a
Christian and a Catholic were answered by a volley of stones, and the
face of Orestes was covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria
hastened to his rescue; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge
against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius expired
under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril his body was raised
from the ground, and transported, in solemn procession, to the
cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the
wonderful; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyrdom, and
the patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the magnanimity of an
assassin and a rebel. Such honors might incite the faithful to combat
and die under the banners of the saint; and he soon prompted, or
accepted, the sacrifice of a virgin, who professed the religion of the
Greeks, and cultivated the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter
of Theon the mathematician,  was initiated in her father's studies; her
learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and
Diophantus, and she publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty, and in the
maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed
her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit were
impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with a
jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the
door of her academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the
daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the
præfect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a
fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her
chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered
by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop of savage and merciless
fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster shells,
and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress
of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the
murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and
religion of Cyril of Alexandria.

Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin,
than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied his uncle to
the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of Chrysostom was
restored and consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a
dying faction, still maintained the justice of his sentence; nor was it
till after a tedious delay and an obstinate resistance, that he yielded
to the consent of the Catholic world.  His enmity to the Byzantine
pontiffs  was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion: he envied
their fortunate station in the sunshine of the Imperial court; and he
dreaded their upstart ambition. which oppressed the metropolitans of
Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and Alexandria, and
measured their diocese by the limits of the empire. The long moderation
of Atticus, the mild usurper of the throne of Chrysostom, suspended the
animosities of the Eastern patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened
by the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After
the short and troubled reign of Sisinnius, bishop of Constantinople, the
factions of the clergy and people were appeased by the choice of the
emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame, and invited
the merit of a stranger. Nestorius,  native of Germanicia, and a monk of
Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence
of his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the devout
Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. "Give me, O
Cæsar!" he exclaimed, "give me the earth purged of heretics, and I will
give you in exchange the kingdom of heaven. Exterminate with me the
heretics; and with you I will exterminate the Persians." On the fifth
day as if the treaty had been already signed, the patriarch of
Constantinople discovered, surprised, and attacked a secret conventicle
of the Arians: they preferred death to submission; the flames that were
kindled by their despair, soon spread to the neighboring houses, and the
triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On either
side of the Hellespont his episcopal vigor imposed a rigid formulary of
faith and discipline; a chronological error concerning the festival of
Easter was punished as an offence against the church and state. Lydia
and Caria, Sardes and Miletus, were purified with the blood of the
obstinate Quartodecimans; and the edict of the emperor, or rather of the
patriarch, enumerates three-and-twenty degrees and denominations in the
guilt and punishment of heresy.  But the sword of persecution which
Nestorius so furiously wielded was soon turned against his own breast.
Religion was the pretence; but, in the judgment of a contemporary saint,
ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfare.

In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the confusion
of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the humanity of his
masterChrist from the divinity of the LordJesus.  The Blessed Virgin he
revered as the mother of Christ, but his ears were offended with the
rash and recent title of mother of God,  which had been insensibly
adopted since the origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of
Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the patriarch
himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the abuse, of a word
unknown to the apostles, unauthorized by the church, and which could
only tend to alarm the timorous, to mislead the simple, to amuse the
profane, and to justify, by a seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of
Olympus.  In his calmer moments Nestorius confessed, that it might be
tolerated or excused by the union of the two natures, and the
communication of their idioms:  but he was exasperated, by
contradiction, to disclaim the worship of a new-born, an infant Deity,
to draw his inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships
of life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, the
instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these blasphemous sounds,
the pillars of the sanctuary were shaken. The unsuccessful competitors
of Nestorius indulged their pious or personal resentment, the Byzantine
clergy was secretly displeased with the intrusion of a stranger:
whatever is superstitious or absurd, might claim the protection of the
monks; and the people were interested in the glory of their virgin
patroness.  The sermons of the archbishop, and the service of the altar,
were disturbed by seditious clamor; his authority and doctrine were
renounced by separate congregations; every wind scattered round the
empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the combatants on a
sonorous theatre reëchoed in the cells of Palestine and Egypt. It was
the duty of Cyril to enlighten the zeal and ignorance of his innumerable
monks: in the school of Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the
incarnation of one nature; and the successor of Athanasius consulted his
pride and ambition, when he rose in arms against another Arius, more
formidable and more guilty, on the second throne of the hierarchy. After
a short correspondence, in which the rival prelates disguised their
hatred in the hollow language of respect and charity, the patriarch of
Alexandria denounced to the prince and people, to the East and to the
West, the damnable errors of the Byzantine pontiff. From the East, more
especially from Antioch, he obtained the ambiguous counsels of
toleration and silence, which were addressed to both parties while they
favored the cause of Nestorius. But the Vatican received with open arms
the messengers of Egypt. The vanity of Celestine was flattered by the
appeal; and the partial version of a monk decided the faith of the pope,
who with his Latin clergy was ignorant of the language, the arts, and
the theology of the Greeks. At the head of an Italian synod, Celestine
weighed the merits of the cause, approved the creed of Cyril, condemned
the sentiments and person of Nestorius, degraded the heretic from his
episcopal dignity, allowed a respite of ten days for recantation and
penance, and delegated to his enemy the execution of this rash and
illegal sentence. But the patriarch of Alexandria, while he darted the
thunders of a god, exposed the errors and passions of a mortal; and his
twelve anathemas  still torture the orthodox slaves, who adore the
memory of a saint, without forfeiting their allegiance to the synod of
Chalcedon. These bold assertions are indelibly tinged with the colors of
the Apollinarian heresy; but the serious, and perhaps the sincere
professions of Nestorius have satisfied the wiser and less partial
theologians of the present times.

Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of the East were disposed to
obey the mandate of an Italian priest; and a synod of the Catholic, or
rather of the Greek church, was unanimously demanded as the sole remedy
that could appease or decide this ecclesiastical quarrel.  Ephesus, on
all sides accessible by sea and land, was chosen for the place, the
festival of Pentecost for the day, of the meeting; a writ of summons was
despatched to each metropolitan, and a guard was stationed to protect
and confine the fathers till they should settle the mysteries of heaven,
and the faith of the earth. Nestorius appeared not as a criminal, but as
a judge; be depended on the weight rather than the number of his
prelates, and his sturdy slaves from the baths of Zeuxippus were armed
for every service of injury or defence. But his adversary Cyril was more
powerful in the weapons both of the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient
to the letter, or at least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was
attended by fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from their patriarch's
nod the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He had contracted an intimate
alliance with Memnon, bishop of Ephesus. The despotic primate of Asia
disposed of the ready succors of thirty or forty episcopal votes: a
crowd of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured into the city to
support with blows and clamors a metaphysical argument; and the people
zealously asserted the honor of the Virgin, whose body reposed within
the walls of Ephesus.  The fleet which had transported Cyril from
Alexandria was laden with the riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a
numerous body of mariners, slaves, and fanatics, enlisted with blind
obedience under the banner of St. Mark and the mother of God. The
fathers, and even the guards, of the council were awed by this martial
array; the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the streets,
or threatened in their houses; his eloquence and liberality made a daily
increase in the number of his adherents; and the Egyptian soon computed
that he might command the attendance and the voices of two hundred
bishops.  But the author of the twelve anathemas foresaw and dreaded the
opposition of John of Antioch, who, with a small, but respectable, train
of metropolitans and divines, was advancing by slow journeys from the
distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay, which he stigmatized
as voluntary and culpable,  Cyril announced the opening of the synod
sixteen days after the festival of Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on
the near approach of his Eastern friends, persisted, like his
predecessor Chrysostom, to disclaim the jurisdiction, and to disobey the
summons, of his enemies: they hastened his trial, and his accuser
presided in the seat of judgment. Sixty-eight bishops, twenty-two of
metropolitan rank, defended his cause by a modest and temperate protest:
they were excluded from the councils of their brethren. Candidian, in
the emperor's name, requested a delay of four days; the profane
magistrate was driven with outrage and insult from the assembly of the
saints. The whole of this momentous transaction was crowded into the
compass of a summer's day: the bishops delivered their separate
opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the influence or the hand
of a master, who has been accused of corrupting the public evidence of
their acts and subscriptions.  Without a dissenting voice, they
recognized in the epistles of Cyril the Nicene creed and the doctrine of
the fathers: but the partial extracts from the letters and homilies of
Nestorius were interrupted by curses and anathemas: and the heretic was
degraded from his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence,
maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and proclaimed in
the streets of Ephesus: the weary prelates, as they issued from the
church of the mother of God, were saluted as her champions; and her
victory was celebrated by the illuminations, the songs, and the tumult
of the night.

On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the arrival and indignation
of the Eastern bishops. In a chamber of the inn, before he had wiped the
dust from his shoes, John of Antioch gave audience to Candidian, the
Imperial minister; who related his ineffectual efforts to prevent or to
annul the hasty violence of the Egyptian. With equal haste and violence,
the Oriental synod of fifty bishops degraded Cyril and Memnon from their
episcopal honors, condemned, in the twelve anathemas, the purest venom
of the Apollinarian heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as a
monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church.  His
throne was distant and inaccessible; but they instantly resolved to
bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of a faithful shepherd. By
the vigilance of Memnon, the churches were shut against them, and a
strong garrison was thrown into the cathedral. The troops, under the
command of Candidian, advanced to the assault; the outguards were routed
and put to the sword, but the place was impregnable: the besiegers
retired; their retreat was pursued by a vigorous sally; they lost their
horses, and many of their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs
and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with rage and
clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted anathemas and
excommunications from their spiritual engines; and the court of
Theodosius was perplexed by the adverse and contradictory narratives of
the Syrian and Egyptian factions. During a busy period of three months,
the emperor tried every method, except the most effectual means of
indifference and contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. He
attempted to remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence, of
acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at Ephesus
with ample power and military force; he summoned from either party eight
chosen deputies to a free and candid conference in the neighborhood of
the capital, far from the contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals
refused to yield, and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their
Latin allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience of
the meek Theodosius was provoked; and he dissolved in anger this
episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen centuries assumes
the venerable aspect of the third cumenical council.  "God is my
witness," said the pious prince, "that I am not the author of this
confusion. His providence will discern and punish the guilty. Return to
your provinces, and may your private virtues repair the mischief and
scandal of your meeting." They returned to their provinces; but the same
passions which had distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over
the Eastern world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of
Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but
their seeming reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to reason,
to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian charity of the
patriarchs.

The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful
prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian rival. An
epistle of menace and invective,  which accompanied the summons, accused
him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest, who perplexed the
simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of the church and state,
and, by his artful and separate addresses to the wife and sister of
Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to scatter, the seeds of discord in
the Imperial family. At the stern command of his sovereign. Cyril had
repaired to Ephesus, where he was resisted, threatened, and confined, by
the magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who
assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic and
disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the royal license,
he escaped from his guards, precipitately embarked, deserted the
imperfect synod, and retired to his episcopal fortress of safety and
independence. But his artful emissaries, both in the court and city,
successfully labored to appease the resentment, and to conciliate the
favor, of the emperor. The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed
by his wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace:
superstition and avarice were their ruling passions; and the orthodox
chiefs were assiduous in their endeavors to alarm the former, and to
gratify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs were sanctified with
frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots, Dalmatius and Eutyches,  had
devoted their zeal and fidelity to the cause of Cyril, the worship of
Mary, and the unity of Christ. From the first moment of their monastic
life, they had never mingled with the world, or trod the profane ground
of the city. But in this awful moment of the danger of the church, their
vow was superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At the head
of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried burning tapers in
their hands, and chanted litanies to the mother of God, they proceeded
from their monasteries to the palace. The people was edified and
inflamed by this extraordinary spectacle, and the trembling monarch
listened to the prayers and adjurations of the saints, who boldly
pronounced, that none could hope for salvation, unless they embraced the
person and the creed of the orthodox successor of Athanasius. At the
same time, every avenue of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the
decent names of eulogiesand benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes
were bribed according to the measure of their power and rapaciousness.
But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of Constantinople
and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch was unable to silence
the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt of sixty thousand pounds had
already been contracted to support the expense of this scandalous
corruption.  Pulcheria, who relieved her brother from the weight of an
empire, was the firmest pillar of orthodoxy; and so intimate was the
alliance between the thunders of the synod and the whispers of the
court, that Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one
eunuch, and substitute another in the favor of Theodosius. Yet the
Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive victory. The emperor,
with unaccustomed firmness, adhered to his promise of protecting the
innocence of the Oriental bishops; and Cyril softened his anathemas, and
confessed, with ambiguity and reluctance, a twofold nature of Christ,
before he was permitted to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate
Nestorius.

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod, was
oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly supported by his
Eastern friends. A sentiment or fear or indignation prompted him, while
it was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication:  his
wish, or at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted
with honor from Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a
short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as
the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his cell,
the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence and security
of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was discontented with the
present, and the future he had reason to dread: the Oriental bishops
successively disengaged their cause from his unpopular name, and each
day decreased the number of the schismatics who revered Nestorius as the
confessor of the faith. After a residence at Antioch of four years, the
hand of Theodosius subscribed an edict,  which ranked him with Simon the
magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned his writings
to the flames, and banished his person first to Petra, in Arabia, and at
length to Oasis, one of the islands of the Libyan desert.  Secluded from
the church and from the world, the exile was still pursued by the rage
of bigotry and war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians invaded
his solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of useless
captives: but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks of the Nile,
than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and orthodox city, to the
milder servitude of the savages. His flight was punished as a new crime:
the soul of the patriarch inspired the civil and ecclesiastical powers
of Egypt; the magistrates, the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured
the enemy of Christ and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of
Æthiopia, the heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his
aged body was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated
journeys. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the president of
Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he survived the Catholic
tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen years' banishment, the synod of
Chalcedon would perhaps have restored him to the honors, or at least to
the communion, of the church. The death of Nestorius prevented his
obedience to their welcome summons;  and his disease might afford some
color to the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy,
had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper Egypt,
known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim;  but the immortal
malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages to cast stones against
his sepulchre, and to propagate the foolish tradition, that it was never
watered by the rain of heaven, which equally descends on the righteous
and the ungodly.  Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet
justice must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had
approved and inflicted.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Part III.

The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two years,
abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and the abuse of
victory.  The monophysitedoctrine (one incarnate nature) was rigorously
preached in the churches of Egypt and the monasteries of the East; the
primitive creed of Apollinarius was protected by the sanctity of Cyril;
and the name of Eutyches, his venerable friend, has been applied to the
sect most adverse to the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches
was the abbot, or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but
the opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in
the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the resentment or
indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had not exposed the
scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His domestic synod was
instantly convened, their proceedings were sullied with clamor and
artifice, and the aged heretic was surprised into a seeming confession,
that Christ had not derived his body from the substance of the Virgin
Mary. From their partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council;
and his cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the
reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who had
succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the vices, of the
nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of Theodosius, the second
synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed of ten metropolitans and ten
bishops from each of the six dioceses of the Eastern empire: some
exceptions of favor or merit enlarged the number to one hundred and
thirty-five; and the Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of
the monks, was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the
apostles. But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed
the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were again
drawn from the arsenals of Egypt: the Asiatic veterans, a band of
archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the more formidable
monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy, besieged the
doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as it should seem, the
unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted the faith and even the
anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the two natures was formally
condemned in the persons and writings of the most learned Orientals.
"May those who divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be hewn
in pieces, may they be burned alive!" were the charitable wishes of a
Christian synod.  The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were
acknowledged without hesitation; but the prelates, more especially those
of Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the use
or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced the knees of
Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on the footstool of his
throne, and conjured him to forgive the offences, and to respect the
dignity, of his brother. "Do you mean to raise a sedition?" exclaimed
the relentless tyrant. "Where are the officers?" At these words a
furious multitude of monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and
chains, burst into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves
behind the altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired
with the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank paper,
which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the Byzantine
pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild beasts of this
spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated by the voice and
example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of Christ: it is said that
the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and buffeted, and kicked, and
trampled his brother of Constantinople:  it is certain, that the victim,
before he could reach the place of his exile, expired on the third day
of the wounds and bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second
synod has been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet
the accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate the
cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior.

The faith of Egypt had prevailed: but the vanquished party was supported
by the same pope who encountered without fear the hostile rage of Attila
and Genseric. The theology of Leo, his famous tomeor epistle on the
mystery of the incarnation, had been disregarded by the synod of
Ephesus: his authority, and that of the Latin church, was insulted in
his legates, who escaped from slavery and death to relate the melancholy
tale of the tyranny of Dioscorus and the martyrdom of Flavian. His
provincial synod annulled the irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as
this step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a
general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From his
independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without danger as
the head of the Christians, and his dictates were obsequiously
transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who addressed their
Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity of the church. But the
pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with equal dexterity by the hand
of the eunuch; and Theodosius could pronounce, without hesitation, that
the church was already peaceful and triumphant, and that the recent
flame had been extinguished by the just punishment of the Nestorians.
Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the
Monophysites, if the emperor's horse had not fortunately stumbled;
Theodosius expired; his orthodox sister Pulcheria, with a nominal
husband, succeeded to the throne; Chrysaphius was burnt, Dioscorus was
disgraced, the exiles were recalled, and the tome of Leo was subscribed
by the Oriental bishops. Yet the pope was disappointed in his favorite
project of a Latin council: he disdained to preside in the Greek synod,
which was speedily assembled at Nice in Bithynia; his legates required
in a peremptory tone the presence of the emperor; and the weary fathers
were transported to Chalcedon under the immediate eye of Marcian and the
senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a mile from the Thracian
Bosphorus, the church of St. Euphemia was built on the summit of a
gentle though lofty ascent: the triple structure was celebrated as a
prodigy of art, and the boundless prospect of the land and sea might
have raised the mind of a sectary to the contemplation of the God of the
universe. Six hundred and thirty bishops were ranged in order in the
nave of the church; but the patriarchs of the East were preceded by the
legates, of whom the third was a simple priest; and the place of honor
was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian rank. The
gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the centre, but the rule of faith
was defined by the Papal and Imperial ministers, who moderated the
thirteen sessions of the council of Chalcedon.  Their partial
interposition silenced the intemperate shouts and execrations, which
degraded the episcopal gravity; but, on the formal accusation of the
legates, Dioscorus was compelled to descend from his throne to the rank
of a criminal, already condemned in the opinion of his judges. The
Orientals, less adverse to Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the Romans
as their deliverers: Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were exasperated
against the murderer of Flavian, and the new patriarchs of
Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by the sacrifice of
their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine, Macedonia, and Greece, were
attached to the faith of Cyril; but in the face of the synod, in the
heat of the battle, the leaders, with their obsequious train, passed
from the right to the left wing, and decided the victory by this
seasonable desertion. Of the seventeen suffragans who sailed from
Alexandria, four were tempted from their allegiance, and the thirteen,
falling prostrate on the ground, implored the mercy of the council, with
sighs and tears, and a pathetic declaration, that, if they yielded, they
should be massacred, on their return to Egypt, by the indignant people.
A tardy repentance was allowed to expiate the guilt or error of the
accomplices of Dioscorus: but their sins were accumulated on his head;
he neither asked nor hoped for pardon, and the moderation of those who
pleaded for a general amnesty was drowned in the prevailing cry of
victory and revenge. To save the reputation of his late adherents, some
personaloffences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal
excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while he was
detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the synod. Witnesses
were introduced to prove the special facts of his pride, avarice, and
cruelty; and the fathers heard with abhorrence, that the alms of the
church were lavished on the female dancers, that his palace, and even
his bath, was open to the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the
infamous Pansophia, or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine
of the patriarch.

For these scandalous offences, Dioscorus was deposed by the synod, and
banished by the emperor; but the purity of his faith was declared in the
presence, and with the tacit approbation, of the fathers. Their prudence
supposed rather than pronounced the heresy of Eutyches, who was never
summoned before their tribunal; and they sat silent and abashed, when a
bold Monophysite casting at their feet a volume of Cyril, challenged
them to anathematize in his person the doctrine of the saint. If we
fairly peruse the acts of Chalcedon as they are recorded by the orthodox
party,  we shall find that a great majority of the bishops embraced the
simple unity of Christ; and the ambiguous concession that he was formed
Of or From two natures, might imply either their previous existence, or
their subsequent confusion, or some dangerous interval between the
conception of the man and the assumption of the God. The Roman theology,
more positive and precise, adopted the term most offensive to the ears
of the Egyptians, that Christ existed In two natures; and this momentous
particle  (which the memory, rather than the understanding, must retain)
had almost produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tomeof Leo
had been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they
protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither expedient nor
lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had been fixed at Nice,
Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the rule of Scripture and
tradition. At length they yielded to the importunities of their masters;
but their infallible decree, after it had been ratified with deliberate
votes and vehement acclamations, was overturned in the next session by
the opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in vain
that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus, "The definition
of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The heretics are now
discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them depart from the synod!
Let them repair to Rome."  The legates threatened, the emperor was
absolute, and a committee of eighteen bishops prepared a new decree,
which was imposed on the reluctant assembly. In the name of the fourth
general council, the Christ in one person, but in two natures, was
announced to the Catholic world: an invisible line was drawn between the
heresy of Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to
paradise, a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by
the master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of
blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions from the
oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already varnished with the
rust of antiquity, was admitted without dispute into the creed of the
reformers, who disclaimed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod
of Chalcedon still triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment
of controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the
present day are ignorant, or careless, of their own belief concerning
the mystery of the incarnation.

Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians under the
orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors enforced with
arms and edicts the symbol of their faith;  and it was declared by the
conscience or honor of five hundred bishops, that the decrees of the
synod of Chalcedon might be lawfully supported, even with blood. The
Catholics observed with satisfaction, that the same synod was odious
both to the Nestorians and the Monophysites;  but the Nestorians were
less angry, or less powerful, and the East was distracted by the
obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the Monophysites. Jerusalem was
occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate nature,
they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre of Christ was
defiled with blood; and the gates of the city were guarded in tumultuous
rebellion against the troops of the emperor. After the disgrace and
exile of Dioscorus, the Egyptians still regretted their spiritual
father; and detested the usurpation of his successor, who was introduced
by the fathers of Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported by a
guard of two thousand soldiers: he waged a five years' war against the
people of Alexandria; and on the first intelligence of the death of
Marcian, he became the victim of their zeal. On the third day before the
festival of Easter, the patriarch was besieged in the cathedral, and
murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his mangled corpse were
delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the wind; and the deed was
inspired by the vision of a pretended angel: an ambitious monk, who,
under the name of Timothy the Cat,  succeeded to the place and opinions
of Dioscorus. This deadly superstition was inflamed, on either side, by
the principle and the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a
metaphysical quarrel, many thousands  were slain, and the Christians of
every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of social life,
and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy communion. Perhaps an
extravagant fable of the times may conceal an allegorical picture of
these fanatics, who tortured each other and themselves. "Under the
consulship of Venantius and Celer," says a grave bishop, "the people of
Alexandria, and all Egypt, were seized with a strange and diabolical
frenzy: great and small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the
natives of the land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their
speech and reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth the
flesh from their hands and arms."

The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous Henoticon
of the emperor Zeno, which in his reign, and in that of Anastasius, was
signed by all the bishops of the East, under the penalty of degradation
and exile, if they rejected or infringed this salutary and fundamental
law. The clergy may smile or groan at the presumption of a layman who
defines the articles of faith; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task,
his mind is less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of
the magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people. It
is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least contemptible; and I
am not able to discern any Manichæan or Eutychian guilt in the generous
saying of Anastasius. That it was unworthy of an emperor to persecute
the worshippers of Christ and the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was
most pleasing to the Egyptians; yet the smallest blemish has not been
described by the jealous, and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox
schoolmen, and it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the
incarnation, without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of
tenets of the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against
Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is divided,
or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining the number or
the article of the word nature, the pure system of St. Cyril, the faith
of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is respectfully confirmed; but,
instead of bowing at the name of the fourth council, the subject is
dismissed by the censure of all contrary doctrines, ifany such have been
taught either elsewhere or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous
expression, the friends and the enemies of the last synod might unite in
a silent embrace. The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode
of toleration; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their
obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement spirit of
their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the thoughts and discourses
of men, it was difficult to preserve an exact neutrality; a book, a
sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame of controversy; and the bonds of
communion were alternately broken and renewed by the private animosity
of the bishops. The space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a
thousand shades of language and opinion; the acephaliof Egypt, and the
Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, though of unequal strength, may be found
at the two extremities of the theological scale. The acephali, without a
king or a bishop, were separated above three hundred years from the
patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted the communion of
Constantinople, without exacting a formal condemnation of the synod of
Chalcedon. For accepting the communion of Alexandria, without a formal
approbation of the same synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were
anathematized by the popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most
orthodox of the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or
doubted the validity of their sacraments,  and fomented, thirty-five
years, the schism of the East and West, till they finally abolished the
memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who had dared to oppose the supremacy
of St. Peter.  Before that period, the precarious truce of
Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by the zeal of the rival
prelates. Macedonius, who was suspected of the Nestorian heresy,
asserted, in disgrace and exile, the synod of Chalcedon, while the
successor of Cyril would have purchased its overthrow with a bribe of
two thousand pounds of gold.

In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather the sound of a syllable,
was sufficient to disturb the peace of an empire. The Trisagion  (thrice
holy,) "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!" is supposed, by the
Greeks, to be the identical hymn which the angels and cherubim eternally
repeat before the throne of God, and which, about the middle of the
fifth century, was miraculously revealed to the church of
Constantinople. The devotion of Antioch soon added, "who was crucified
for us!" and this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the
whole Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been
gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it had been
imagined by a Monophysite bishop;  the gift of an enemy was at first
rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy, and the rash innovation had
nearly cost the emperor Anastasius his throne and his life.  The people
of Constantinople was devoid of any rational principles of freedom; but
they held, as a lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a livery in the
races, or the color of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and
without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by two
adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had recourse
to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the aggressors were
punished by the emperor, and defended by the patriarch; and the crown
and mitre were staked on the event of this momentous quarrel. The
streets were instantly crowded with innumerable swarms of men, women,
and children; the legions of monks, in regular array, marched, and
shouted, and fought at their head, "Christians! this is the day of
martyrdom: let us not desert our spiritual father; anathema to the
Manichæan tyrant! he is unworthy to reign." Such was the Catholic cry;
and the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace,
till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of
the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by a
speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated by the
same question, "Whether one of the Trinity had been crucified?" On this
momentous occasion, the blue and green factions of Constantinople
suspended their discord, and the civil and military powers were
annihilated in their presence. The keys of the city, and the standards
of the guards, were deposited in the forum of Constantine, the principal
station and camp of the faithful. Day and night they were incessantly
busied either in singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in
pillaging and murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his
favorite monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy
Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which had been
darted against heretical structures, diffused the undistinguishing
flames over the most orthodox buildings. The statues of the emperor were
broken, and his person was concealed in a suburb, till, at the end of
three days, he dared to implore the mercy of his subjects. Without his
diadem, and in the posture of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the
throne of the circus. The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their
genuine Trisagion; they exulted in the offer, which he proclaimed by the
voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the
admonition, that, since allcould not reign, they should previously agree
in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted the blood of two
unpopular ministers, whom their master, without hesitation, condemned to
the lions. These furious but transient seditions were encouraged by the
success of Vitalian, who, with an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the
most part idolaters, declared himself the champion of the Catholic
faith. In this pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged
Constantinople, exterminated sixty-five thousand of his
fellow-Christians, till he obtained the recall of the bishops, the
satisfaction of the pope, and the establishment of the council of
Chalcedon, an orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying
Anastasius, and more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And
such was the event of the firstof the religious wars which have been
waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of peace.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Part III.

Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a prince, a
conqueror, and a lawgiver: the theologian  still remains, and it affords
an unfavorable prejudice, that his theology should form a very prominent
feature of his portrait. The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in
their superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code,
and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the privileges of
the clergy; and in every dispute between a monk and a layman, the
partial judge was inclined to pronounce, that truth, and innocence, and
justice, were always on the side of the church. In his public and
private devotions, the emperor was assiduous and exemplary; his prayers,
vigils, and fasts, displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy
was amused by the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had
secured the patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and
his recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous
succor of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the
provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his religion;
and though the far greater part of these costly structures may be
attributed to his taste or ostentation, the zeal of the royal architect
was probably quickened by a genuine sense of love and gratitude towards
his invisible benefactors. Among the titles of Imperial greatness, the
name of Piouswas most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and
spiritual interest of the church was the serious business of his life;
and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of
defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were congenial to
his temper and understanding and the theological professors must
inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who cultivated their art
and neglected his own. "What can ye fear," said a bold conspirator to
his associates, "from your bigoted tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he
sits whole nights in his closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and
turning over the pages of ecclesiastical volumes."  The fruits of these
lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian might
shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in many a
sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles, proclaimed to the
empire the theology of their master. While the Barbarians invaded the
provinces, while the victorious legion marched under the banners of
Belisarius and Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was
content to vanquish at the head of a synod. Had he invited to these
synods a disinterested and rational spectator, Justinian might have
learned, "thatreligious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and
folly; thattrue piety is most laudably expressed by silence and
submission; thatman, ignorant of his own nature, should not presume to
scrutinize the nature of his God; and thatit is sufficient for us to
know, that power and benevolence are the perfect attributes of the
Deity."

Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to rebels has
seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince descends to the
narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he is easily provoked to
supply the defect of argument by the plenitude of power, and to chastise
without mercy the perverse blindness of those who wilfully shut their
eyes against the light of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a
uniform yet various scene of persecution; and he appears to have
surpassed his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws
and the rigor of their execution. The insufficient term of three months
was assigned for the conversion or exile of all heretics;  and if he
still connived at their precarious stay, they were deprived, under his
iron yoke, not only of the benefits of society, but of the common
birth-right of men and Christians. At the end of four hundred years, the
Montanists of Phrygia  still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection
and prophecy which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles,
the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic
priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom
the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but these
primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred years after the
death of their tyrant. Under the protection of their Gothic
confederates, the church of the Arians at Constantinople had braved the
severity of the laws: their clergy equalled the wealth and magnificence
of the senate; and the gold and silver which were seized by the
rapacious hand of Justinian might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of
the provinces, and the trophies of the Barbarians. A secret remnant of
Pagans, who still lurked in the most refined and most rustic conditions
of mankind, excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps
unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their intestine
quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the faith, and his
diligence soon discovered, in the court and city, the magistrates,
lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still cherished the superstition
of the Greeks. They were sternly informed that they must choose without
delay between the displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their
aversion to the gospel could no longer be distinguished under the
scandalous mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius,
perhaps, alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he
enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant
the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the lifeless corpse of
the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to their earthly monarch,
underwent the ceremony of baptism, and labored, by their extraordinary
zeal, to erase the suspicion, or to expiate the guilt, of idolatry. The
native country of Homer, and the theatre of the Trojan war, still
retained the last sparks of his mythology: by the care of the same
bishop, seventy thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia,
Phrygia, Lydia, and Caria; ninety-six churches were built for the new
proselytes; and linen vestments, Bibles, and liturgies, and vases of
gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of Justinian.
The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their immunities, were
oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled them to observe the
festival of Easter the same day on which it was celebrated by the
Christians.  And they might complain with the more reason, since the
Catholics themselves did not agree with the astronomical calculations of
their sovereign: the people of Constantinople delayed the beginning of
their Lent a whole week after it had been ordained by authority; and
they had the pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for
sale by the command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine  were a
motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the
Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters. The abomination
of the cross had already been planted on their holy mount of Garizim,
but the persecution of Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism
or rebellion. They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate
leader, they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the
property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were
finally subdued by the regular forces of the East: twenty thousand were
slain, twenty thousand were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia
and India, and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime
of treason by the sin of hypocrisy. It has been computed that one
hundred thousand Roman subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war,
which converted the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking
wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder could not
be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he piously labored to
establish with fire and sword the unity of the Christian faith.

With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, at least, to be always
in the right. In the first years of his administration, he signalized
his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the reconciliation of
the Greeks and Latins established the tomeof St. Leo as the creed of the
emperor and the empire; the Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed. on
either side, to the double edge of persecution; and the four synods of
Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code
of a Catholic lawgiver.  But while Justinian strove to maintain the
uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose vices were not
incompatible with devotion, had listened to the Monophysite teachers;
and the open or clandestine enemies of the church revived and multiplied
at the smile of their gracious patroness. The capital, the palace, the
nuptial bed, were torn by spiritual discord; yet so doubtful was the
sincerity of the royal consorts, that their seeming disagreement was
imputed by many to a secret and mischievous confederacy against the
religion and happiness of their people.  The famous dispute of the Three
Chapters,  which has filled more volumes than it deserves lines, is
deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous spirit. It was now
three hundred years since the body of Origen  had been eaten by the
worms: his soul, of which he held the preexistence, was in the hands of
its Creator; but his writings were eagerly perused by the monks of
Palestine. In these writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried
more than ten metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the
company of Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the
eternityof hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of
this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of
Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the praise of
Theodore of Mopsuestia;  and their justice or indulgence had restored
both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, to the communion of the
church. But the characters of these Oriental bishops were tainted with
the reproach of heresy; the first had been the master, the two others
were the friends, of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were
accused under the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of
their memory must involve the honor of a synod, whose name was
pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic world. If
these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were annihilated in the sleep
of death, they would not probably be awakened by the clamor which, after
the a hundred years, was raised over their grave. If they were already
in the fangs of the dæmon, their torments could neither be aggravated
nor assuaged by human industry. If in the company of saints and angels
they enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle
fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface of the
earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the Romans, darted
his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps without discerning the true
motives of Theodora and her ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no
longer subject to his power, and the vehement style of his edicts could
only proclaim their damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join
in a full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, with some
hesitation, consented to the voice of her sovereign: the fifth general
council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and sixty-five bishops, was
held at Constantinople; and the authors, as well as the defenders, of
the three chapters were separated from the communion of the saints, and
solemnly delivered to the prince of darkness. But the Latin churches
were more jealous of the honor of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon: and if
they had fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they
might have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their
chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St. Peter,
which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by the cowardice,
of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and inconsistent struggle, to the
despotism of Justinian and the sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy
provoked the indignation of the Latins, and no more than two bishops
could be found who would impose their hands on his deacon and successor
Pelagius. Yet the perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to
their adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian, African,
and Italian churches were oppressed by the civil and ecclesiastical
powers, not without some effort of military force;  the distant
Barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican, and, in the period of a
century, the schism of the three chapters expired in an obscure angle of
the Venetian province.  But the religious discontent of the Italians had
already promoted the conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans
themselves were accustomed to suspect the faith and to detest the
government of their Byzantine tyrant.

Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process of
fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his youth he
was, offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line; in his
old age he transgressed the measure of temperate heresy, and the
Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were scandalized by his
declaration, that the body of Christ was incorruptible, and that his
manhood was never subject to any wants and infirmities, the inheritance
of our mortal flesh. This fantasticopinion was announced in the last
edicts of Justinian; and at the moment of his seasonable departure, the
clergy had refused to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute,
and the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves,
secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of the East
in the language of authority and affection. "Most gracious Justinian,
remember your baptism and your creed. Let not your gray hairs be defiled
with heresy. Recall your fathers from exile, and your followers from
perdition. You cannot be ignorant, that Italy and Gaul, Spain and
Africa, already deplore your fall, and anathematize your name. Unless,
without delay, you destroy what you have taught; unless you exclaim with
a loud voice, I have erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius,
anathema to Eutyches, you deliver your soul to the same flames in which
theywill eternally burn." He died and made no sign.  His death restored
in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns of his four
successors, Justin Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are distinguished by a
rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the ecclesiastical history of the
East.

The faculties of sense and reason are least capable of acting on
themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to the sight, the soul to the
thought; yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a sole principle of
action, is essential to a rational and conscious being. When Heraclius
returned from the Persian war, the orthodox hero consulted his bishops,
whether the Christ whom he adored, of one person, but of two natures,
was actuated by a single or a double will. They replied in the singular,
and the emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and
Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most
certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught even by
the Nestorians themselves.  The experiment was tried without effect, and
the timid or vehement Catholics condemned even the semblance of a
retreat in the presence of a subtle and audacious enemy. The orthodox
(the prevailing) party devised new modes of speech, and argument, and
interpretation: to either nature of Christ they speciously applied a
proper and distinct energy; but the difference was no longer visible
when they allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the
same.  The disease was attended with the customary symptoms: but the
Greek clergy, as if satiated with the endless controversy of the
incarnation, instilled a healing counsel into the ear of the prince and
people. They declared themselves monothelites, (asserters of the unity
of will,) but they treated the words as new, the questions as
superfluous; and recommended a religious silence as the most agreeable
to the prudence and charity of the gospel. This law of silence was
successively imposed by the ecthesisor exposition of Heraclius, the
typeor model of his grandson Constans;  and the Imperial edicts were
subscribed with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bishop and monks of
Jerusalem sounded the alarm: in the language, or even in the silence, of
the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent heresy: and the
obedience of Pope Honorius to the commands of his sovereign was
retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of his successors. They
condemned the execrable and abominable heresy of the Monothelites, who
revived the errors of Manes, Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the
sentence of excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was
mingled with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony
was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror and
affright. As the representative of the Western church, Pope Martin and
his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and guilty silence of the
Greeks: one hundred and five bishops of Italy, for the most part the
subjects of Constans, presumed to reprobate his wicked type, and the
impious ecthesisof his grandfather; and to confound the authors and
their adherents with the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates
from the church, and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the
tamest reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on
the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle, the
abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of his tongue
and his right hand.  But the same invincible spirit survived in their
successors; and the triumph of the Latins avenged their recent defeat,
and obliterated the disgrace of the three chapters. The synods of Rome
were confirmed by the sixth general council of Constantinople, in the
palace and the presence of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius.
The royal convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the
bishops;  the dissenters, with their chief, Macarius of Antioch, were
condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of heresy; the East
condescended to accept the lessons of the West; and the creed was
finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of every age, that two
wills or energies are harmonized in the person of Christ. The majesty of
the pope and the Roman synod was represented by two priests, one deacon,
and three bishops; but these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel,
nor treasures to bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by
what arts they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure
the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of his
fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople  were favorable
to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least reasonable of the two:
and the suspicion is countenanced by the unnatural moderation of the
Greek clergy, who appear in this quarrel to be conscious of their
weakness. While the synod debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary
decision, by raising a dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the
trial; but the acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the
passions and prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side
of the Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine
was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast
of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the sixth council was
defaced, and the original acts were committed to the flames. But in the
second year, their patron was cast headlong from the throne, the bishops
of the East were released from their occasional conformity, the Roman
faith was more firmly replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes,
and the fine problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more
popular and visible quarrel of the worship of images.

Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the incarnation,
which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople, was uniformly
preached in the remote islands of Britain and Ireland;  the same ideas
were entertained, or rather the same words were repeated, by all the
Christians whose liturgy was performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue.
Their numbers, and visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim to the
appellation of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the
less honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists;  of men, whose faith,
instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or tradition, had
been established, and was still maintained, by the arbitrary power of a
temporal monarch. Their adversaries might allege the words of the
fathers of Constantinople, who profess themselves the slaves of the
king; and they might relate, with malicious joy, how the decrees of
Chalcedon had been inspired and reformed by the emperor Marcian and his
virgin bride. The prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty
of submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel and
assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of persecution, the
Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into rebels and fugitives; and
the most ancient and useful allies of Rome were taught to consider the
emperor not as the chief, but as the enemy of the Christians. Language,
the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind,
soon discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and
perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the hope
of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their colonies, and,
above all, their eloquence, had propagated a language doubtless the most
perfect that has been contrived by the art of man. Yet the body of the
people, both in Syria and Egypt, still persevered in the use of their
national idioms; with this difference, however, that the Coptic was
confined to the rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the
Syriac,  from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to
the higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were
infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their Barbaric
tongues, which have been revived in the studies of modern Europe, were
unintelligible to the inhabitants of the Roman empire. The Syriac and
the Coptic, the Armenian and the Æthiopic, are consecrated in the
service of their respective churches: and their theology is enriched by
domestic versions  both of the Scriptures and of the most popular
fathers. After a period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark
of controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns in
the bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still maintain the
faith and discipline of their founders. In the most abject state of
ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians and Monophysites
reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and cherish the toleration of
their Turkish masters, which allows them to anathematize, on the one
hand, St. Cyril and the synod of Ephesus: on the other, Pope Leo and the
council of Chalcedon. The weight which they cast into the downfall of
the Eastern empire demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with
the various prospect of, I. The Nestorians; II. The Jacobites;  III. The
Maronites; IV. The Armenians; V. The Copts; and, VI. The Abyssinians. To
the three former, the Syriac is common; but of the latter, each is
discriminated by the use of a national idiom. Yet the modern natives of
Armenia and Abyssinia would be incapable of conversing with their
ancestors; and the Christians of Egypt and Syria, who reject the
religion, have adopted the language of the Arabians. The lapse of time
has seconded the sacerdotal arts; and in the East, as well as in the
West, the Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the
majority of the congregation.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Part III.

I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of the
unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental bishops,
who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of Cyril, were
mollified by his tardy concessions. The same prelates, or their
successors, subscribed, not without a murmur, the decrees of Chalcedon;
the power of the Monophysites reconciled them with the Catholics in the
conformity of passion, of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and
their last reluctant sigh was breathed in the defence of the three
chapters. Their dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere,
were crushed by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian,
it became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits of
the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a new world,
in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to conquest. In Persia,
notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi, Christianity had struck a
deep root, and the nations of the East reposed under its salutary shade.
The catholic, or primate, resided in the capital: in hissynods, and in
theirdioceses, his metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the
pomp and order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of
proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel, from
the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was stimulated by the
presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The Persian church had been
founded by the missionaries of Syria; and their language, discipline,
and doctrine, were closely interwoven with its original frame. The
catholicswere elected and ordained by their own suffragans; but their
filial dependence on the patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons
of the Oriental church.  In the Persian school of Edessa,  the rising
generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they
studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of Theodore of
Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and holy martyrdom of
his disciple Nestorius, whose person and language were equally unknown
to the nations beyond the Tigris. The first indelible lesson of Ibas,
bishop of Edessa, taught them to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the
synod of Ephesus, had impiously confounded the two natures of Christ.
The flight of the masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the
Athens of Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the
double zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the
Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had invaded
the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a land of
freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union of the two
persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the gospel, the
Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a race of aliens and
apostates, who had embraced the religion, and who might favor the cause,
of the hereditary foes of their country. The royal edicts had often
prohibited their dangerous correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the
progress of the schism was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and
he listened to the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius
as the friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his
Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims and
enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large majority of
the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the smile, and armed with
the sword, of despotism; yet many of their weaker brethren were startled
at the thought of breaking loose from the communion of the Christian
world, and the blood of seven thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or
Catholics, confirmed the uniformity of faith and discipline in the
churches of Persia.  Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished
by a liberal principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity
of the cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity
were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law of
celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins, was
disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the elect was
multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the priests, the
bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this standard of natural and
religious freedom, myriads of fugitives resorted from all the provinces
of the Eastern empire; the narrow bigotry of Justinian was punished by
the emigration of his most industrious subjects; they transported into
Persia the arts both of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor,
were promoted in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of
Nushirvan, and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and
money, and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their
native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift of the
Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were recovered by
Heraclius, their open profession of treason and heresy compelled them to
seek a refuge in the realm of their foreign ally. But the seeming
tranquillity of the Nestorians was often endangered, and sometimes
overthrown. They were involved in the common evils of Oriental
despotism: their enmity to Rome could not always atone for their
attachment to the gospel: and a colony of three hundred thousand
Jacobites, the captives of Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a
hostile altar in the face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the
court. In his last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which
tended to enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia.
The emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of pity
or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the holy synods:
but he flattered himself that they would gradually perceive the temporal
benefits of union with the empire and the church of Rome; and if he
failed in exciting their gratitude, he might hope to provoke the
jealousy of their sovereign. In a later age the Lutherans have been
burnt at Paris, and protected in Germany, by the superstition and policy
of the most Christian king.

The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church, has
excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests. From the
conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to the north, the
east, and the south; and the simplicity of the gospel was fashioned and
painted with the colors of the Syriac theology. In the sixth century,
according to the report of a Nestorian traveller,  Christianity was
successfully preached to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the
Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric
churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost
infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number and
sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of Malabar, and
the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were peopled with an
increasing multitude of Christians; and the bishops and clergy of those
sequestered regions derived their ordination from the Catholic of
Babylon. In a subsequent age the zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the
limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks
and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without
fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into
the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga. They
exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds: to those
sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and repose. Yet a khan,
whose power they vainly magnified, is said to have received at their
hands the rites of baptism, and even of ordination; and the fame of
Presteror PresbyterJohn  has long amused the credulity of Europe. The
royal convert was indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he
despatched an embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of
Lent, he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate the
Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In their
progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by the port of
Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike the senators of Rome,
who assumed with a smile the characters of priests and augurs, the
mandarins, who affect in public the reason of philosophers, are devoted
in private to every mode of popular superstition. They cherished and
they confounded the gods of Palestine and of India; but the propagation
of Christianity awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short
vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in
ignorance and oblivion.  Under the reign of the caliphs, the Nestorian
church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus; and their
numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to surpass the Greek
and Latin communions.  Twenty-five metropolitans or archbishops composed
their hierarchy; but several of these were dispensed, by the distance
and danger of the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy
condition that every six years they should testify their faith and
obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague appellation
which has been successively applied to the royal seats of Seleucia,
Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches are long since withered;
and the old patriarchal trunk  is now divided by the Elijahsof Mosul,
the representatives almost on lineal descent of the genuine and
primitive succession; the Josephsof Amida, who are reconciled to the
church of Rome:  and the Simeonsof Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the
head of forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century
by the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is allowed
for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name of Chaldeans
or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned or the most powerful
nation of Eastern antiquity.

According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in India
by St. Thomas.  At the end of the ninth century, his shrine, perhaps in
the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly visited by the ambassadors of
Alfred; and their return with a cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the
zeal of the English monarch, who entertained the largest projects of
trade and discovery.  When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of
India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on the
coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and color
attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts, and possibly
in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan; the husbandmen
cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were enriched by the pepper
trade, the soldiers preceded the nairsor nobles of Malabar, and their
hereditary privileges were respected by the gratitude or the fear of the
king of Cochin and the Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of
sovereign, but they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the
bishop of Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan
of India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen hundred
churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two hundred thousand
souls. Their religion would have rendered them the firmest and most
cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the inquisitors soon discerned in
the Christians of St. Thomas the unpardonable guilt of heresy and
schism. Instead of owning themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff,
the spiritual and temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like
their ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the
bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the sea and
land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In their Syriac
liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were piously commemorated:
they united their adoration of the two persons of Christ; the title of
Mother of God was offensive to their ear, and they measured with
scrupulous avarice the honors of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition
of the Latins had almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her
image was first presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they
indignantly exclaimed, "We are Christians, not idolaters!" and their
simple devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their
separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of the
improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their conformity
with the faith and practice of the fifth century would equally
disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It was the first
care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all correspondence with the
Nestorian patriarch, and several of his bishops expired in the prisons
of the holy office. The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the
power of the Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis
de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the coast
of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided, consummated the
pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed the doctrine and
discipline of the Roman church, without forgetting auricular confession,
the strongest engine of ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore
and Nestorius was condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion
of the pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of
Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy were
patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was shaken by
the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians asserted, with
vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers. The Jesuits were
incapable of defending the power which they had abused; the arms of
forty thousand Christians were pointed against their falling tyrants;
and the Indian archdeacon assumed the character of bishop till a fresh
supply of episcopal gifts and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from
the patriarch of Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the
Nestorian creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading
companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration; but if
oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the Christians of St.
Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and silent indifference of
their brethren of Europe.

II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and interesting than
that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, their
artful leaders surprised the ear of the prince, usurped the thrones of
the East, and crushed on its native soil the school of the Syrians. The
rule of the Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by
Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the
Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches maintained
against the latter the reality of the body of Christ, and constrained
the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke truth.  But the
approximation of ideas could not abate the vehemence of passion; each
party was the more astonished that their blind antagonist could dispute
on so trifling a difference; the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of
his creed, and his reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred
and fifty monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or
resistance, under the walls of Apamea.  The successor of Anastasius
replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus fled into Egypt;
and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias,  who had escaped from the
Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his exile by the Melchites of
Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were swept from their thrones, eight
hundred ecclesiastics were cast into prison,  and notwithstanding the
ambiguous favor of Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their
shepherds, must insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In
this spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,
and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James Baradæus
has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites, a familiar sound,
which may startle the ear of an English reader. From the holy confessors
in their prison of Constantinople, he received the powers of bishop of
Edessa and apostle of the East, and the ordination of fourscore thousand
bishops, priests, and deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible
source. The speed of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest
dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and discipline
of the Jacobites were secretly established in the dominions of
Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to violate the laws and to
hate the Roman legislator. The successors of Severus, while they lurked
in convents or villages, while they sheltered their proscribed heads in
the caverns of hermits, or the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as
they now assert, their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and
the prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of the
infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the pleasant
monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with cells,
aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though honorable, place is
filled by the maphrian, who, in his station at Mosul itself, defies the
Nestorian catholicwith whom he contests the primacy of the East. Under
the patriarch and the maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and
bishops have been counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church;
but the order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater
part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the Euphrates
and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which are often visited
by the patriarch, contain some wealthy merchants and industrious
mechanics, but the multitude derive their scanty sustenance from their
daily labor: and poverty, as well as superstition, may impose their
excessive fasts: five annual lents, during which both the clergy and
laity abstain not only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of
wine, of oil, and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty
to fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which was
gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries. Yet in
that long period, some strangers of merit have been converted to the
Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of Abulpharagius,  primate
of the East, so truly eminent both in his life and death. In his life he
was an elegant writer of the Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet,
physician, and historian, a subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine.
In his death, his funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian
patriarch, with a train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their
disputes, and mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect
which was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to
sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The superstition of
the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more rigid,  their intestine
divisions are more numerous, and their doctors (as far as I can measure
the degrees of nonsense) are more remote from the precincts of reason.
Something may possibly be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite
theology; much more for the superior influence of the monastic order. In
Syria, in Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been
distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity of
their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the favorites of
the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is reserved for their
venerable hands; and they assume the government of men, while they are
yet reeking with the habits and prejudices of the cloister.

III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of every
age are described under the appellation of Maronites,  a name which has
been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a monastery, from a
monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage of the fifth century,
displayed his religious madness in Syria; the rival cities of Apamea and
Emesa disputed his relics, a stately church was erected on his tomb, and
six hundred of his disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of
the Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely
threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and Eutyches;
but the unfortunate question of one willor operation in the two natures
of Christ, was generated by their curious leisure. Their proselyte, the
emperor Heraclius, was rejected as a Maronite from the walls of Emesa,
he found a refuge in the monastery of his brethren; and their
theological lessons were repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy
domain. The name and doctrine of this venerable school were propagated
among the Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,
patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of Constantinople,
that sooner than subscribe the two willsof Christ, he would submit to be
hewn piecemeal and cast into the sea.  A similar or a less cruel mode of
persecution soon converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while
the glorious title of Mardaites,  or rebels, was bravely maintained by
the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one of the most learned
and popular of the monks, assumed the character of patriarch of Antioch;
his nephew, Abraham, at the head of the Maronites, defended their civil
and religious freedom against the tyrants of the East. The son of the
orthodox Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who
might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common foes of
Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the monastery of
St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest chieftains were betrayed
and murdered, and twelve thousand of their followers were transplanted
to the distant frontiers of Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of
the Maronites had survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still
enjoy, under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated
servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient
nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still fancies
himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose his synod, and
one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the liberty of marriage, are
intrusted with the care of one hundred thousand souls. Their country
extends from the ridge of Mount Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and
the gradual descent affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and
climate, from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow,  to the
vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley. In the
twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite error were
reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,  and the same
alliance has been frequently renewed by the ambition of the popes and
the distress of the Syrians. But it may reasonably be questioned,
whether their union has ever been perfect or sincere; and the learned
Maronites of the college of Rome have vainly labored to absolve their
ancestors from the guilt of heresy and schism.

IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians  had signalized their
attachment to the religion and empire of the Christians. * The disorders
of their country, and their ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented
their clergy from assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated
eighty-four years  in a state of indifference or suspense, till their
vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian of
Halicarnassus,  who in Egypt, their common exile, had been vanquished by
the arguments or the influence of his rival Severus, the Monophysite
patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians alone are the pure disciples of
Eutyches, an unfortunate parent, who has been renounced by the greater
part of his spiritual progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that
the manhood of Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a
divine and incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with
the adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by deriding
or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute to the Godhead
the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the natural effects of nutrition
and digestion. The religion of Armenia could not derive much glory from
the learning or the power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with
the origin of their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and
fell in the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the
clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of Iconium.
The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy the tranquillity
of servitude. From the earliest period to the present hour, Armenia has
been the theatre of perpetual war: the lands between Tauris and Erivan
were dispeopled by the cruel policy of the Sophis; and myriads of
Christian families were transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the
distant provinces of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of
the Armenians is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the
crown of martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate
the error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with the
Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand bishops, whom
their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman pontiff.  The catholic,
or patriarch, of the Armenians resides in the monastery of Ekmiasin,
three leagues from Erivan. Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may
claim the obedience of four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his
hand; but the far greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify
with their presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as
they have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our
bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life
increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank. In the
fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual empire, the
patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from each person above the
age of fifteen; but the annual amount of six hundred thousand crowns is
insufficient to supply the incessant demands of charity and tribute.
Since the beginning of the last century, the Armenians have obtained a
large and lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return
from Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,
the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient industry; and
the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent congregations of
Barbary and Poland.

V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince might
eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed. But the
stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their opposition to the
synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian condescended to expect
and to seize the opportunity of discord. The Monophysite church of
Alexandria  was torn by the disputes of the corruptiblesand
incorruptibles, and on the death of the patriarch, the two factions
upheld their respective candidates.  Gaian was the disciple of Julian,
Theodosius had been the pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were
supported by the consent of the monks and senators, the city and the
province; the latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the
favor of the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which
might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the popular
candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment of Alexandria;
and after a schism of one hundred and seventy years, the Gaianitesstill
revered the memory and doctrine of their founder. The strength of
numbers and of discipline was tried in a desperate and bloody conflict;
the streets were filled with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers;
the pious women, ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down
every sharp or ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the
final victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted
the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of Justinian
had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius himself was
speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis, an orthodox monk,
was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The powers of government were
strained in his support; he might appoint or displace the dukes and
tribunes of Egypt; the allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted,
was suppressed, the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was
deprived at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the
tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people: and
none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man, a
Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition, that,
when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited, with a bribe
of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to the same station of
hatred and ignominy. His successor Apollinaris entered the hostile city
in military array, alike qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops,
under arms, were distributed through the streets; the gates of the
cathedral were guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to
defend the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,
throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared before
the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of Alexandria.
Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had Apollinaris begun to read
the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of curses, and invectives, and
stones, assaulted the odious minister of the emperor and the synod. A
charge was instantly sounded by the successor of the apostles; the
soldiers waded to their knees in blood; and two hundred thousand
Christians are said to have fallen by the sword: an incredible account,
even if it be extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years
of the reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius  and
John,  labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and arguments
more worthy of their evangelical profession. The theological knowledge
of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume, which magnified the errors
of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted to reconcile the ambiguous
language of St. Cyril with the orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the
fathers of Chalcedon. The bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were
dictated by superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five
hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he found
eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the church; he
collected ten thousand from the liberality of the faithful; yet the
primate could boast in his testament, that he left behind him no more
than the third part of the smallest of the silver coins. The churches of
Alexandria were delivered to the Catholics, the religion of the
Monophysites was proscribed in Egypt, and a law was revived which
excluded the natives from the honors and emoluments of the state.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Part V.

A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the oracle
and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted the threats
and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an apostle or an
enthusiast. "Such," replied the patriarch, "were the offers of the
tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the earth. But my soul is far
dearer to me than life or dominion. The churches aaaain the hands of a
prince who can kill the body; but my conscience is my own; and in exile,
poverty, or chains, I will steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy
predecessors, Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of
Leo and the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!
Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those who love God
follow me and seek their salvation." After comforting his brethren, he
embarked for Constantinople, and sustained, in six successive
interviews, the almost irresistible weight of the royal presence. His
opinions were favorably entertained in the palace and the city; the
influence of Theodora assured him a safe conduct and honorable
dismission; and he ended his days, though not on the throne, yet in the
bosom, of his native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris
indecently feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by
the intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth of
Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais, and were
maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A perpetual
succession of patriarchs aaose from the ashes of Theodosius; and the
Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were united by the name of
Jacobites and the communion of the faith. But the same faith, which has
been confined to a narrow sect of the Syrians, was diffused over the
mass of the Egyptian or Coptic nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected
the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed
since Egypt had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and
Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient wisdom
and power ascend beyond the records of history. The conflict of zeal and
persecution rekindled some sparks of their national spirit. They
abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners and language of the Greeks:
every Melchite, in their eyes, was a stranger, every Jacobite a citizen;
the alliance of marriage, the offices of humanity, were condemned as a
deadly sin the natives renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his
orders, at a distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the
pressure of military force. A generous effort might have redeemed the
religion and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries might
have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom death should
have no terrors, since life had no comfort or delight. But experience
has proved the distinction of active and passive courage; the fanatic
who endures without a groan the torture of the rack or the stake, would
tremble and fly before the face of an armed enemy. The pusillanimous
temper of the Egyptians could only hope for a change of masters; the
arms of Chosroes depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites
enjoyed a short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius renewed
and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again escaped from
Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin was encouraged by a
voice, which bade him expect, at the end of ten years, the aid of a
foreign nation, marked, like the Egyptians themselves, with the ancient
rite of circumcision. The character of these deliverers, and the nature
of the deliverance, will be hereafter explained; and I shall step over
the interval of eleven centuries to observe the present misery of the
Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a residence, or
rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and a remnant of ten
bishops; forty monasteries have survived the inroads of the Arabs; and
the progress of servitude and apostasy has reduced the Coptic nation to
the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty thousand families;  a
race of illiterate beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the
superior wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive
congregation.

VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Cæsars, or a slave to the
khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings of Nubia and
Æthiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying their greatness; and it
was boldly asserted that they could bring into the field a hundred
thousand horse, with an equal number of camels;  that their hand could
pour out or restrain the waters of the Nile;  and the peace and plenty
of Egypt was obtained, even in this world, by the intercession of the
patriarch. In exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his
patroness the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic
of Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia.  Her design was suspected and
emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival missionaries, a
Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same time; but the empress,
from a motive of love or fear, was more effectually obeyed; and the
Catholic priest was detained by the president of Thebais, while the king
of Nubia and his court were hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus.
The tardy envoy of Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but
when he accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro
convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his
brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the synod
of Chalcedon.  During several ages, the bishops of Nubia were named and
consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of Alexandria: as late as the
twelfth century, Christianity prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are
still visible in the savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola.  But the
Nubians at length executed their threats of returning to the worship of
idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they have
finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement of the
Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for the capacity
of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be taught to repeat the
wordsof the Chalcedonian or Monophysite creed.

Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire; and,
although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted above seventy
or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria retains her colony
in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven bishops once composed the
Æthiopic synod: had their number amounted to ten, they might have
elected an independent primate; and one of their kings was ambitious of
promoting his brother to the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was
foreseen, the increase was denied: the episcopal office has been
gradually confined to the abuna,  the head and author of the Abyssinian
priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian monk;
and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in the eyes of
the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch. In the sixth
century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the rival chiefs, with
their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove to outstrip each other in
the conquest of a remote and independent province. The industry of the
empress was again victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in
that sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites.
Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
Æthiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom
they were forgotten. They were awakened by the Portuguese, who, turning
the southern promontory of Africa, appeared in India and the Red Sea, as
if they had descended through the air from a distant planet. In the
first moments of their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria
observed the resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith;
and each nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance
with their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the Æthiopians
had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their vessels, which had
traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to navigate the rivers of Africa;
the ruins of Axume were deserted, the nation was scattered in villages,
and the emperor, a pompous name, was content, both in peace and war,
with the immovable residence of a camp. Conscious of their own
indigence, the Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing
the arts and ingenuity of Europe;  and their ambassadors at Rome and
Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,
tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their
country. But the public danger soon called for the instant and effectual
aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an unwarlike people from the
Barbarians who ravaged the inland country and the Turks and Arabs who
advanced from the sea-coast in more formidable array. Æthiopia was saved
by four hundred and fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the
native valor of Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and
cannon. In a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile
himself and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch
represented the supremacy of the pope:  the empire, enlarged in a
tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than the mines of
America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal were built on the
willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return of
health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy to the
Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by the exercise of
dispute; they branded the Latins with the names of Arians and
Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of fourgods to those who separated
the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a place of worship, or rather of
exile, was assigned to the Jesuit missionaries. Their skill in the
liberal and mechanic arts, their theological learning, and the decency
of their manners, inspired a barren esteem; but they were not endowed
with the gift of miracles,  and they vainly solicited a reënforcement of
European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at length
obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of Abyssinia were
persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and everlasting happiness
of her votaries. The first of these royal converts lost his crown and
his life; and the rebel army was sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an
anathema at the apostate, and absolved his subjects from their oath of
fidelity. The fate of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune
of Susneus, who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more
vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After the
amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his illiterate
priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to the synod of
Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and people would embrace without
delay the religion of their prince. The liberty of choice was succeeded
by a law, which imposed, under pain of death, the belief of the two
natures of Christ: the Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on
the Sabbath; and Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his
connection with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso Mendez, the
Catholic patriarch of Æthiopia, accepted, in the name of Urban VIII.,
the homage and abjuration of the penitent. "I confess," said the emperor
on his knees, "I confess that the pope is the vicar of Christ, the
successor of St. Peter, and the sovereign of the world. To him I swear
true obedience, and at his feet I offer my person and kingdom." A
similar oath was repeated by his son, his brother, the clergy, the
nobles, and even the ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was
invested with honors and wealth; and his missionaries erected their
churches or citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The
Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief, who
forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his order, to
introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and the inquisition of
Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of circumcision, which
health, rather than superstition, had first invented in the climate of
Æthiopia.  A new baptism, a new ordination, was inflicted on the
natives; and they trembled with horror when the most holy of the dead
were torn from their graves, when the most illustrious of the living
were excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defense of their
religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with desperate but
unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were extinguished in the blood of the
insurgents: two abunas were slain in battle, whole legions were
slaughtered in the field, or suffocated in their caverns; and neither
merit, nor rank, nor sex, could save from an ignominious death the
enemies of Rome. But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the
constancy of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most
faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of reason,
perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience instantly
revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On the death of his
father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch, and restored to the
wishes of the nation the faith and the discipline of Egypt. The
Monophysite churches resounded with a song of triumph, "that the sheep
of Æthiopia were now delivered from the hyænas of the West;" and the
gates of that solitary realm were forever shut against the arts, the
science, and the fanaticism of Europe.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.

Part I.

Plan Of The Two Last Volumes. -- Succession And Characters Of The Greek
Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin
Conquest.

I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine to
Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and faithfully
exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their reigns. Five
centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have already elapsed;
but a period of more than eight hundred years still separates me from
the term of my labors, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Should
I persevere in the same course, should I observe the same measure, a
prolix and slender thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would
the patient reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement.
At every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the Eastern
empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose a more
ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue to repeat a
tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the natural connection
of causes and events would be broken by frequent and hasty transitions,
and a minute accumulation of circumstances must destroy the light and
effect of those general pictures which compose the use and ornament of a
remote history. From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is
contracted and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by
the laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all sides
from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our inquiries, is
reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely suburbs of
Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has been compared to
that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the sands, before its waters
can mingle with the ocean. The scale of dominion is diminished to our
view by the distance of time and place; nor is the loss of external
splendor compensated by the nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the
last moments of her decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and
populous than Athens at her most flourishing æra, when a scanty sum of
six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling was
possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult age. But each
of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to assert the liberty of his
thoughts, words, and actions, whose person and property were guarded by
equal law; and who exercised his independent vote in the government of
the republic. Their numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and
various discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on
the wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level of
the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some chosen spirits
soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the chances of superior
merit in a great and populous kingdom, as they are proved by experience,
would excuse the computation of imaginary millions. The territories of
Athens, Sparta, and their allies, do not exceed a moderate province of
France or England; but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea, they
expand in our fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been
trampled under the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of
the Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of Greeks
and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices, which are neither
softened by the weakness of humanity, nor animated by the vigor of
memorable crimes. The freemen of antiquity might repeat with generous
enthusiasm the sentence of Homer, "that on the first day of his
servitude, the captive is deprived of one half of his manly virtue." But
the poet had only seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor
could he foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated
by the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but even
the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke, the Greeks
were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the tyrant, a law of
eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of his subjects; and on the
throne, in the camp, in the schools, we search, perhaps with fruitless
diligence, the names and characters that may deserve to be rescued from
oblivion. Nor are the defects of the subject compensated by the skill
and variety of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four
first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some faint
and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the emperors, from
Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone been the theme of a
separate work; and the absence, or loss, or imperfection of contemporary
evidence, must be poorly supplied by the doubtful authority of more
recent compilers. The four last centuries are exempt from the reproach
of penury; and with the Comnenian family, the historic muse of
Constantinople again revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are
without elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads
in each other's footsteps in the same path of servitude and
superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or
corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still ignorant
of the causes of events, the characters of the actors, and the manners
of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The observation which has
been applied to a man, may be extended to a whole people, that the
energy of the sword is communicated to the pen; and it will be found by
experience, that the tone of history will rise or fall with the spirit
of the age.

From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret the
Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not reflected that the
fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passivelyconnected with the most
splendid and important revolutions which have changed the state of the
world. The space of the lost provinces was immediately replenished with
new colonies and rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war
deserted from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in
their origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we
must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches and variety
of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of design and
composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman of Fez or Delhi
still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca, the historian's eye
shall be always fixed on the city of Constantinople. The excursive line
may embrace the wilds of Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be
ultimately reduced to the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.

On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two volumes
of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a regular
series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during a period of
six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the Latin conquest; a
rapid abstract, which may be supported by a generalappeal to the order
and text of the original historians. In this introduction, I shall
confine myself to the revolutions of the throne, the succession of
families, the personal characters of the Greek princes, the mode of
their life and death, the maxims and influence of their domestic
government, and the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the
downfall of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve
to illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and each
circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will adapt itself
in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The internal state of the
empire, and the dangerous heresy of the Paulicians, which shook the East
and enlightened the West, will be the subject of two separate chapters;
but these inquiries must be postponed till our further progress shall
have opened the view of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of
the Christian area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the
following nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the
space to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree
of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The Franks; a
general appellation which includes all the Barbarians of France, Italy,
and Germany, who were united by the sword and sceptre of Charlemagne.
The persecution of images and their votaries separated Rome and Italy
from the Byzantine throne, and prepared the restoration of the Roman
empire in the West. II. The Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will
be devoted to this curious and interesting object. In the first, after a
picture of the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate the
character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the
prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of Syria,
Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor can I check
their victorious career till they have overthrown the monarchies of
Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how Constantinople and
Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the division and decay, of the
empire of the caliphs. A single chapter will include, III. The
Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and, V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by
land the provinces and the capital; but the last of these, so important
in their present greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin
and infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of that
warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and Sicily,
shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the trophies of chivalry,
and almost realized the wonders of romance. VII. The Latins; the
subjects of the pope, the nations of the West, who enlisted under the
banner of the cross for the recovery or relief of the holy sepulchre.
The Greek emperors were terrified and preserved by the myriads of
pilgrims who marched to Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers
of Christendom. The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of
the first: Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred
years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and finally
expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these memorable
crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were diverted from
Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the capital, they
subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of Latin princes was seated
near threescore years on the throne of Constantine. VIII. The Greeks
themselves, during this period of captivity and exile, must be
considered as a foreign nation; the enemies, and again the sovereigns of
Constantinople. Misfortune had rekindled a spark of national virtue; and
the Imperial series may be continued with some dignity from their
restoration to the Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the
arms of Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to
Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell, and
the Cæsars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour suspended
above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine empire. X. I have
already noticed the first appearance of the Turks; and the names of the
fathers, of Seljukand Othman, discriminate the two successive dynasties
of the nation, which emerged in the eleventh century from the Scythian
wilderness. The former established a splendid and potent kingdom from
the banks of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first crusade was
provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of Constantinople.
From an humble origin, the Ottomansarose, the scourge and terror of
Christendom. Constantinople was besieged and taken by Mahomet II., and
his triumph annihilates the remnant, the image, the title, of the Roman
empire in the East. The schism of the Greeks will be connected with
their last calamities, and the restoration of learning in the Western
world. I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the ruins of
ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme, will shed a
ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.

The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his throne; and
the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the transient conquest, and
irreparable loss, of the Eastern provinces. After the death of Eudocia,
his first wife, he disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by
his second marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the
Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the father and
the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an illegitimate birth
is sufficient to distract the choice, and loosen the obedience, of the
people: the ambition of Martina was quickened by maternal love, and
perhaps by the envy of a step-mother; and the aged husband was too
feeble to withstand the arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine, his
eldest son, enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the
weakness of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and he
yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire. The
senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the association of
Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of the diadem was
consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the patriarch; the senators
and patricians adored the majesty of the great emperor and the partners
of his reign; and as soon as the doors were thrown open, they were
hailed by the tumultuary but important voice of the soldiers. After an
interval of five months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the essence
of the Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the
hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly displayed
by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the name of Martina
was mingled in the reluctant or venal acclamations of the people.
Heraclius survived this association about two years: his last testimony
declared his two sons the equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and
commanded them to honor his widow Martina as their mother and their
sovereign.

When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and attributes
of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though respectful, opposition;
and the dying embers of freedom were kindled by the breath of
superstitious prejudice. "We reverence," exclaimed the voice of a
citizen, "we reverence the mother of our princes; but to those princes
alone our obedience is due; and Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an
age to sustain, in his own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is
excluded by nature from the toils of government. How could you combat,
how could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly
intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from the Roman
republic this national disgrace, which would provoke the patience of the
slaves of Persia!" Martina descended from the throne with indignation,
and sought a refuge in the female apartment of the palace. The reign of
Constantine the Third lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired
in the thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long
malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means, and his
cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate. Martina reaped
indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the government in the name
of the surviving emperor; but the incestuous widow of Heraclius was
universally abhorred; the jealousy of the people was awakened, and the
two orphans whom Constantine had left became the objects of the public
care. It was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than
fifteen years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his
nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it was in
vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to defend them against
all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late emperor had despatched a
trusty servant to arm the troops and provinces of the East in the
defence of his helpless children: the eloquence and liberality of
Valentin had been successful, and from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly
demanded the punishment of the assassins, and the restoration of the
lawful heir. The license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and
drank the wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of
Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities, and the
dome of St. Sophia reëchoed, not with prayers and hymns, but with the
clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At their imperious
command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with the eldest of the royal
orphans; Constans alone was saluted as emperor of the Romans, and a
crown of gold, which had been taken from the tomb of Heraclius, was
placed on his head, with the solemn benediction of the patriarch. But in
the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was pillaged, the
sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of Jews and Barbarians;
and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of the empress, after dropping a
protestation on the altar, escaped by a prudent flight from the zeal of
the Catholics. A more serious and bloody task was reserved for the
senate, who derived a temporary strength from the consent of the
soldiers and people. The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient and
awful examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of Constantine.
But the severity of the conscript fathers was stained by the
indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the guilty: Martina and
Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation, the former of her tongue,
the latter of his nose; and after this cruel execution, they consumed
the remainder of their days in exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were
capable of reflection might find some consolation for their servitude,
by observing the abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the
hands of an aristocracy.

We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years backwards to
the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the oration which Constans II.
pronounced in the twelfth year of his age before the Byzantine senate.
After returning his thanks for the just punishment of the assassins, who
had intercepted the fairest hopes of his father's reign, "By the divine
Providence," said the young emperor, "and by your righteous decree,
Martina and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state from
degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and beseech you to
stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the common safety." The
senators were gratified by the respectful address and liberal donative
of their sovereign; but these servile Greeks were unworthy and
regardless of freedom; and in his mind, the lesson of an hour was
quickly erased by the prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism.
He retained only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother Theodosius on an
equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders, the grandson of
Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but this ceremony, which
seemed to profane the sacraments of the church, was insufficient to
appease the suspicions of the tyrant, and the death of the deacon
Theodosius could alone expiate the crime of his royal birth. * His
murder was avenged by the imprecations of the people, and the assassin,
in the fullness of power, was driven from his capital into voluntary and
perpetual exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant to
retort the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After passing
the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy, visited Rome, *
and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace and sacrilegious rapine, by
fixing his residence at Syracuse. But if Constans could fly from his
people, he could not fly from himself. The remorse of his conscience
created a phantom who pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night;
and the visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
said, or seemed to say, "Drink, brother, drink;" a sure emblem of the
aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the hands of the
deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious to himself and to
mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps by episcopal, treason,
in the capital of Sicily. A servant who waited in the bath, after
pouring warm water on his head, struck him violently with the vase. He
fell, stunned by the blow, and suffocated by the water; and his
attendants, who wondered at the tedious delay, beheld with indifference
the corpse of their lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested with
the purple an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it
might easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of
the age.

Constans had left in the Byzantine palace three sons, the eldest of whom
had been clothed in his infancy with the purple. When the father
summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these precious hostages
were detained by the Greeks, and a firm refusal informed him that they
were the children of the state. The news of his murder was conveyed with
almost supernatural speed from Syracuse to Constantinople; and
Constantine, the eldest of his sons, inherited his throne without being
the heir of the public hatred. His subjects contributed, with zeal and
alacrity, to chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had
usurped the rights of the senate and people; the young emperor sailed
from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet; and the legions of Rome and
Carthage were assembled under his standard in the harbor of Syracuse.
The defeat of the Sicilian tyrant was easy, his punishment just, and his
beauteous head was exposed in the hippodrome: but I cannot applaud the
clemency of a prince, who, among a crowd of victims, condemned the son
of a patrician, for deploring with some bitterness the execution of a
virtuous father. The youth was castrated: he survived the operation, and
the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation of
Germanus to the rank of a patriarch and saint. After pouring this bloody
libation on his father's tomb, Constantine returned to his capital; and
the growth of his young beard during the Sicilian voyage was announced,
by the familiar surname of Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his
reign, like that of his predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord.
On his two brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title
of Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without
trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret
instigation, the troops of the Anatolian themeor province approached the
city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal brothers the partition
or exercise of sovereignty, and supported their seditious claim by a
theological argument. They were Christians, (they cried,) and orthodox
Catholics; the sincere votaries of the holy and undivided Trinity. Since
there are three equal persons in heaven, it is reasonable there should
be three equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned
divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose their
arguments to the senate: they obeyed the summons, but the prospect of
their bodies hanging on the gibbet in the suburb of Galata reconciled
their companions to the unity of the reign of Constantine. He pardoned
his brothers, and their names were still pronounced in the public
acclamations: but on the repetition or suspicion of a similar offence,
the obnoxious princes were deprived of their titles and noses, * in the
presence of the Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in
the sixth general synod. In the close of his life, Pogonatus was anxious
only to establish the right of primogeniture: the heir of his two sons,
Justinian and Heraclius, was offered on the shrine of St. Peter, as a
symbol of their spiritual adoption by the pope; but the elder was alone
exalted to the rank of Augustus, and the assurance of the empire.

After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the Roman world
devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of a triumphant lawgiver was
dishonored by the vices of a boy, who imitated his namesake only in the
expensive luxury of building. His passions were strong; his
understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated with a foolish pride,
that his birth had given him the command of millions, of whom the
smallest community would not have chosen him for their local magistrate.
His favorite ministers were two beings the least susceptible of human
sympathy, a eunuch and a monk: to the one he abandoned the palace, to
the other the finances; the former corrected the emperor's mother with a
scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with their
heads downwards, over a slow and smoky fire. Since the days of Commodus
and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had most commonly been
the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who possessed some vigor of
character, enjoyed the sufferings, and braved the revenge, of his
subjects, about ten years, till the measure was full, of his crimes and
of their patience. In a dark dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation,
had groaned above three years, with some of the noblest and most
deserving of the patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the
government of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of
the contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was
followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius
observed, with a sigh, that he was a victim adorned for sacrifice, and
that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps. They ventured to
reply, that glory and empire might be the recompense of a generous
resolution; that every order of men abhorred the reign of a monster; and
that the hands of two hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice
of a leader. The night was chosen for their deliverance; and in the
first effort of the conspirators, the præfect was slain, and the prisons
were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed in every street,
"Christians, to St. Sophia!" and the seasonable text of the patriarch,
"This is the day of the Lord!" was the prelude of an inflammatory
sermon. From the church the people adjourned to the hippodrome:
Justinian, in whose cause not a sword had been drawn, was dragged before
these tumultuary judges, and their clamors demanded the instant death of
the tyrant. But Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast
an eye of pity on the prostrate son of his own benefactor and of so many
emperors. The life of Justinian was spared; the amputation of his nose,
perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy flexibility
of the Greek language could impose the name of Rhinotmetus; and the
mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonæin Crim-Tartary, a lonely
settlement, where corn, wine, and oil, were imported as foreign
luxuries.

On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished the
pride of his birth, and the hope of his restoration. After three years'
exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that his injury was avenged
by a second revolution, and that Leontius in his turn had been dethroned
and mutilated by the rebel Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable
name of Tiberius. But the claim of lineal succession was still
formidable to a plebeian usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the
complaints and charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the
tyrant in the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to
his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from the
inhospitable shore to the horde of the Chozars, who pitched their tents
between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan entertained with pity and
respect the royal suppliant: Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the
Asiatic side of the lake Motis, was assigned for his residence; and
every Roman prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the
Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have
received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was soon
tempted by the gold of Constantinople: and had not the design been
revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her husband must have been
assassinated or betrayed into the power of his enemies. After
strangling, with his own hands, the two emissaries of the khan,
Justinian sent back his wife to her brother, and embarked on the Euxine
in search of new and more faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a
violent tempest; and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve
the mercy of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be
restored to the throne. "Of forgiveness?" replied the intrepid tyrant:
"may I perish this instant -- may the Almighty whelm me in the waves --
if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies!" He survived this
impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the Danube, trusted his person
in the royal village of the Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of
Terbelis, a pagan conqueror, by the promise of his daughter and a fair
partition of the treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended
to the confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople
at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by the
sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had been promised
by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet ignorant. After an
absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian were faintly remembered,
and the birth and misfortunes of their hereditary sovereign excited the
pity of the multitude, ever discontented with the ruling powers; and by
the active diligence of his adherents, he was introduced into the city
and palace of Constantine.

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

In rewarding his allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian displayed
some sense of honor and gratitude; * and Terbelis retired, after
sweeping away a heap of gold coin, which he measured with his Scythian
whip. But never was vow more religiously performed than the sacred oath
of revenge which he had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two
usurpers (for I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror) were
dragged into the hippodrome, the one from his prison, the other from his
palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast prostrate
in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and Justinian, planting a
foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the
chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the
Psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion
and dragon shalt thou set thy foot!" The universal defection which he
had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula,
that the Roman people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe,
that such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, since his revenge
and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow, instead of
the slow variety of tortures which Justinian inflicted on the victims of
his anger. His pleasures were inexhaustible: neither private virtue nor
public service could expiate the guilt of active, or even passive,
obedience to an established government; and, during the six years of his
new reign, he considered the axe, the cord, and the rack, as the only
instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was pointed
against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and violated the
laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded some means of
defence, or at least of escape; and a grievous tax was imposed on
Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a fleet and army. "All are
guilty, and all must perish," was the mandate of Justinian; and the
bloody execution was intrusted to his favorite Stephen, who was
recommended by the epithet of the savage. Yet even the savage Stephen
imperfectly accomplished the intentions of his sovereign. The slowness
of his attack allowed the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw
into the country; and the minister of vengeance contented himself with
reducing the youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting
alive seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty in the sea,
and with reserving forty-two in chains to receive their doom from the
mouth of the emperor. In their return, the fleet was driven on the rocky
shores of Anatolia; and Justinian applauded the obedience of the Euxine,
which had involved so many thousands of his subjects and enemies in a
common shipwreck: but the tyrant was still insatiate of blood; and a
second expedition was commanded to extirpate the remains of the
proscribed colony. In the short interval, the Chersonites had returned
to their city, and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars
had renounced the cause of his odious brother; the exiles of every
province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name of
Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial troops,
unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of Justinian, escaped his
displeasure by abjuring his allegiance: the fleet, under their new
sovereign, steered back a more auspicious course to the harbors of
Sinope and Constantinople; and every tongue was prompt to pronounce,
every hand to execute, the death of the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he
was deserted by his Barbarian guards; and the stroke of the assassin was
praised as an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius had
taken refuge in a church; his aged grandmother guarded the door; and the
innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most formidable relics,
embraced with one hand the altar, with the other the wood of the true
cross. But the popular fury that dares to trample on superstition, is
deaf to the cries of humanity; and the race of Heraclius was
extinguished after a reign of one hundred years

Between the fall of the Heraclian and the rise of the Isaurian dynasty,
a short interval of six years is divided into three reigns. Bardanes, or
Philippicus, was hailed at Constantinople as a hero who had delivered
his country from a tyrant; and he might taste some moments of happiness
in the first transports of sincere and universal joy. Justinian had left
behind him an ample treasure, the fruit of cruelty and rapine: but this
useful fund was soon and idly dissipated by his successor. On the
festival of his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the
games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the streets with
a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets; refreshed himself in the
baths of Zeuxippus, and returning to the palace, entertained his nobles
with a sumptuous banquet. At the meridian hour he withdrew to his
chamber, intoxicated with flattery and wine, and forgetful that his
example had made every subject ambitious, and that every ambitious
subject was his secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced
themselves in the disorder of the feast; and the slumbering monarch was
surprised, bound, blinded, and deposed, before he was sensible of his
danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward; and the free
voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the office of
secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of Anastasius the
Second, and displayed in a short and troubled reign the virtues both of
peace and war. But after the extinction of the Imperial line, the rule
of obedience was violated, and every change diffused the seeds of new
revolutions. In a mutiny of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer
of the revenue was forcibly invested with the purple: after some months
of a naval war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,
Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior ascendant of
Leo, the general and emperor of the Oriental troops. His two
predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical profession:
the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to risk and to lose
his life in a treasonable enterprise; but the last days of Theodosius
were honorable and secure. The single sublime word, "health," which he
inscribed on his tomb, expresses the confidence of philosophy or
religion; and the fame of his miracles was long preserved among the
people of Ephesus. This convenient shelter of the church might sometimes
impose a lesson of clemency; but it may be questioned whether it is for
the public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.

I have dwelt on the fall of a tyrant; I shall briefly represent the
founder of a new dynasty, who is known to posterity by the invectives of
his enemies, and whose public and private life is involved in the
ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in spite of the clamors of
superstition, a favorable prejudice for the character of Leo the
Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from the obscurity of his birth, and
the duration of his reign. -- I. In an age of manly spirit, the prospect
of an Imperial reward would have kindled every energy of the mind, and
produced a crowd of competitors as deserving as they were desirous to
reign. Even in the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the
elevation of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society,
supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He would
probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science; and, in the
pursuit of fortune, he might absolve himself from the obligations of
benevolence and justice; but to his character we may ascribe the useful
virtues of prudence and fortitude, the knowledge of mankind, and the
important art of gaining their confidence and directing their passions.
It is agreed that Leo was a native of Isauria, and that Conon was his
primitive name. The writers, whose awkward satire is praise, describe
him as an itinerant pedler, who drove an ass with some paltry
merchandise to the country fairs; and foolishly relate that he met on
the road some Jewish fortune-tellers, who promised him the Roman empire,
on condition that he should abolish the worship of idols. A more
probable account relates the migration of his father from Asia Minor to
Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a grazier; and he must
have acquired considerable wealth, since the first introduction of his
son was procured by a supply of five hundred sheep to the Imperial camp.
His first service was in the guards of Justinian, where he soon
attracted the notice, and by degrees the jealousy, of the tyrant. His
valor and dexterity were conspicuous in the Colchian war: from
Anastasius he received the command of the Anatolian legions, and by the
suffrage of the soldiers he was raised to the empire with the general
applause of the Roman world. -- II. In this dangerous elevation, Leo the
Third supported himself against the envy of his equals, the discontent
of a powerful faction, and the assaults of his foreign and domestic
enemies. The Catholics, who accuse his religious innovations, are
obliged to confess that they were undertaken with temper and conducted
with firmness. Their silence respects the wisdom of his administration
and the purity of his manners. After a reign of twenty-four years, he
peaceably expired in the palace of Constantinople; and the purple which
he had acquired was transmitted by the right of inheritance to the third
generation. *

In a long reign of thirty-four years, the son and successor of Leo,
Constantine the Fifth, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with less temperate
zeal the images or idols of the church. Their votaries have exhausted
the bitterness of religious gall, in their portrait of this spotted
panther, this antichrist, this flying dragon of the serpent's seed, who
surpassed the vices of Elagabalus and Nero. His reign was a long
butchery of whatever was most noble, or holy, or innocent, in his
empire. In person, the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims,
surveyed their agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without
satiating, his appetite for blood: a plate of noses was accepted as a
grateful offering, and his domestics were often scourged or mutilated by
the royal hand. His surname was derived from his pollution of his
baptismal font. The infant might be excused; but the manly pleasures of
Copronymus degraded him below the level of a brute; his lust confounded
the eternal distinctions of sex and species, and he seemed to extract
some unnatural delight from the objects most offensive to human sense.
In his religion the Iconoclast was a Heretic, a Jew, a Mahometan, a
Pagan, and an Atheist; and his belief of an invisible power could be
discovered only in his magic rites, human victims, and nocturnal
sacrifices to Venus and the dæmons of antiquity. His life was stained
with the most opposite vices, and the ulcers which covered his body,
anticipated before his death the sentiment of hell-tortures. Of these
accusations, which I have so patiently copied, a part is refuted by its
own absurdity; and in the private anecdotes of the life of the princes,
the lie is more easy as the detection is more difficult. Without
adopting the pernicious maxim, that where much is alleged, something
must be true, I can however discern, that Constantine the Fifth was
dissolute and cruel. Calumny is more prone to exaggerate than to invent;
and her licentious tongue is checked in some measure by the experience
of the age and country to which she appeals. Of the bishops and monks,
the generals and magistrates, who are said to have suffered under his
reign, the numbers are recorded, the names were conspicuous, the
execution was public, the mutilation visible and permanent. * The
Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but even their
hatred is a proof of their oppression. They dissembled the provocations
which might excuse or justify his rigor, but even these provocations
must gradually inflame his resentment and harden his temper in the use
or the abuse of despotism. Yet the character of the fifth Constantine
was not devoid of merit, nor did his government always deserve the
curses or the contempt of the Greeks. From the confession of his
enemies, I am informed of the restoration of an ancient aqueduct, of the
redemption of two thousand five hundred captives, of the uncommon plenty
of the times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled
Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise his
activity and courage; he was on horseback in the field at the head of
his legions; and, although the fortune of his arms was various, he
triumphed by sea and land, on the Euphrates and the Danube, in civil and
Barbarian war. Heretical praise must be cast into the scale to
counterbalance the weight of orthodox invective. The Iconoclasts revered
the virtues of the prince: forty years after his death they still prayed
before the tomb of the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated by
fanaticism or fraud: and the Christian hero appeared on a milk-white
steed, brandishing his lance against the Pagans of Bulgaria: "An absurd
fable," says the Catholic historian, "since Copronymus is chained with
the dæmons in the abyss of hell."

Leo the Fourth, the son of the fifth and the father of the sixth
Constantine, was of a feeble constitution both of mind * and body, and
the principal care of his reign was the settlement of the succession.
The association of the young Constantine was urged by the officious zeal
of his subjects; and the emperor, conscious of his decay, complied,
after a prudent hesitation, with their unanimous wishes. The royal
infant, at the age of five years, was crowned with his mother Irene; and
the national consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and
solemnity, that could dazzle the eyes or bind the conscience of the
Greeks. An oath of fidelity was administered in the palace, the church,
and the hippodrome, to the several orders of the state, who adjured the
holy names of the Son, and mother of God. "Be witness, O Christ! that we
will watch over the safety of Constantine the son of Leo, expose our
lives in his service, and bear true allegiance to his person and
posterity." They pledged their faith on the wood of the true cross, and
the act of their engagement was deposited on the altar of St. Sophia.
The first to swear, and the first to violate their oath, were the five
sons of Copronymus by a second marriage; and the story of these princes
is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them from
the throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded them of a
legacy of about two millions sterling; some vain titles were not deemed
a sufficient compensation for wealth and power; and they repeatedly
conspired against their nephew, before and after the death of his
father. Their first attempt was pardoned; for the second offence  they
were condemned to the ecclesiastical state; and for the third treason,
Nicephorus, the eldest and most guilty, was deprived of his eyes, and
his four brothers, Christopher, Nicetas, Anthemeus, and Eudoxas, were
punished, as a milder sentence, by the amputation of their tongues.
After five years' confinement, they escaped to the church of St. Sophia,
and displayed a pathetic spectacle to the people. "Countrymen and
Christians," cried Nicephorus for himself and his mute brethren, "behold
the sons of your emperor, if you can still recognize our features in
this miserable state. A life, an imperfect life, is all that the malice
of our enemies has spared. It is now threatened, and we now throw
ourselves on your compassion." The rising murmur might have produced a
revolution, had it not been checked by the presence of a minister, who
soothed the unhappy princes with flattery and hope, and gently drew them
from the sanctuary to the palace. They were speedily embarked for
Greece, and Athens was allotted for the place of their exile. In this
calm retreat, and in their helpless condition, Nicephorus and his
brothers were tormented by the thirst of power, and tempted by a
Sclavonian chief, who offered to break their prison, and to lead them in
arms, and in the purple, to the gates of Constantinople. But the
Athenian people, ever zealous in the cause of Irene, prevented her
justice or cruelty; and the five sons of Copronymus were plunged in
eternal darkness and oblivion.

For himself, that emperor had chosen a Barbarian wife, the daughter of
the khan of the Chozars; but in the marriage of his heir, he preferred
an Athenian virgin, an orphan, seventeen years old, whose sole fortune
must have consisted in her personal accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo
and Irene were celebrated with royal pomp; she soon acquired the love
and confidence of a feeble husband, and in his testament he declared the
empress guardian of the Roman world, and of their son Constantine the
Sixth, who was no more than ten years of age. During his childhood,
Irene most ably and assiduously discharged, in her public
administration, the duties of a faithful mother; and her zeal in the
restoration of images has deserved the name and honors of a saint, which
she still occupies in the Greek calendar. But the emperor attained the
maturity of youth; the maternal yoke became more grievous; and he
listened to the favorites of his own age, who shared his pleasures, and
were ambitious of sharing his power. Their reasons convinced him of his
right, their praises of his ability, to reign; and he consented to
reward the services of Irene by a perpetual banishment to the Isle of
Sicily. But her vigilance and penetration easily disconcerted their rash
projects: a similar, or more severe, punishment was retaliated on
themselves and their advisers; and Irene inflicted on the ungrateful
prince the chastisement of a boy. After this contest, the mother and the
son were at the head of two domestic factions; and instead of mild
influence and voluntary obedience, she held in chains a captive and an
enemy. The empress was overthrown by the abuse of victory; the oath of
fidelity, which she exacted to herself alone, was pronounced with
reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the Armenian guards
encouraged a free and general declaration, that Constantine the Sixth
was the lawful emperor of the Romans. In this character he ascended his
hereditary throne, and dismissed Irene to a life of solitude and repose.
But her haughty spirit condescended to the arts of dissimulation: she
flattered the bishops and eunuchs, revived the filial tenderness of the
prince, regained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The
character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or spirit; but his
education had been studiously neglected; and the ambitious mother
exposed to the public censure the vices which she had nourished, and the
actions which she had secretly advised: his divorce and second marriage
offended the prejudices of the clergy, and by his imprudent rigor he
forfeited the attachment of the Armenian guards. A powerful conspiracy
was formed for the restoration of Irene; and the secret, though widely
diffused, was faithfully kept above eight months, till the emperor,
suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople, with the design
of appealing to the provinces and armies. By this hasty flight, the
empress was left on the brink of the precipice; yet before she implored
the mercy of her son, Irene addressed a private epistle to the friends
whom she had placed about his person, with a menace, that unless
theyaccomplished, shewould reveal, their treason. Their fear rendered
them intrepid; they seized the emperor on the Asiatic shore, and he was
transported to the porphyry apartment of the palace, where he had first
seen the light. In the mind of Irene, ambition had stifled every
sentiment of humanity and nature; and it was decreed in her bloody
council, that Constantine should be rendered incapable of the throne:
her emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and stabbed their daggers
with such violence and precipitation into his eyes as if they meant to
execute a mortal sentence. An ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded
the annalist of the church that death was the immediate consequence of
this barbarous execution. The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by
the authority of Baronius; and Protestant zeal has reëchoed the words of
a cardinal, desirous, as it should seem, to favor the patroness of
images. * Yet the blind son of Irene survived many years, oppressed by
the court and forgotten by the world; the Isaurian dynasty was silently
extinguished; and the memory of Constantine was recalled only by the
nuptials of his daughter Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second.

The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the unnatural mother,
who may not easily be paralleled in the history of crimes. To her bloody
deed superstition has attributed a subsequent darkness of seventeen
days; during which many vessels in midday were driven from their course,
as if the sun, a globe of fire so vast and so remote, could sympathize
with the atoms of a revolving planet. On earth, the crime of Irene was
left five years unpunished; her reign was crowned with external
splendor; and if she could silence the voice of conscience, she neither
heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world bowed to
the government of a female; and as she moved through the streets of
Constantinople, the reins of four milk-white steeds were held by as many
patricians, who marched on foot before the golden chariot of their
queen. But these patricians were for the most part eunuchs; and their
black ingratitude justified, on this occasion, the popular hatred and
contempt. Raised, enriched, intrusted with the first dignities of the
empire, they basely conspired against their benefactress; the great
treasurer Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her
successor was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia by
the venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated with
dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy of
Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her unsuspicious
clemency, and for the throne and treasures which she resigned, solicited
a decent and honorable retreat. His avarice refused this modest
compensation; and, in her exile of the Isle of Lesbos, the empress
earned a scanty subsistence by the labors of her distaff.

Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than Nicephorus, but
none perhaps have more deeply incurred the universal abhorrence of their
people. His character was stained with the three odious vices of
hypocrisy, ingratitude, and avarice: his want of virtue was not redeemed
by any superior talents, nor his want of talents by any pleasing
qualifications. Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was
vanquished by the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians; and the
advantage of his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the
destruction of a Roman army. * His son and heir Stauracius escaped from
the field with a mortal wound; yet six months of an expiring life were
sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular declaration, that he
would in all things avoid the example of his father. On the near
prospect of his decease, Michael, the great master of the palace, and
the husband of his sister Procopia, was named by every person of the
palace and city, except by his envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre
now falling from his hand, he conspired against the life of his
successor, and cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman
empire. But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the
people and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael the First
accepted the purple, and before he sunk into the grave the son of
Nicephorus implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had Michael in an
age of peace ascended an hereditary throne, he might have reigned and
died the father of his people: but his mild virtues were adapted to the
shade of private life, nor was he capable of controlling the ambition of
his equals, or of resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While
his want of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the
soldiers, the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened their
indignation. Even the Greeks of the ninth century were provoked by the
insolence of a female, who, in the front of the standards, presumed to
direct their discipline and animate their valor; and their licentious
clamors advised the new Semiramis to reverence the majesty of a Roman
camp. After an unsuccessful campaign, the emperor left, in their
winter-quarters of Thrace, a disaffected army under the command of his
enemies; and their artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the
dominion of the eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to
assert the right of a military election. They marched towards the
capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of Constantinople,
adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops and treasures of Asia
might have protracted the mischiefs of civil war. But his humanity (by
the ambitious it will be termed his weakness) protested that not a drop
of Christian blood should be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers
presented the conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They
were disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes
were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of solitude and
religion above thirty-two years after he had been stripped of the purple
and separated from his wife.

A rebel, in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate Bardanes,
had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet, who, after
prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of his three principal
officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the Phrygian, and Thomas the
Cappadocian, the successive reigns of the two former, the fruitless and
fatal enterprise of the third. This prediction was verified, or rather
was produced, by the event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp
rejected the husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same
Leo, the first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As
he affected to hesitate, "With this sword," said his companion Michael,
"I will open the gates of Constantinople to your Imperial sway; or
instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you obstinately resist the just
desires of your fellow-soldiers." The compliance of the Armenian was
rewarded with the empire, and he reigned seven years and a half under
the name of Leo the Fifth. Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws
and letters, he introduced into his civil government the rigor and even
cruelty of military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes
dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the guilty. His
religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of Chameleon, but the
Catholics have acknowledged by the voice of a saint and confessors, that
the life of the Iconoclast was useful to the republic. The zeal of his
companion Michael was repaid with riches, honors, and military command;
and his subordinate talents were beneficially employed in the public
service. Yet the Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a
scanty portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal;
and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in hasty discourse, at
length assumed a more threatening and hostile aspect against a prince
whom he represented as a cruel tyrant. That tyrant, however, repeatedly
detected, warned, and dismissed the old companion of his arms, till fear
and resentment prevailed over gratitude; and Michael, after a scrutiny
into his actions and designs, was convicted of treason, and sentenced to
be burnt alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity
of the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A solemn
day, the twenty-fifth of December, had been fixed for the execution: she
urged, that the anniversary of the Savior's birth would be profaned by
this inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented with reluctance to a decent
respite. But on the vigil of the feast his sleepless anxiety prompted
him to visit at the dead of night the chamber in which his enemy was
confined: he beheld him released from his chain, and stretched on his
jailer's bed in a profound slumber. Leo was alarmed at these signs of
security and intelligence; but though he retired with silent steps, his
entrance and departure were noticed by a slave who lay concealed in a
corner of the prison. Under the pretence of requesting the spiritual aid
of a confessor, Michael informed the conspirators, that their lives
depended on his discretion, and that a few hours were left to assure
their own safety, by the deliverance of their friend and country. On the
great festivals, a chosen band of priests and chanters was admitted into
the palace by a private gate to sing matins in the chapel; and Leo, who
regulated with the same strictness the discipline of the choir and of
the camp, was seldom absent from these early devotions. In the
ecclesiastical habit, but with their swords under their robes, the
conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the angles of the
chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the intonation of the
first psalm by the emperor himself. The imperfect light, and the
uniformity of dress, might have favored his escape, whilst their assault
was pointed against a harmless priest; but they soon discovered their
mistake, and encompassed on all sides the royal victim. Without a weapon
and without a friend, he grasped a weighty cross, and stood at bay
against the hunters of his life; but as he asked for mercy, "This is the
hour, not of mercy, but of vengeance," was the inexorable reply. The
stroke of a well-aimed sword separated from his body the right arm and
the cross, and Leo the Armenian was slain at the foot of the altar.

A memorable reverse of fortune was displayed in Michael the Second, who
from a defect in his speech was surnamed the Stammerer. He was snatched
from the fiery furnace to the sovereignty of an empire; and as in the
tumult a smith could not readily be found, the fetters remained on his
legs several hours after he was seated on the throne of the Cæsars. The
royal blood which had been the price of his elevation, was unprofitably
spent: in the purple he retained the ignoble vices of his origin; and
Michael lost his provinces with as supine indifference as if they had
been the inheritance of his fathers. His title was disputed by Thomas,
the last of the military triumvirate, who transported into Europe
fourscore thousand Barbarians from the banks of the Tigris and the
shores of the Caspian. He formed the siege of Constantinople; but the
capital was defended with spiritual and carnal weapons; a Bulgarian king
assaulted the camp of the Orientals, and Thomas had the misfortune, or
the weakness, to fall alive into the power of the conqueror. The hands
and feet of the rebel were amputated; he was placed on an ass, and,
amidst the insults of the people, was led through the streets, which he
sprinkled with his blood. The depravation of manners, as savage as they
were corrupt, is marked by the presence of the emperor himself. Deaf to
the lamentation of a fellow-soldier, he incessantly pressed the
discovery of more accomplices, till his curiosity was checked by the
question of an honest or guilty minister: "Would you give credit to an
enemy against the most faithful of your friends?" After the death of his
first wife, the emperor, at the request of the senate, drew from her
monastery Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine the Sixth. Her august
birth might justify a stipulation in the marriage-contract, that her
children should equally share the empire with their elder brother. But
the nuptials of Michael and Euphrosyne were barren; and she was content
with the title of mother of Theophilus, his son and successor.

The character of Theophilus is a rare example in which religious zeal
has allowed, and perhaps magnified, the virtues of a heretic and a
persecutor. His valor was often felt by the enemies, and his justice by
the subjects, of the monarchy; but the valor of Theophilus was rash and
fruitless, and his justice arbitrary and cruel. He displayed the banner
of the cross against the Saracens; but his five expeditions were
concluded by a signal overthrow: Amorium, the native city of his
ancestors, was levelled with the ground and from his military toils he
derived only the surname of the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign
is comprised in the institution of laws and the choice of magistrates,
and while he seems without action, his civil government revolves round
his centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But the
justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the Oriental
despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of authority, consult the
reason or passion of the moment, without measuring the sentence by the
law, or the penalty by the offense. A poor woman threw herself at the
emperor's feet to complain of a powerful neighbor, the brother of the
empress, who had raised his palace-wall to such an inconvenient height,
that her humble dwelling was excluded from light and air! On the proof
of the fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or
ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use and
benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theophilus content with this
extravagant satisfaction: his zeal converted a civil trespass into a
criminal act; and the unfortunate patrician was stripped and scourged in
the public place of Constantinople. For some venial offenses, some
defect of equity or vigilance, the principal ministers, a præfect, a
quæstor, a captain of the guards, were banished or mutilated, or scalded
with boiling pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome; and as these
dreadful examples might be the effects of error or caprice, they must
have alienated from his service the best and wisest of the citizens. But
the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise of power, or, as
he thought, of virtue; and the people, safe in their obscurity,
applauded the danger and debasement of their superiors. This
extraordinary rigor was justified, in some measure, by its salutary
consequences; since, after a scrutiny of seventeen days, not a complaint
or abuse could be found in the court or city; and it might be alleged
that the Greeks could be ruled only with a rod of iron, and that the
public interest is the motive and law of the supreme judge. Yet in the
crime, or the suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the
most credulous and partial. Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance
on the assassins of Leo and the saviors of his father; but he enjoyed
the fruits of their crime; and his jealous tyranny sacrificed a brother
and a prince to the future safety of his life. A Persian of the race of
the Sassanides died in poverty and exile at Constantinople, leaving an
only son, the issue of a plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years,
the royal birth of Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not
unworthy of his birth. He was educated in the Byzantine palace, a
Christian and a soldier; advanced with rapid steps in the career of
fortune and glory; received the hand of the emperor's sister; and was
promoted to the command of thirty thousand Persians, who, like his
father, had fled from the Mahometan conquerors. These troops, doubly
infected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were desirous of revolting
against their benefactor, and erecting the standard of their native king
but the loyal Theophobus rejected their offers, disconcerted their
schemes, and escaped from their hands to the camp or palace of his royal
brother. A generous confidence might have secured a faithful and able
guardian for his wife and his infant son, to whom Theophilus, in the
flower of his age, was compelled to leave the inheritance of the empire.
But his jealousy was exasperated by envy and disease; he feared the
dangerous virtues which might either support or oppress their infancy
and weakness; and the dying emperor demanded the head of the Persian
prince. With savage delight he recognized the familiar features of his
brother: "Thou art no longer Theophobus," he said; and, sinking on his
couch, he added, with a faltering voice, "Soon, too soon, I shall be no
more Theophilus!"

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

The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part of
their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the last century,
a singular institution in the marriage of the Czar. They collected, not
the virgins of every rank and of every province, a vain and romantic
idea, but the daughters of the principal nobles, who awaited in the
palace the choice of their sovereign. It is affirmed, that a similar
method was adopted in the nuptials of Theophilus. With a golden apple in
his hand, he slowly walked between two lines of contending beauties: his
eye was detained by the charms of Icasia, and in the awkwardness of a
first declaration, the prince could only observe, that, in this world,
women had been the cause of much evil; "And surely, sir," she pertly
replied, "they have likewise been the occasion of much good." This
affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the Imperial lover: he turned
aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her mortification in a convent; and
the modest silence of Theodora was rewarded with the golden apple. She
deserved the love, but did not escape the severity, of her lord. From
the palace garden he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the
port: on the discovery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the
property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a sharp
reproach, that her avarice had degraded the character of an empress into
that of a merchant. Yet his last choice intrusted her with the
guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who was left an orphan
in the fifth year of his age. The restoration of images, and the final
extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has endeared her name to the devotion of
the Greeks; but in the fervor of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a
grateful regard for the memory and salvation of her husband. After
thirteen years of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the
decline of her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues
of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or government
of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though not without a
murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring the ingratitude, the
vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the worthless youth.

Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found
the imitation of their vices, the character of a Roman prince who
considered pleasure as the object of life, and virtue as the enemy of
pleasure. Whatever might have been the maternal care of Theodora in the
education of Michael the Third, her unfortunate son was a king before he
was a man. If the ambitious mother labored to check the progress of
reason, she could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish
policy was justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the
headstrong youth. At the age of eighteen, he rejected her authority,
without feeling his own incapacity to govern the empire and himself.
With Theodora, all gravity and wisdom retired from the court; their
place was supplied by the alternate dominion of vice and folly; and it
was impossible, without forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or
preserve the favor of the emperor. The millions of gold and silver which
had been accumulated for the service of the state, were lavished on the
vilest of men, who flattered his passions and shared his pleasures; and
in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of sovereigns was compelled to
strip the palace and the churches of their precious furniture. Like
Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be
surpassed in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to
excel. Yet the studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some
symptoms of a liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of
Theophilus were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four
factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the idleness, of the
capital: for himself, the emperor assumed the blue livery; the three
rival colors were distributed to his favorites, and in the vile though
eager contention he forgot the dignity of his person and the safety of
his dominions. He silenced the messenger of an invasion, who presumed to
divert his attention in the most critical moment of the race; and by his
command, the importunate beacons were extinguished, that too frequently
spread the alarm from Tarsus to Constantinople. The most skilful
charioteers obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their
merit was profusely rewarded the emperor feasted in their houses, and
presented their children at the baptismal font; and while he applauded
his own popularity, he affected to blame the cold and stately reserve of
his predecessors. The unnatural lusts which had degraded even the
manhood of Nero, were banished from the world; yet the strength of
Michael was consumed by the indulgence of love and intemperance. * In
his midnight revels, when his passions were inflamed by wine, he was
provoked to issue the most sanguinary commands; and if any feelings of
humanity were left, he was reduced, with the return of sense, to approve
the salutary disobedience of his servants. But the most extraordinary
feature in the character of Michael, is the profane mockery of the
religion of his country. The superstition of the Greeks might indeed
excite the smile of a philosopher; but his smile would have been
rational and temperate, and he must have condemned the ignorant folly of
a youth who insulted the objects of public veneration. A buffoon of the
court was invested in the robes of the patriarch: his twelve
metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their
ecclesiastical garments: they used or abused the sacred vessels of the
altar; and in their bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was
administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were
these impious spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day
of a solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode on
asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at the head of
his clergy; and by their licentious shouts and obscene gestures,
disordered the gravity of the Christian procession. The devotion of
Michael appeared only in some offence to reason or piety: he received
his theatrical crowns from the statue of the Virgin; and an Imperial
tomb was violated for the sake of burning the bones of Constantine the
Iconoclast. By this extravagant conduct, the son of Theophilus became as
contemptible as he was odious: every citizen was impatient for the
deliverance of his country; and even the favorites of the moment were
apprehensive that a caprice might snatch away what a caprice had
bestowed. In the thirtieth year of his age, and in the hour of
intoxication and sleep, Michael the Third was murdered in his chamber by
the founder of a new dynasty, whom the emperor had raised to an equality
of rank and power.

The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian (if it be not the spurious
offspring of pride and flattery) exhibits a genuine picture of the
revolution of the most illustrious families. The Arsacides, the rivals
of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near four hundred years: a
younger branch of these Parthian kings continued to reign in Armenia;
and their royal descendants survived the partition and servitude of that
ancient monarchy. Two of these, Artabanus and Chlienes, escaped or
retired to the court of Leo the First: his bounty seated them in a safe
and hospitable exile, in the province of Macedonia: Adrianople was their
final settlement. During several generations they maintained the dignity
of their birth; and their Roman patriotism rejected the tempting offers
of the Persian and Arabian powers, who recalled them to their native
country. But their splendor was insensibly clouded by time and poverty;
and the father of Basil was reduced to a small farm, which he cultivated
with his own hands: yet he scorned to disgrace the blood of the
Arsacides by a plebeian alliance: his wife, a widow of Adrianople, was
pleased to count among her ancestors the great Constantine; and their
royal infant was connected by some dark affinity of lineage or country
with the Macedonian Alexander. No sooner was he born, than the cradle of
Basil, his family, and his city, were swept away by an inundation of the
Bulgarians: he was educated a slave in a foreign land; and in this
severe discipline, he acquired the hardiness of body and flexibility of
mind which promoted his future elevation. In the age of youth or manhood
he shared the deliverance of the Roman captives, who generously broke
their fetters, marched through Bulgaria to the shores of the Euxine,
defeated two armies of Barbarians, embarked in the ships which had been
stationed for their reception, and returned to Constantinople, from
whence they were distributed to their respective homes. But the freedom
of Basil was naked and destitute: his farm was ruined by the calamities
of war: after his father's death, his manual labor, or service, could no
longer support a family of orphans and he resolved to seek a more
conspicuous theatre, in which every virtue and every vice may lead to
the paths of greatness. The first night of his arrival at
Constantinople, without friends or money, the weary pilgrim slept on the
steps of the church of St. Diomede: he was fed by the casual hospitality
of a monk; and was introduced to the service of a cousin and namesake of
the emperor Theophilus; who, though himself of a diminutive person, was
always followed by a train of tall and handsome domestics. Basil
attended his patron to the government of Peloponnesus; eclipsed, by his
personal merit the birth and dignity of Theophilus, and formed a useful
connection with a wealthy and charitable matron of Patras. Her spiritual
or carnal love embraced the young adventurer, whom she adopted as her
son. Danielis presented him with thirty slaves; and the produce of her
bounty was expended in the support of his brothers, and the purchase of
some large estates in Macedonia. His gratitude or ambition still
attached him to the service of Theophilus; and a lucky accident
recommended him to the notice of the court. A famous wrestler, in the
train of the Bulgarian ambassadors, had defied, at the royal banquet,
the boldest and most robust of the Greeks. The strength of Basil was
praised; he accepted the challenge; and the Barbarian champion was
overthrown at the first onset. A beautiful but vicious horse was
condemned to be hamstrung: it was subdued by the dexterity and courage
of the servant of Theophilus; and his conqueror was promoted to an
honorable rank in the Imperial stables. But it was impossible to obtain
the confidence of Michael, without complying with his vices; and his new
favorite, the great chamberlain of the palace, was raised and supported
by a disgraceful marriage with a royal concubine, and the dishonor of
his sister, who succeeded to her place. The public administration had
been abandoned to the Cæsar Bardas, the brother and enemy of Theodora;
but the arts of female influence persuaded Michael to hate and to fear
his uncle: he was drawn from Constantinople, under the pretence of a
Cretan expedition, and stabbed in the tent of audience, by the sword of
the chamberlain, and in the presence of the emperor. About a month after
this execution, Basil was invested with the title of Augustus and the
government of the empire. He supported this unequal association till his
influence was fortified by popular esteem. His life was endangered by
the caprice of the emperor; and his dignity was profaned by a second
colleague, who had rowed in the galleys. Yet the murder of his
benefactor must be condemned as an act of ingratitude and treason; and
the churches which he dedicated to the name of St. Michael were a poor
and puerile expiation of his guilt.

The different ages of Basil the First may be compared with those of
Augustus. The situation of the Greek did not allow him in his earliest
youth to lead an army against his country; or to proscribe the nobles of
her sons; but his aspiring genius stooped to the arts of a slave; he
dissembled his ambition and even his virtues, and grasped, with the
bloody hand of an assassin, the empire which he ruled with the wisdom
and tenderness of a parent. A private citizen may feel his interest
repugnant to his duty; but it must be from a deficiency of sense or
courage, that an absolute monarch can separate his happiness from his
glory, or his glory from the public welfare. The life or panegyric of
Basil has indeed been composed and published under the long reign of his
descendants; but even their stability on the throne may be justly
ascribed to the superior merit of their ancestor. In his character, his
grandson Constantine has attempted to delineate a perfect image of
royalty: but that feeble prince, unless he had copied a real model,
could not easily have soared so high above the level of his own conduct
or conceptions. But the most solid praise of Basil is drawn from the
comparison of a ruined and a flourishing monarchy, that which he wrested
from the dissolute Michael, and that which he bequeathed to the
Mecedonian dynasty. The evils which had been sanctified by time and
example, were corrected by his master-hand; and he revived, if not the
national spirit, at least the order and majesty of the Roman empire. His
application was indefatigable, his temper cool, his understanding
vigorous and decisive; and in his practice he observed that rare and
salutary moderation, which pursues each virtue, at an equal distance
between the opposite vices. His military service had been confined to
the palace: nor was the emperor endowed with the spirit or the talents
of a warrior. Yet under his reign the Roman arms were again formidable
to the Barbarians. As soon as he had formed a new army by discipline and
exercise, he appeared in person on the banks of the Euphrates, curbed
the pride of the Saracens, and suppressed the dangerous though just
revolt of the Manichæans. His indignation against a rebel who had long
eluded his pursuit, provoked him to wish and to pray, that, by the grace
of God, he might drive three arrows into the head of Chrysochir. That
odious head, which had been obtained by treason rather than by valor,
was suspended from a tree, and thrice exposed to the dexterity of the
Imperial archer; a base revenge against the dead, more worthy of the
times than of the character of Basil. But his principal merit was in the
civil administration of the finances and of the laws. To replenish and
exhausted treasury, it was proposed to resume the lavish and ill-placed
gifts of his predecessor: his prudence abated one moiety of the
restitution; and a sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds was instantly
procured to answer the most pressing demands, and to allow some space
for the mature operations of economy. Among the various schemes for the
improvement of the revenue, a new mode was suggested of capitation, or
tribute, which would have too much depended on the arbitrary discretion
of the assessors. A sufficient list of honest and able agents was
instantly produced by the minister; but on the more careful scrutiny of
Basil himself, only two could be found, who might be safely intrusted
with such dangerous powers; but they justified his esteem by declining
his confidence. But the serious and successful diligence of the emperor
established by degrees the equitable balance of property and payment, of
receipt and expenditure; a peculiar fund was appropriated to each
service; and a public method secured the interest of the prince and the
property of the people. After reforming the luxury, he assigned two
patrimonial estates to supply the decent plenty, of the Imperial table:
the contributions of the subject were reserved for his defence; and the
residue was employed in the embellishment of the capital and provinces.
A taste for building, however costly, may deserve some praise and much
excuse: from thence industry is fed, art is encouraged, and some object
is attained of public emolument or pleasure: the use of a road, an
aqueduct, or a hospital, is obvious and solid; and the hundred churches
that arose by the command of Basil were consecrated to the devotion of
the age. In the character of a judge he was assiduous and impartial;
desirous to save, but not afraid to strike: the oppressors of the people
were severely chastised; but his personal foes, whom it might be unsafe
to pardon, were condemned, after the loss of their eyes, to a life of
solitude and repentance. The change of language and manners demanded a
revision of the obsolete jurisprudence of Justinian: the voluminous body
of his Institutes, Pandects, Code, and Novels, was digested under forty
titles, in the Greek idiom; and the Basilics, which were improved and
completed by his son and grandson, must be referred to the original
genius of the founder of their race. This glorious reign was terminated
by an accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his horns in the
belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse: he was rescued by an
attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall, or the
fever, exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he expired in the
palace amidst the tears of his family and people. If he struck off the
head of the faithful servant for presuming to draw his sword against his
sovereign, the pride of despotism, which had lain dormant in his life,
revived in the last moments of despair, when he no longer wanted or
valued the opinion of mankind.

Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his father,
whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering impostor and a
vain apparition. Stephen, the youngest, was content with the honors of a
patriarch and a saint; both Leo and Alexander were alike invested with
the purple, but the powers of government were solely exercised by the
elder brother. The name of Leo the Sixth has been dignified with the
title of philosopher; and the union of the prince and the sage, of the
active and speculative virtues, would indeed constitute the perfection
of human nature. But the claims of Leo are far short of this ideal
excellence. Did he reduce his passions and appetites under the dominion
of reason? His life was spent in the pomp of the palace, in the society
of his wives and concubines; and even the clemency which he showed, and
the peace which he strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness
and indolence of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those
of his subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile superstition;
the influence of the clergy, and the errors of the people, were
consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in
prophetic style, the fates of the empire, are founded on the arts of
astrology and divination. If we still inquire the reason of his sage
appellation, it can only be replied, that the son of Basil was less
ignorant than the greater part of his contemporaries in church and
state; that his education had been directed by the learned Photius; and
that several books of profane and ecclesiastical science were composed
by the pen, or in the name, of the Imperial philosopher. But the
reputation of his philosophy and religion was overthrown by a domestic
vice, the repetition of his nuptials. The primitive ideas of the merit
and holiness of celibacy were preached by the monks and entertained by
the Greeks. Marriage was allowed as a necessary means for the
propagation of mankind; after the death of either party, the survivor
might satisfy, by a secondunion, the weakness or the strength of the
flesh: but a thirdmarriage was censured as a state of legal fornication;
and a fourthwas a sin or scandal as yet unknown to the Christians of the
East. In the beginning of his reign, Leo himself had abolished the state
of concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages: but
his patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own laws, and
to incur the penance, which in a similar case he had imposed on his
subjects. In his three first alliances, his nuptial bed was unfruitful;
the emperor required a female companion, and the empire a legitimate
heir. The beautiful Zoe was introduced into the palace as a concubine;
and after a trial of her fecundity, and the birth of Constantine, her
lover declared his intention of legitimating the mother and the child,
by the celebration of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch Nicholas
refused his blessing: the Imperial baptism of the young prince was
obtained by a promise of separation; and the contumacious husband of Zoe
was excluded from the communion of the faithful. Neither the fear of
exile, nor the desertion of his brethren, nor the authority of the Latin
church, nor the danger of failure or doubt in the succession to the
empire, could bend the spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of
Leo, he was recalled from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical
administration; and the edict of union which was promulgated in the name
of Constantine, condemned the future scandal of fourth marriages, and
left a tacit imputation on his own birth.

In the Greek language, purpleand porphyryare the same word: and as the
colors of nature are invariable, we may learn, that a dark deep red was
the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients. An apartment of
the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry: it was reserved for the
use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal birth of their children was
expressed by the appellation of porphyrogenite, or born in the purple.
Several of the Roman princes had been blessed with an heir; but this
peculiar surname was first applied to Constantine the Seventh. His life
and titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years, six
had elapsed before his father's death; and the son of Leo was ever the
voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed his weakness or
abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who had long been invested
with the title of Augustus, was the first colleague and governor of the
young prince: but in a rapid career of vice and folly, the brother of
Leo already emulated the reputation of Michael; and when he was
extinguished by a timely death, he entertained a project of castrating
his nephew, and leaving the empire to a worthless favorite. The
succeeding years of the minority of Constantine were occupied by his
mother Zoe, and a succession or council of seven regents, who pursued
their interest, gratified their passions, abandoned the republic,
supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence of a
soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised himself to
the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of the times, had
deserved, or at least had obtained, the national esteem. With a
victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from the mouth of the
Danube into the harbor of Constantinople, and was hailed as the
deliverer of the people, and the guardian of the prince. His supreme
office was at first defined by the new appellation of father of the
emperor; but Romanus soon disdained the subordinate powers of a
minister, and assumed with the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, the full
independence of royalty, which he held near five-and-twenty years. His
three sons, Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine were successively
adorned with the same honors, and the lawful emperor was degraded from
the first to the fifth rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the
preservation of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own
fortune and the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and
modern history would have excused the ambition of Romanus: the powers
and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth of
Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave or the
monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine. But Lecapenus
does not appear to have possessed either the virtues or the vices of a
tyrant. The spirit and activity of his private life dissolved away in
the sunshine of the throne; and in his licentious pleasures, he forgot
the safety both of the republic and of his family. Of a mild and
religious character, he respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence
of the youth, the memory of his parents, and the attachment of the
people. The studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the
jealousy of power: his books and music, his pen and his pencil, were a
constant source of amusement; and if he could improve a scanty allowance
by the sale of his pictures, if their price was not enhanced by the name
of the artist, he was endowed with a personal talent, which few princes
could employ in the hour of adversity.

The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of his
children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son, the two
surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and conspired against
their father. At the hour of noon, when all strangers were regularly
excluded from the palace, they entered his apartment with an armed
force, and conveyed him, in the habit of a monk, to a small island in
the Propontis, which was peopled by a religious community. The rumor of
this domestic revolution excited a tumult in the city; but
Porphyrogenitus alone, the true and lawful emperor, was the object of
the public care; and the sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy
experience, that they had achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for
the benefit of their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of
Constantine, revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of
assassinating her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were
alarmed, and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded from the
purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery where their
father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met them on the beach
with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just reproach of their folly and
ingratitude, presented his Imperial colleagues with an equal share of
his water and vegetable diet. In the fortieth year of his reign,
Constantine the Seventh obtained the possession of the Eastern world,
which he ruled or seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid
of that energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and
glory; and the studies, which had amused and dignified his leisure, were
incompatible with the serious duties of a sovereign. The emperor
neglected the practice to instruct his son Romanus in the theory of
government; while he indulged the habits of intemperance and sloth, he
dropped the reins of the administration into the hands of Helena his
wife; and, in the shifting scene of her favor and caprice, each minister
was regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the
birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the Greeks;
they excused his failings; they respected his learning, his innocence,
and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony of his funeral was
mourned with the unfeigned tears of his subjects. The body, according to
ancient custom, lay in state in the vestibule of the palace; and the
civil and military officers, the patricians, the senate, and the clergy
approached in due order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their
sovereign. Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre, a
herald proclaimed this awful admonition: "Arise, O king of the world,
and obey the summons of the King of kings!"

The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son Romanus, who
derived that name from his maternal grandfather, ascended the throne of
Constantinople. A prince who, at the age of twenty, could be suspected
of anticipating his inheritance, must have been already lost in the
public esteem; yet Romanus was rather weak than wicked; and the largest
share of the guilt was transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of
base origin masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of
personal glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were
unknown to the son of Constantine; and, while the two brothers,
Nicephorus and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which the
emperor owed to his people were consumed in strenuous idleness. In the
morning he visited the circus; at noon he feasted the senators; the
greater part of the afternoon he spent in the sphristerium, or
tennis-court, the only theatre of his victories; from thence he passed
over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild
boars of the largest size, and returned to the palace, proudly content
with the labors of the day. In strength and beauty he was conspicuous
above his equals: tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion
was fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his nose
long and aquiline. Yet even these perfections were insufficient to fix
the love of Theophano; and, after a reign of four * years, she mingled
for her husband the same deadly draught which she had composed for his
father.

By his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the younger left two
sons, Basil the Second and Constantine the Ninth, and two daughters,
Theophano and Anne. The eldest sister was given to Otho the Second,
emperor of the West; the younger became the wife of Wolodomir, great
duke and apostle of Russia, and by the marriage of her granddaughter
with Henry the First, king of France, the blood of the Macedonians, and
perhaps of the Arsacides, still flows in the veins of the Bourbon line.
After the death of her husband, the empress aspired to reign in the name
of her sons, the elder of whom was five, and the younger only two, years
of age; but she soon felt the instability of a throne which was
supported by a female who could not be esteemed, and two infants who
could not be feared. Theophano looked around for a protector, and threw
herself into the arms of the bravest soldier; her heart was capacious;
but the deformity of the new favorite rendered it more than probable
that interest was the motive and excuse of her love. Nicephorus Phocus
united, in the popular opinion, the double merit of a hero and a saint.
In the former character, his qualifications were genuine and splendid:
the descendant of a race illustrious by their military exploits, he had
displayed in every station and in every province the courage of a
soldier and the conduct of a chief; and Nicephorus was crowned with
recent laurels, from the important conquest of the Isle of Crete. His
religion was of a more ambiguous cast; and his hair-cloth, his fasts,
his pious idiom, and his wish to retire from the business of the world,
were a convenient mask for his dark and dangerous ambition. Yet he
imposed on a holy patriarch, by whose influence, and by a decree of the
senate, he was intrusted, during the minority of the young princes, with
the absolute and independent command of the Oriental armies. As soon as
he had secured the leaders and the troops, he boldly marched to
Constantinople, trampled on his enemies, avowed his correspondence with
the empress, and without degrading her sons, assumed, with the title of
Augustus, the preeminence of rank and the plenitude of power. But his
marriage with Theophano was refused by the same patriarch who had placed
the crown on his head: by his second nuptials he incurred a year of
canonical penance; * a bar of spiritual affinity was opposed to their
celebration; and some evasion and perjury were required to silence the
scruples of the clergy and people. The popularity of the emperor was
lost in the purple: in a reign of six years he provoked the hatred of
strangers and subjects: and the hypocrisy and avarice of the first
Nicephorus were revived in his successor. Hypocrisy I shall never
justify or palliate; but I will dare to observe, that the odious vice of
avarice is of all others most hastily arraigned, and most unmercifully
condemned. In a private citizen, our judgment seldom expects an accurate
scrutiny into his fortune and expense; and in a steward of the public
treasure, frugality is always a virtue, and the increase of taxes too
often an indispensable duty. In the use of his patrimony, the generous
temper of Nicephorus had been proved; and the revenue was strictly
applied to the service of the state: each spring the emperor marched in
person against the Saracens; and every Roman might compute the
employment of his taxes in triumphs, conquests, and the security of the
Eastern barrier.

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

Among the warriors who promoted his elevation, and served under his
standard, a noble and valiant Armenian had deserved and obtained the
most eminent rewards. The stature of John Zimisces was below the
ordinary standard: but this diminutive body was endowed with strength,
beauty, and the soul of a hero. By the jealousy of the emperor's
brother, he was degraded from the office of general of the East, to that
of director of the posts, and his murmurs were chastised with disgrace
and exile. But Zimisces was ranked among the numerous lovers of the
empress: on her intercession, he was permitted to reside at Chalcedon,
in the neighborhood of the capital: her bounty was repaid in his
clandestine and amorous visits to the palace; and Theophano consented,
with alacrity, to the death of an ugly and penurious husband. Some bold
and trusty conspirators were concealed in her most private chambers: in
the darkness of a winter night, Zimisces, with his principal companions,
embarked in a small boat, traversed the Bosphorus, landed at the palace
stairs, and silently ascended a ladder of ropes, which was cast down by
the female attendants. Neither his own suspicions, nor the warnings of
his friends, nor the tardy aid of his brother Leo, nor the fortress
which he had erected in the palace, could protect Nicephorus from a
domestic foe, at whose voice every door was open to the assassins. As he
slept on a bear-skin on the ground, he was roused by their noisy
intrusion, and thirty daggers glittered before his eyes. It is doubtful
whether Zimisces imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign; but he
enjoyed the inhuman spectacle of revenge. * The murder was protracted by
insult and cruelty: and as soon as the head of Nicephorus was shown from
the window, the tumult was hushed, and the Armenian was emperor of the
East. On the day of his coronation, he was stopped on the threshold of
St. Sophia, by the intrepid patriarch; who charged his conscience with
the deed of treason and blood; and required, as a sign of repentance,
that he should separate himself from his more criminal associate. This
sally of apostolic zeal was not offensive to the prince, since he could
neither love nor trust a woman who had repeatedly violated the most
sacred obligations; and Theophano, instead of sharing his imperial
fortune, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed and palace. In their
last interview, she displayed a frantic and impotent rage; accused the
ingratitude of her lover; assaulted, with words and blows, her son
Basil, as he stood silent and submissive in the presence of a superior
colleague; and avowed her own prostitution in proclaiming the
illegitimacy of his birth. The public indignation was appeased by her
exile, and the punishment of the meaner accomplices: the death of an
unpopular prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten
in the splendor of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less useful to
the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his gentle and generous
behavior delighted all who approached his person; and it was only in the
paths of victory that he trod in the footsteps of his predecessor. The
greatest part of his reign was employed in the camp and the field: his
personal valor and activity were signalized on the Danube and the
Tigris, the ancient boundaries of the Roman world; and by his double
triumph over the Russians and the Saracens, he deserved the titles of
savior of the empire, and conqueror of the East. In his last return from
Syria, he observed that the most fruitful lands of his new provinces
were possessed by the eunuchs. "And is it for them," he exclaimed, with
honest indignation, "that we have fought and conquered? Is it for them
that we shed our blood, and exhaust the treasures of our people?" The
complaint was reëchoed to the palace, and the death of Zimisces is
strongly marked with the suspicion of poison.

Under this usurpation, or regency, of twelve years, the two lawful
emperors, Basil and Constantine, had silently grown to the age of
manhood. Their tender years had been incapable of dominion: the
respectful modesty of their attendance and salutation was due to the age
and merit of their guardians; the childless ambition of those guardians
had no temptation to violate their right of succession: their patrimony
was ably and faithfully administered; and the premature death of
Zimisces was a loss, rather than a benefit, to the sons of Romanus.
Their want of experience detained them twelve years longer the obscure
and voluntary pupils of a minister, who extended his reign by persuading
them to indulge the pleasures of youth, and to disdain the labors of
government. In this silken web, the weakness of Constantine was forever
entangled; but his elder brother felt the impulse of genius and the
desire of action; he frowned, and the minister was no more. Basil was
the acknowledged sovereign of Constantinople and the provinces of
Europe; but Asia was oppressed by two veteran generals, Phocas and
Sclerus, who, alternately friends and enemies, subjects and rebels,
maintained their independence, and labored to emulate the example of
successful usurpation. Against these domestic enemies the son of Romanus
first drew his sword, and they trembled in the presence of a lawful and
high-spirited prince. The first, in the front of battle, was thrown from
his horse, by the stroke of poison, or an arrow; the second, who had
been twice loaded with chains, * and twice invested with the purple, was
desirous of ending in peace the small remainder of his days. As the aged
suppliant approached the throne, with dim eyes and faltering steps,
leaning on his two attendants, the emperor exclaimed, in the insolence
of youth and power, "And is this the man who has so long been the object
of our terror?" After he had confirmed his own authority, and the peace
of the empire, the trophies of Nicephorus and Zimisces would not suffer
their royal pupil to sleep in the palace. His long and frequent
expeditions against the Saracens were rather glorious than useful to the
empire; but the final destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears,
since the time of Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman
arms. Yet, instead of applauding their victorious prince, his subjects
detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil; and in the imperfect
narrative of his exploits, we can only discern the courage, patience,
and ferociousness of a soldier. A vicious education, which could not
subdue his spirit, had clouded his mind; he was ignorant of every
science; and the remembrance of his learned and feeble grandsire might
encourage his real or affected contempt of laws and lawyers, of artists
and arts. Of such a character, in such an age, superstition took a firm
and lasting possession; after the first license of his youth, Basil the
Second devoted his life, in the palace and the camp, to the penance of a
hermit, wore the monastic habit under his robes and armor, observed a
vow of continence, and imposed on his appetites a perpetual abstinence
from wine and flesh. In the sixty-eighth year of his age, his martial
spirit urged him to embark in person ferso the clergy and the curse of
the people. After his decease, his brother Constantine enjoyed, about
three years, the power, ersrather the pleasures, of royalty; and his
only care was the settlement of the succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six
years the title of Augustus; and the reign of the two brothers is the
longest, and most obscure, of the Byzantine history.

A lineal succession of five emperors, in a period of one hundred and
sixty years, had attached the loyalty of the Greeks to the Macedonian
dynasty, which had been thrice respected by the usurpers of their power.
After the death of Constantine the Ninth, the last male of the royal
race, a new and broken scene presents itself, and the accumulated years
of twelve emperors do not equal the space of his single reign. His elder
brother had preferred his private chastity to the public interest, and
Constantine himself had only three daughters; Eudocia, who took the
veil, and Zoe and Theodora, who were preserved till a mature age in a
state of ignorance and virginity. When their marriage was discussed in
the council of their dying father, the cold erspious Theodora refused to
give an heir to the empire, but her sister Zoe presented herself a
willing victim at the altar. Romanus Argyrus, a patrician of a graceful
person and fair reputation, was chosen fersher husband, and, on his
declining thatat blindness or death was the second alternative. The
motive of his reluctance was conjugal affection but his faithful wife
sacrificed her own happiness to his safety and greatness; and her
entrance into a monastery removed the only bar to the Imperial nuptials.
After the decease of Constantine, the sceptre devolved to Romanus the
Third; but his labors at the indulgence of pleasure. Her favorite
chamberlain was a handsome Paphlagonian of the name of Michael, whose
first trade had been that of a money-changer; and Romanus, either from
gratitude ersequity, connived at their criminal intercourse, ersaccepted
a slight assurance of their innocence. But Zoe soon justified the Roman
maxim, that every adulteress is capable of poisoning her husband; and
the death of Romanus was instantly followed by the scandalous marriage
and elevation of Michael the Fourth. The expectations of Zoe were,
however, disappointed: instead of a vigorous and grateful lover, she had
placed in her bed a miserable wretch, whose health and reason were
impaired by epileptic fits, and whose conscience was tormented by
despair and remorse. The most skilful physicians of the mind and body
were summoned to his aid; and his hopes were amused by frequent
pilgrimages to the baths, and to the tombs of the most popular saints;
the monks applauded his penance, and, except restitution, (but to whom
should he have restored?) Michael sought every method of expiating his
guilt. While he groaned and prayed in sackcloth and ashes, his brother,
the eunuch John, smiled at his remorse, and enjoyed the harvest of a
crime of which himself was the secret and most guilty author. His
administration was only the art of satiating his avarice, and Zoe became
a captive in the palace of her fathers, and in the hands of her slaves.
When he perceived the irretrievable decline of his brother's health, he
introduced his nephew, another Michael, who derived his surname of
Calaphates from his father's occupation in the careening of vessels: at
the command of the eunuch, Zoe adopted for her son the son of a
mechanic; and this fictitious heir was invested with the title and
purple of the Cæsars, in the presence of the senate and clergy. So
feeble was the character of Zoe, that she was oppressed by the liberty
and power which she recovered by the death of the Paphlagonian; and at
the end of four days, she placed the crown on the head of Michael the
Fifth, who had protested, with tears and oaths, that he should ever
reign the first and most obedient of her subjects. The only act of his
short reign was his base ingratitude to his benefactors, the eunuch and
the empress. The disgrace of the former was pleasing to the public: but
the murmurs, and at length the clamors, of Constantinople deplored the
exile of Zoe, the daughter of so many emperors; her vices were
forgotten, and Michael was taught, that there is a period in which the
patience of the tamest slaves rises into fury and revenge. The citizens
of every degree assembled in a formidable tumult which lasted three
days; they besieged the palace, forced the gates, recalled their
mothers, Zoe from her prison, Theodora from her monastery, and condemned
the son of Calaphates to the loss of his eyes or of his life. For the
first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the two royal sisters seated
on the same throne, presiding in the senate, and giving audience to the
ambassadors of the nations. But the singular union subsisted no more
than two months; the two sovereigns, their tempers, interests, and
adherents, were secretly hostile to each other; and as Theodora was
still averse to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe, at the age of sixty,
consented, for the public good, to sustain the embraces of a third
husband, and the censures of the Greek church. His name and number were
Constantine the Tenth, and the epithet of Monomachus, the single
combatant, must have been expressive of his valor and victory in some
public or private quarrel. But his health was broken by the tortures of
the gout, and his dissolute reign was spent in the alternative of
sickness and pleasure. A fair and noble widow had accompanied
Constantine in his exile to the Isle of Lesbos, and Sclerena gloried in
the appellation of his mistress. After his marriage and elevation, she
was invested with the title and pomp of Augusta, and occupied a
contiguous apartment in the palace. The lawful consort (such was the
delicacy or corruption of Zoe) consented to this strange and scandalous
partition; and the emperor appeared in public between his wife and his
concubine. He survived them both; but the last measures of Constantine
to change the order of succession were prevented by the more vigilant
friends of Theodora; and after his decease, she resumed, with the
general consent, the possession of her inheritance. In her name, and by
the influence of four eunuchs, the Eastern world was peaceably governed
about nineteen months; and as they wished to prolong their dominion,
they persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her successor Michael
the Sixth. The surname of Stratioticusdeclares his military profession;
but the crazy and decrepit veteran could only see with the eyes, and
execute with the hands, of his ministers. Whilst he ascended the throne,
Theodora sunk into the grave; the last of the Macedonian or Basilian
dynasty. I have hastily reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this shameful and
destructive period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded
below the common level of servitude, were transferred like a herd of
cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.

From this night of slavery, a ray of freedom, or at least of spirit,
begins to emerge: the Greeks either preserved or revived the use of
surnames, which perpetuate the fame of hereditary virtue: and we now
discern the rise, succession, and alliances of the last dynasties of
Constantinople and Trebizond. The Comneni, who upheld for a while the
fate of the sinking empire, assumed the honor of a Roman origin: but the
family had been long since transported from Italy to Asia. Their
patrimonial estate was situate in the district of Castamona, in the
neighborhood of the Euxine; and one of their chiefs, who had already
entered the paths of ambition, revisited with affection, perhaps with
regret, the modest though honorable dwelling of his fathers. The first
of their line was the illustrious Manuel, who in the reign of the second
Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the troubles of the
East: he left, in a tender age, two sons, Isaac and John, whom, with the
consciousness of desert, he bequeathed to the gratitude and favor of his
sovereign. The noble youths were carefully trained in the learning of
the monastery, the arts of the palace, and the exercises of the camp:
and from the domestic service of the guards, they were rapidly promoted
to the command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal union doubled
the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient nobility was
illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers, with a captive princess
of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a patrician, who had obtained the name
of Charonfrom the number of enemies whom he had sent to the infernal
shades. The soldiers had served with reluctant loyalty a series of
effeminate masters; the elevation of Michael the Sixth was a personal
insult to the more deserving generals; and their discontent was inflamed
by the parsimony of the emperor and the insolence of the eunuchs. They
secretly assembled in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the votes of the
military synod would have been unanimous in favor of the old and valiant
Catacalon, if the patriotism or modesty of the veteran had not suggested
the importance of birth as well as merit in the choice of a sovereign.
Isaac Comnenus was approved by general consent, and the associates
separated without delay to meet in the plains of Phrygia at the head of
their respective squadrons and detachments. The cause of Michael was
defended in a single battle by the mercenaries of the Imperial guard,
who were aliens to the public interest, and animated only by a principle
of honor and gratitude. After their defeat, the fears of the emperor
solicited a treaty, which was almost accepted by the moderation of the
Comnenian. But the former was betrayed by his ambassadors, and the
latter was prevented by his friends. The solitary Michael submitted to
the voice of the people; the patriarch annulled their oath of
allegiance; and as he shaved the head of the royal monk, congratulated
his beneficial exchange of temporal royalty for the kingdom of heaven;
an exchange, however, which the priest, on his own account, would
probably have declined. By the hands of the same patriarch, Isaac
Comnenus was solemnly crowned; the sword which he inscribed on his coins
might be an offensive symbol, if it implied his title by conquest; but
this sword would have been drawn against the foreign and domestic
enemies of the state. The decline of his health and vigor suspended the
operation of active virtue; and the prospect of approaching death
determined him to interpose some moments between life and eternity. But
instead of leaving the empire as the marriage portion of his daughter,
his reason and inclination concurred in the preference of his brother
John, a soldier, a patriot, and the father of five sons, the future
pillars of an hereditary succession. His first modest reluctance might
be the natural dictates of discretion and tenderness, but his obstinate
and successful perseverance, however it may dazzle with the show of
virtue, must be censured as a criminal desertion of his duty, and a rare
offence against his family and country. The purple which he had refused
was accepted by Constantine Ducas, a friend of the Comnenian house, and
whose noble birth was adorned with the experience and reputation of
civil policy. In the monastic habit, Isaac recovered his health, and
survived two years his voluntary abdication. At the command of his
abbot, he observed the rule of St. Basil, and executed the most servile
offices of the convent: but his latent vanity was gratified by the
frequent and respectful visits of the reigning monarch, who revered in
his person the character of a benefactor and a saint.

If Constantine the Eleventh were indeed the subject most worthy of
empire, we must pity the debasement of the age and nation in which he
was chosen. In the labor of puerile declamations he sought, without
obtaining, the crown of eloquence, more precious, in his opinion, than
that of Rome; and in the subordinate functions of a judge, he forgot the
duties of a sovereign and a warrior. Far from imitating the patriotic
indifference of the authors of his greatness, Ducas was anxious only to
secure, at the expense of the republic, the power and prosperity of his
children. His three sons, Michael the Seventh, Andronicus the First, and
Constantine the Twelfth, were invested, in a tender age, with the equal
title of Augustus; and the succession was speedily opened by their
father's death. His widow, Eudocia, was intrusted with the
administration; but experience had taught the jealousy of the dying
monarch to protect his sons from the danger of her second nuptials; and
her solemn engagement, attested by the principal senators, was deposited
in the hands of the patriarch. Before the end of seven months, the wants
of Eudocia, or those of the state, called aloud for the male virtues of
a soldier; and her heart had already chosen Romanus Diogenes, whom she
raised from the scaffold to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable
attempt had exposed him to the severity of the laws: his beauty and
valor absolved him in the eyes of the empress; and Romanus, from a mild
exile, was recalled on the second day to the command of the Oriental
armies. Her royal choice was yet unknown to the public; and the promise
which would have betrayed her falsehood and levity, was stolen by a
dexterous emissary from the ambition of the patriarch. Xiphilin at first
alleged the sanctity of oaths, and the sacred nature of a trust; but a
whisper, that his brother was the future emperor, relaxed his scruples,
and forced him to confess that the public safety was the supreme law. He
resigned the important paper; and when his hopes were confounded by the
nomination of Romanus, he could no longer regain his security, retract
his declarations, nor oppose the second nuptials of the empress. Yet a
murmur was heard in the palace; and the Barbarian guards had raised
their battle-axes in the cause of the house of Lucas, till the young
princes were soothed by the tears of their mother and the solemn
assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled the Imperial
station with dignity and honor. Hereafter I shall relate his valiant,
but unsuccessful, efforts to resist the progress of the Turks. His
defeat and captivity inflicted a deadly wound on the Byzantine monarchy
of the East; and after he was released from the chains of the sultan, he
vainly sought his wife and his subjects. His wife had been thrust into a
monastery, and the subjects of Romanus had embraced the rigid maxim of
the civil law, that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy is deprived, as
by the stroke of death, of all the public and private rights of a
citizen. In the general consternation, the Cæsar John asserted the
indefeasible right of his three nephews: Constantinople listened to his
voice: and the Turkish captive was proclaimed in the capital, and
received on the frontier, as an enemy of the republic. Romanus was not
more fortunate in domestic than in foreign war: the loss of two battles
compelled him to yield, on the assurance of fair and honorable
treatment; but his enemies were devoid of faith or humanity; and, after
the cruel extinction of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and
corrupt, till in a few days he was relieved from a state of misery.
Under the triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers
were reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the
pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman sceptre;
and his surname of Parapinacesdenotes the reproach which he shared with
an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the price, and diminished the
measure, of wheat. In the school of Psellus, and after the example of
his mother, the son of Eudocia made some proficiency in philosophy and
rhetoric; but his character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the
virtues of a monk and the learning of a sophist. Strong in the contempt
of their sovereign and their own esteem, two generals, at the head of
the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the purple at Adrianople and
Nice. Their revolt was in the same months; they bore the same name of
Nicephorus; but the two candidates were distinguished by the surnames of
Bryennius and Botaniates; the former in the maturity of wisdom and
courage, the latter conspicuous only by the memory of his past exploits.
While Botaniates advanced with cautious and dilatory steps, his active
competitor stood in arms before the gates of Constantinople. The name of
Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was popular; but his licentious
troops could not be restrained from burning and pillaging a suburb; and
the people, who would have hailed the rebel, rejected and repulsed the
incendiary of his country. This change of the public opinion was
favorable to Botaniates, who at length, with an army of Turks,
approached the shores of Chalcedon. A formal invitation, in the name of
the patriarch, the synod, and the senate, was circulated through the
streets of Constantinople; and the general assembly, in the dome of St.
Sophia, debated, with order and calmness, on the choice of their
sovereign. The guards of Michael would have dispersed this unarmed
multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding his own moderation and
clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was rewarded with the
monastic habit, and the title of Archbishop of Ephesus. He left a son, a
Constantine, born and educated in the purple; and a daughter of the
house of Ducas illustrated the blood, and confirmed the succession, of
the Comnenian dynasty.

John Comnenus, the brother of the emperor Isaac, survived in peace and
dignity his generous refusal of the sceptre. By his wife Anne, a woman
of masculine spirit and a policy, he left eight children: the three
daughters multiplied the Comnenian alliance with the noblest of the
Greeks: of the five sons, Manuel was stopped by a premature death; Isaac
and Alexius restored the Imperial greatness of their house, which was
enjoyed without toil or danger by the two younger brethren, Adrian and
Nicephorus. Alexius, the third and most illustrious of the brothers was
endowed by nature with the choicest gifts both of mind and body: they
were cultivated by a liberal education, and exercised in the school of
obedience and adversity. The youth was dismissed from the perils of the
Turkish war, by the paternal care of the emperor Romanus: but the mother
of the Comneni, with her aspiring face, was accused of treason, and
banished, by the sons of Ducas, to an island in the Propontis. The two
brothers soon emerged into favor and action, fought by each other's side
against the rebels and Barbarians, and adhered to the emperor Michael,
till he was deserted by the world and by himself. In his first interview
with Botaniates, "Prince," said Alexius with a noble frankness, "my duty
rendered me your enemy; the decrees of God and of the people have made
me your subject. Judge of my future loyalty by my past opposition." The
successor of Michael entertained him with esteem and confidence: his
valor was employed against three rebels, who disturbed the peace of the
empire, or at least of the emperors. Ursel, Bryennius, and Basilacius,
were formidable by their numerous forces and military fame: they were
successively vanquished in the field, and led in chains to the foot of
the throne; and whatever treatment they might receive from a timid and
cruel court, they applauded the clemency, as well as the courage, of
their conqueror. But the loyalty of the Comneni was soon tainted by fear
and suspicion; nor is it easy to settle between a subject and a despot,
the debt of gratitude, which the former is tempted to claim by a revolt,
and the latter to discharge by an executioner. The refusal of Alexius to
march against a fourth rebel, the husband of his sister, destroyed the
merit or memory of his past services: the favorites of Botaniates
provoked the ambition which they apprehended and accused; and the
retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the defence of their
life and liberty. The women of the family were deposited in a sanctuary,
respected by tyrants: the men, mounted on horseback, sallied from the
city, and erected the standard of civil war. The soldiers who had been
gradually assembled in the capital and the neighborhood, were devoted to
the cause of a victorious and injured leader: the ties of common
interest and domestic alliance secured the attachment of the house of
Ducas; and the generous dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the
decisive resolution of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger
brother with the name and ensigns of royalty. They returned to
Constantinople, to threaten rather than besiege that impregnable
fortress; but the fidelity of the guards was corrupted; a gate was
surprised, and the fleet was occupied by the active courage of George
Palæologus, who fought against his father, without foreseeing that he
labored for his posterity. Alexius ascended the throne; and his aged
competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army of various nations was
gratified with the pillage of the city; but the public disorders were
expiated by the tears and fasts of the Comneni, who submitted to every
penance compatible with the possession of the empire.

The life of the emperor Alexius has been delineated by a favorite
daughter, who was inspired by a tender regard for his person and a
laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just
suspicions of her readers, the princess Anna Comnena repeatedly
protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the
discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans: and after an
interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her
mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the
naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of her
parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins
our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in
every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of
Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of virtues; and the perpetual
strain of panegyric and apology awakens our jealousy, to question the
veracity of the historian and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however,
refuse her judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the
times were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every
calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on his
reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his predecessors. In the
East, the victorious Turks had spread, from Persia to the Hellespont,
the reign of the Koran and the Crescent: the West was invaded by the
adventurous valor of the Normans; and, in the moments of peace, the
Danube poured forth new swarms, who had gained, in the science of war,
what they had lost in the ferociousness of manners. The sea was not less
hostile than the land; and while the frontiers were assaulted by an open
enemy, the palace was distracted with secret treason and conspiracy. On
a sudden, the banner of the Cross was displayed by the Latins; Europe
was precipitated on Asia; and Constantinople had almost been swept away
by this impetuous deluge. In the tempest, Alexius steered the Imperial
vessel with dexterity and courage. At the head of his armies, he was
bold in action, skilful in stratagem, patient of fatigue, ready to
improve his advantages, and rising from his defeats with inexhaustible
vigor. The discipline of the camp was revived, and a new generation of
men and soldiers was created by the example and precepts of their
leader. In his intercourse with the Latins, Alexius was patient and
artful: his discerning eye pervaded the new system of an unknown world
and I shall hereafter describe the superior policy with which he
balanced the interests and passions of the champions of the first
crusade. In a long reign of thirty-seven years, he subdued and pardoned
the envy of his equals: the laws of public and private order were
restored: the arts of wealth and science were cultivated: the limits of
the empire were enlarged in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre
was transmitted to his children of the third and fourth generation. Yet
the difficulties of the times betrayed some defects in his character;
and have exposed his memory to some just or ungenerous reproach. The
reader may possibly smile at the lavish praise which his daughter so
often bestows on a flying hero: the weakness or prudence of his
situation might be mistaken for a want of personal courage; and his
political arts are branded by the Latins with the names of deceit and
dissimulation. The increase of the male and female branches of his
family adorned the throne, and secured the succession; but their
princely luxury and pride offended the patricians, exhausted the
revenue, and insulted the misery of the people. Anna is a faithful
witness that his happiness was destroyed, and his health was broken, by
the cares of a public life; the patience of Constantinople was fatigued
by the length and severity of his reign; and before Alexius expired, he
had lost the love and reverence of his subjects. The clergy could not
forgive his application of the sacred riches to the defence of the
state; but they applauded his theological learning and ardent zeal for
the orthodox faith, which he defended with his tongue, his pen, and his
sword. His character was degraded by the superstition of the Greeks; and
the same inconsistent principle of human nature enjoined the emperor to
found a hospital for the poor and infirm, and to direct the execution of
a heretic, who was burned alive in the square of St. Sophia. Even the
sincerity of his moral and religious virtues was suspected by the
persons who had passed their lives in his familiar confidence. In his
last hours, when he was pressed by his wife Irene to alter the
succession, he raised his head, and breathed a pious ejaculation on the
vanity of this world. The indignant reply of the empress may be
inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb, "You die, as you have lived -- a
Hypocrite!"

It was the wish of Irene to supplant the eldest of her surviving sons,
in favor of her daughter the princess Anne whose philosophy would not
have refused the weight of a diadem. But the order of male succession
was asserted by the friends of their country; the lawful heir drew the
royal signet from the finger of his insensible or conscious father and
the empire obeyed the master of the palace. Anna Comnena was stimulated
by ambition and revenge to conspire against the life of her brother, and
when the design was prevented by the fears or scruples of her husband,
she passionately exclaimed that nature had mistaken the two sexes, and
had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman. The two sons of Alexius,
John and Isaac, maintained the fraternal concord, the hereditary virtue
of their race, and the younger brother was content with the title of
Sebastocrator, which approached the dignity, without sharing the power,
of the emperor. In the same person the claims of primogeniture and merit
were fortunately united; his swarthy complexion, harsh features, and
diminutive stature, had suggested the ironical surname of Calo-Johannes,
or John the Handsome, which his grateful subjects more seriously applied
to the beauties of his mind. After the discovery of her treason, the
life and fortune of Anne were justly forfeited to the laws. Her life was
spared by the clemency of the emperor; but he visited the pomp and
treasures of her palace, and bestowed the rich confiscation on the most
deserving of his friends. That respectable friend Axuch, a slave of
Turkish extraction, presumed to decline the gift, and to intercede for
the criminal: his generous master applauded and imitated the virtue of
his favorite, and the reproach or complaint of an injured brother was
the only chastisement of the guilty princess. After this example of
clemency, the remainder of his reign was never disturbed by conspiracy
or rebellion: feared by his nobles, beloved by his people, John was
never reduced to the painful necessity of punishing, or even of
pardoning, his personal enemies. During his government of twenty-five
years, the penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of
mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice,
in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public
safety. Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal,
abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the artless
virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not borrowed from
the schools. He despised and moderated the stately magnificence of the
Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people, so contemptible to the eye
of reason. Under such a prince, innocence had nothing to fear, and merit
had every thing to hope; and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a
censor, he introduced a gradual though visible reformation in the public
and private manners of Constantinople. The only defect of this
accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love of arms
and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John the Handsome
may be justified, at least in their principle, by the necessity of
repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The sultan of
Iconium was confined to his capital, the Barbarians were driven to the
mountains, and the maritime provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient
blessings of their deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and
Aleppo, he repeatedly marched at the head of a victorious army, and in
the sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were
astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he began to
indulge the ambitious hope of restoring the ancient limits of the
empire, as he revolved in his mind, the Euphrates and Tigris, the
dominion of Syria, and the conquest of Jerusalem, the thread of his life
and of the public felicity was broken by a singular accident. He hunted
the wild boar in the valley of Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in
the body of the furious animal; but in the struggle a poisoned arrow
dropped from his quiver, and a slight wound in his hand, which produced
a mortification, was fatal to the best and greatest of the Comnenian
princes.

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

A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of John the
Handsome; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or
affection preferred the younger; and the choice of their dying prince
was ratified by the soldiers, who had applauded the valor of his
favorite in the Turkish war The faithful Axuch hastened to the capital,
secured the person of Isaac in honorable confinement, and purchased,
with a gift of two hundred pounds of silver, the leading ecclesiastics
of St. Sophia, who possessed a decisive voice in the consecration of an
emperor. With his veteran and affectionate troops, Manuel soon visited
Constantinople; his brother acquiesced in the title of Sebastocrator;
his subjects admired the lofty stature and martial graces of their new
sovereign, and listened with credulity to the flattering promise, that
he blended the wisdom of age with the activity and vigor of youth. By
the experience of his government, they were taught, that he emulated the
spirit, and shared the talents, of his father whose social virtues were
buried in the grave. A reign of thirty seven years is filled by a
perpetual though various warfare against the Turks, the Christians, and
the hordes of the wilderness beyond the Danube. The arms of Manuel were
exercised on Mount Taurus, in the plains of Hungary, on the coast of
Italy and Egypt, and on the seas of Sicily and Greece: the influence of
his negotiations extended from Jerusalem to Rome and Russia; and the
Byzantine monarchy, for a while, became an object of respect or terror
to the powers of Asia and Europe. Educated in the silk and purple of the
East, Manuel possessed the iron temper of a soldier, which cannot easily
be paralleled, except in the lives of Richard the First of England, and
of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. Such was his strength and exercise in
arms, that Raymond, surnamed the Hercules of Antioch, was incapable of
wielding the lance and buckler of the Greek emperor. In a famous
tournament, he entered the lists on a fiery courser, and overturned in
his first career two of the stoutest of the Italian knights. The first
in the charge, the last in the retreat, his friends and his enemies
alike trembled, the former for his safety, and the latter for their own.
After posting an ambuscade in a wood, he rode forwards in search of some
perilous adventure, accompanied only by his brother and the faithful
Axuch, who refused to desert their sovereign. Eighteen horsemen, after a
short combat, fled before them: but the numbers of the enemy increased;
the march of the reënforcement was tardy and fearful, and Manuel,
without receiving a wound, cut his way through a squadron of five
hundred Turks. In a battle against the Hungarians, impatient of the
slowness of his troops, he snatched a standard from the head of the
column, and was the first, almost alone, who passed a bridge that
separated him from the enemy. In the same country, after transporting
his army beyond the Save, he sent back the boats, with an order under
pain of death, to their commander, that he should leave him to conquer
or die on that hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a
captive galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against
the volleys of darts and stones, a large buckler and a flowing sail; nor
could he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian admiral
enjoined his archers to respect the person of a hero. In one day, he is
said to have slain above forty of the Barbarians with his own hand; he
returned to the camp, dragging along four Turkish prisoners, whom he had
tied to the rings of his saddle: he was ever the foremost to provoke or
to accept a single combat; and the giganticchampions, who encountered
his arm, were transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of
the invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a
model or a copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a reasonable
suspicion of the veracity of the Greeks: I will not, to vindicate their
credit, endanger my own: yet I may observe, that, in the long series of
their annals, Manuel is the only prince who has been the subject of
similar exaggeration. With the valor of a soldier, he did no unite the
skill or prudence of a general; his victories were not productive of any
permanent or useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in
his last unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the
mountains of Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the
sultan. But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel, is the
contrast and vicissitude of labor and sloth, of hardiness and
effeminacy. In war he seemed ignorant of peace, in peace he appeared
incapable of war. In the field he slept in the sun or in the snow, tired
in the longest marches the strength of his men and horses, and shared
with a smile the abstinence or diet of the camp. No sooner did he return
to Constantinople, than he resigned himself to the arts and pleasures of
a life of luxury: the expense of his dress, his table, and his palace,
surpassed the measure of his predecessors, and whole summer days were
idly wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous
love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and dissolute
prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes; and Manuel, in
the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured a bitter reproach
from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he quenched his thirst, he
complained that the water of a fountain was mingled with Christian
blood. "It is not the first time," exclaimed a voice from the crowd,
"that you have drank, O emperor, the blood of your Christian subjects."
Manuel Comnenus was twice married, to the virtuous Bertha or Irene of
Germany, and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of
Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for Bela, a
Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople under the name of
Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials might have transferred
the Roman sceptre to a race of free and warlike Barbarians. But as soon
as Maria of Antioch had given a son and heir to the empire, the
presumptive rights of Bela were abolished, and he was deprived of his
promised bride; but the Hungarian prince resumed his name and the
kingdom of his fathers, and displayed such virtues as might excite the
regret and envy of the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and
at the age of ten years he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his
father's decease had closed the glories of the Comnenian line.

The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had been
sometimes clouded by an opposition of interest and passion. By ambition,
Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and rebellion, from whence
he was reclaimed by the firmness and clemency of John the Handsome. The
errors of Isaac, the father of the emperors of Trebizond, were short and
venial; but John, the elder of his sons, renounced forever his religion.
Provoked by a real or imaginary insult of his uncle, he escaped from the
Roman to the Turkish camp: his apostasy was rewarded with the sultan's
daughter, the title of Chelebi, or noble, and the inheritance of a
princely estate; and in the fifteenth century, Mahomet the Second
boasted of his Imperial descent from the Comnenian family. Andronicus,
the younger brother of John, son of Isaac, and grandson of Alexius
Comnenus, is one of the most conspicuous characters of the age; and his
genuine adventures might form the subject of a very singular romance. To
justify the choice of three ladies of royal birth, it is incumbent on me
to observe, that their fortunate lover was cast in the best proportions
of strength and beauty; and that the want of the softer graces was
supplied by a manly countenance, a lofty stature, athletic muscles, and
the air and deportment of a soldier. The preservation, in his old age,
of health and vigor, was the reward of temperance and exercise. A piece
of bread and a draught of water was often his sole and evening repast;
and if he tasted of a wild boar or a stag, which he had roasted with his
own hands, it was the well-earned fruit of a laborious chase. Dexterous
in arms, he was ignorant of fear; his persuasive eloquence could bend to
every situation and character of life, his style, though not his
practice, was fashioned by the example of St. Paul; and, in every deed
of mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand
to execute. In his youth, after the death of the emperor John, he
followed the retreat of the Roman army; but, in the march through Asia
Minor, design or accident tempted him to wander in the mountains: the
hunter was encompassed by the Turkish huntsmen, and he remained some
time a reluctant or willing captive in the power of the sultan. His
virtues and vices recommended him to the favor of his cousin: he shared
the perils and the pleasures of Manuel; and while the emperor lived in
public incest with his niece Theodora, the affections of her sister
Eudocia were seduced and enjoyed by Andronicus. Above the decencies of
her sex and rank, she gloried in the name of his concubine; and both the
palace and the camp could witness that she slept, or watched, in the
arms of her lover. She accompanied him to his military command of
Cilicia, the first scene of his valor and imprudence. He pressed, with
active ardor, the siege of Mopsuestia: the day was employed in the
boldest attacks; but the night was wasted in song and dance; and a band
of Greek comedians formed the choicest part of his retinue. Andronicus
was surprised by the sally of a vigilant foe; but, while his troops fled
in disorder, his invincible lance transpierced the thickest ranks of the
Armenians. On his return to the Imperial camp in Macedonia, he was
received by Manuel with public smiles and a private reproof; but the
duchies of Naissus, Braniseba, and Castoria, were the reward or
consolation of the unsuccessful general. Eudocia still attended his
motions: at midnight, their tent was suddenly attacked by her angry
brothers, impatient to expiate her infamy in his blood: his daring
spirit refused her advice, and the disguise of a female habit; and,
boldly starting from his couch, he drew his sword, and cut his way
through the numerous assassins. It was here that he first betrayed his
ingratitude and treachery: he engaged in a treasonable correspondence
with the king of Hungary and the German emperor; approached the royal
tent at a suspicious hour with a drawn sword, and under the mask of a
Latin soldier, avowed an intention of revenge against a mortal foe; and
imprudently praised the fleetness of his horse as an instrument of
flight and safety. The monarch dissembled his suspicions; but, after the
close of the campaign, Andronicus was arrested and strictly confined in
a tower of the palace of Constantinople.

In this prison he was left about twelve years; a most painful restraint,
from which the thirst of action and pleasure perpetually urged him to
escape. Alone and pensive, he perceived some broken bricks in a corner
of the chamber, and gradually widened the passage, till he had explored
a dark and forgotten recess. Into this hole he conveyed himself, and the
remains of his provisions, replacing the bricks in their former
position, and erasing with care the footsteps of his retreat. At the
hour of the customary visit, his guards were amazed by the silence and
solitude of the prison, and reported, with shame and fear, his
incomprehensible flight. The gates of the palace and city were instantly
shut: the strictest orders were despatched into the provinces, for the
recovery of the fugitive; and his wife, on the suspicion of a pious act,
was basely imprisoned in the same tower. At the dead of night she beheld
a spectre; she recognized her husband: they shared their provisions; and
a son was the fruit of these stolen interviews, which alleviated the
tediousness of their confinement. In the custody of a woman, the
vigilance of the keepers was insensibly relaxed; and the captive had
accomplished his real escape, when he was discovered, brought back to
Constantinople, and loaded with a double chain. At length he found the
moment, and the means, of his deliverance. A boy, his domestic servant,
intoxicated the guards, and obtained in wax the impression of the keys.
By the diligence of his friends, a similar key, with a bundle of ropes,
was introduced into the prison, in the bottom of a hogshead. Andronicus
employed, with industry and courage, the instruments of his safety,
unlocked the doors, descended from the tower, concealed himself all day
among the bushes, and scaled in the night the garden-wall of the palace.
A boat was stationed for his reception: he visited his own house,
embraced his children, cast away his chain, mounted a fleet horse, and
directed his rapid course towards the banks of the Danube. At Anchialus
in Thrace, an intrepid friend supplied him with horses and money: he
passed the river, traversed with speed the desert of Moldavia and the
Carpathian hills, and had almost reached the town of Halicz, in the
Polish Russia, when he was intercepted by a party of Walachians, who
resolved to convey their important captive to Constantinople. His
presence of mind again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of
sickness, he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from
the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it with his
cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left a phantom to
amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians. From Halicz he was
honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of the great duke: the subtle
Greek soon obtained the esteem and confidence of Ieroslaus; his
character could assume the manners of every climate; and the Barbarians
applauded his strength and courage in the chase of the elks and bears of
the forest. In this northern region he deserved the forgiveness of
Manuel, who solicited the Russian prince to join his arms in the
invasion of Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved this important
service: his private treaty was signed with a promise of fidelity on one
side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at the head of the
Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube. In his resentment
Manuel had ever sympathized with the martial and dissolute character of
his cousin; and his free pardon was sealed in the assault of Zemlin, in
which he was second, and second only, to the valor of the emperor.

No sooner was the exile restored to freedom and his country, than his
ambition revived, at first to his own, and at length to the public,
misfortune. A daughter of Manuel was a feeble bar to the succession of
the more deserving males of the Comnenian blood; her future marriage
with the prince of Hungary was repugnant to the hopes or prejudices of
the princes and nobles. But when an oath of allegiance was required to
the presumptive heir, Andronicus alone asserted the honor of the Roman
name, declined the unlawful engagement, and boldly protested against the
adoption of a stranger. His patriotism was offensive to the emperor, but
he spoke the sentiments of the people, and was removed from the royal
presence by an honorable banishment, a second command of the Cilician
frontier, with the absolute disposal of the revenues of Cyprus. In this
station the Armenians again exercised his courage and exposed his
negligence; and the same rebel, who baffled all his operations, was
unhorsed, and almost slain by the vigor of his lance. But Andronicus
soon discovered a more easy and pleasing conquest, the beautiful
Philippa, sister of the empress Maria, and daughter of Raymond of
Poitou, the Latin prince of Antioch. For her sake he deserted his
station, and wasted the summer in balls and tournaments: to his love she
sacrificed her innocence, her reputation, and the offer of an
advantageous marriage. But the resentment of Manuel for this domestic
affront interrupted his pleasures: Andronicus left the indiscreet
princess to weep and to repent; and, with a band of desperate
adventurers, undertook the pilgrimage of Jerusalem. His birth, his
martial renown, and professions of zeal, announced him as the champion
of the Cross: he soon captivated both the clergy and the king; and the
Greek prince was invested with the lordship of Berytus, on the coast of
Phnicia. In his neighborhood resided a young and handsome queen, of his
own nation and family, great-granddaughter of the emperor Alexis, and
widow of Baldwin the Third, king of Jerusalem. She visited and loved her
kinsman. Theodora was the third victim of his amorous seduction; and her
shame was more public and scandalous than that of her predecessors. The
emperor still thirsted for revenge; and his subjects and allies of the
Syrian frontier were repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out
the eyes, of the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the
tender Theodora revealed his danger, and accompanied his flight. The
queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obsequious concubine;
and two illegitimate children were the living monuments of her weakness.
Damascus was his first refuge; and, in the characters of the great
Noureddin and his servant Saladin, the superstitious Greek might learn
to revere the virtues of the Mussulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he
visited, most probably, Bagdad, and the courts of Persia; and, after a
long circuit round the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he
finally settled among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of
his country. The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to
Andronicus, his mistress, and his band of outlaws: the debt of gratitude
was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of Trebizond; and he
seldom returned without an ample harvest of spoil and of Christian
captives. In the story of his adventures, he was fond of comparing
himself to David, who escaped, by a long exile, the snares of the
wicked. But the royal prophet (he presumed to add) was content to lurk
on the borders of Judæa, to slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his
miserable state, the life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the
Comnenian prince had a wider range; and he had spread over the Eastern
world the glory of his name and religion. By a sentence of the Greek
church, the licentious rover had been separated from the faithful; but
even this excommunication may prove, that he never abjured the
profession of Chistianity.

His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret persecution of
the emperor; but he was at length insnared by the captivity of his
female companion. The governor of Trebizond succeeded in his attempt to
surprise the person of Theodora: the queen of Jerusalem and her two
children were sent to Constantinople, and their loss imbittered the
tedious solitude of banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a
final pardon, with leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign,
who was satisfied with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate
on the ground, he deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his past
rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some faithful subject
would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an iron chain with which he
had secretly encircled his neck. This extraordinary penance excited the
wonder and pity of the assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church
and state; but the just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a
distance from the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with
rich vineyards, and situate on the coast of the Euxine. The death of
Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon opened the fairest field
to his ambition. The emperor was a boy of twelve or fourteen years of
age, without vigor, or wisdom, or experience: his mother, the empress
Mary, abandoned her person and government to a favorite of the Comnenian
name; and his sister, another Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was
decorated with the title of Cæsar, excited a conspiracy, and at length
an insurrection, against her odious step-mother. The provinces were
forgotten, the capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order
was overthrown in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war was
kindled in Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody battle in
the square of the palace, and the rebels sustained a regular siege in
the cathedral of St. Sophia. The patriarch labored with honest zeal to
heal the wounds of the republic, the most respectable patriots called
aloud for a guardian and avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise
of the talents and even the virtues of Andronicus. In his retirement, he
affected to revolve the solemn duties of his oath: "If the safety or
honor of the Imperial family be threatened, I will reveal and oppose the
mischief to the utmost of my power." His correspondence with the
patriarch and patricians was seasoned with apt quotations from the
Psalms of David and the epistles of St. Paul; and he patiently waited
till he was called to her deliverance by the voice of his country. In
his march from Oenoe to Constantinople, his slender train insensibly
swelled to a crowd and an army: his professions of religion and loyalty
were mistaken for the language of his heart; and the simplicity of a
foreign dress, which showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed
a lively image of his poverty and exile. All opposition sunk before him;
he reached the straits of the Thracian Bosphorus; the Byzantine navy
sailed from the harbor to receive and transport the savior of the
empire: the torrent was loud and irresistible, and the insects who had
basked in the sunshine of royal favor disappeared at the blast of the
storm. It was the first care of Andronicus to occupy the palace, to
salute the emperor, to confine his mother, to punish her minister, and
to restore the public order and tranquillity. He then visited the
sepulchre of Manuel: the spectators were ordered to stand aloof, but as
he bowed in the attitude of prayer, they heard, or thought they heard, a
murmur of triumph or revenge: "I no longer fear thee, my old enemy, who
hast driven me a vagabond to every climate of the earth. Thou art safety
deposited under a seven-fold dome, from whence thou canst never arise
till the signal of the last trumpet. It is now my turn, and speedily
will I trample on thy ashes and thy posterity." From his subsequent
tyranny we may impute such feelings to the man and the moment; but it is
not extremely probable that he gave an articulate sound to his secret
thoughts. In the first months of his administration, his designs were
veiled by a fair semblance of hypocrisy, which could delude only the
eyes of the multitude; the coronation of Alexius was performed with due
solemnity, and his perfidious guardian, holding in his hands the body
and blood of Christ, most fervently declared that he lived, and was
ready to die, for the service of his beloved pupil. But his numerous
adherents were instructed to maintain, that the sinking empire must
perish in the hands of a child, that the Romans could only be saved by a
veteran prince, bold in arms, skilful in policy, and taught to reign by
the long experience of fortune and mankind; and that it was the duty of
every citizen to force the reluctant modesty of Andronicus to undertake
the burden of the public care. The young emperor was himself constrained
to join his voice to the general acclamation, and to solicit the
association of a colleague, who instantly degraded him from the supreme
rank, secluded his person, and verified the rash declaration of the
patriarch, that Alexius might be considered as dead, so soon as he was
committed to the custody of his guardian. But his death was preceded by
the imprisonment and execution of his mother. After blackening her
reputation, and inflaming against her the passions of the multitude, the
tyrant accused and tried the empress for a treasonable correspondence
with the king of Hungary. His own son, a youth of honor and humanity,
avowed his abhorrence of this flagitious act, and three of the judges
had the merit of preferring their conscience to their safety: but the
obsequious tribunal, without requiring any reproof, or hearing any
defence, condemned the widow of Manuel; and her unfortunate son
subscribed the sentence of her death. Maria was strangled, her corpse
was buried in the sea, and her memory was wounded by the insult most
offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly representation of her
beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long deferred: he was
strangled with a bowstring; and the tyrant, insensible to pity or
remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth, struck it
rudely with his foot: "Thy father," he cried, "was a knave, thy mother a
whore, and thyself a fool!"

The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by Andronicus
about three years and a half as the guardian or sovereign of the empire.
His government exhibited a singular contrast of vice and virtue. When he
listened to his passions, he was the scourge; when he consulted his
reason, the father, of his people. In the exercise of private justice,
he was equitable and rigorous: a shameful and pernicious venality was
abolished, and the offices were filled with the most deserving
candidates, by a prince who had sense to choose, and severity to punish.
He prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and persons of
shipwrecked mariners; the provinces, so long the objects of oppression
or neglect, revived in prosperity and plenty; and millions applauded the
distant blessings of his reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of
his daily cruelties. The ancient proverb, That bloodthirsty is the man
who returns from banishment to power, had been applied, with too much
truth, to 'Marius and Tiberius; and was now verified for the third time
in the life of Andronicus. His memory was stored with a black list of
the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit, opposed his
greatness, or insulted his misfortunes; and the only comfort of his
exile was the sacred hope and promise of revenge. The necessary
extinction of the young emperor and his mother imposed the fatal
obligation of extirpating the friends, who hated, and might punish, the
assassin; and the repetition of murder rendered him less willing, and
less able, to forgive. * A horrid narrative of the victims whom he
sacrificed by poison or the sword, by the sea or the flames, would be
less expressive of his cruelty than the appellation of the halcyon days,
which was applied to a rare and bloodless week of repose: the tyrant
strove to transfer, on the laws and the judges, some portion of his
guilt; but the mask was fallen, and his subjects could no longer mistake
the true author of their calamities. The noblest of the Greeks, more
especially those who, by descent or alliance, might dispute the
Comnenian inheritance, escaped from the monster's den: Nice and Prusa,
Sicily or Cyprus, were their places of refuge; and as their flight was
already criminal, they aggravated their offence by an open revolt, and
the Imperial title. Yet Andronicus resisted the daggers and swords of
his most formidable enemies: Nice and Prusa were reduced and chastised:
the Sicilians were content with the sack of Thessalonica; and the
distance of Cyprus was not more propitious to the rebel than to the
tyrant. His throne was subverted by a rival without merit, and a people
without arms. Isaac Angelus, a descendant in the female line from the
great Alexius, was marked as a victim by the prudence or superstition of
the emperor.  In a moment of despair, Angelus defended his life and
liberty, slew the executioner, and fled to the church of St. Sophia. The
sanctuary was insensibly filled with a curious and mournful crowd, who,
in his fate, prognosticated their own. But their lamentations were soon
turned to curses, and their curses to threats: they dared to ask, "Why
do we fear? why do we obey? We are many, and he is one: our patience is
the only bond of our slavery." With the dawn of day the city burst into
a general sedition, the prisons were thrown open, the coldest and most
servile were roused to the defence of their country, and Isaac, the
second of the name, was raised from the sanctuary to the throne.
Unconscious of his danger, the tyrant was absent; withdrawn from the
toils of state, in the delicious islands of the Propontis. He had
contracted an indecent marriage with Alice, or Agnes, daughter of Lewis
the Seventh, of France, and relict of the unfortunate Alexius; and his
society, more suitable to his temper than to his age, was composed of a
young wife and a favorite concubine. On the first alarm, he rushed to
Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty; but he was
astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of the city, and the
general desertion of mankind. Andronicus proclaimed a free pardon to his
subjects; they neither desired, nor would grant, forgiveness; he offered
to resign the crown to his son Manuel; but the virtues of the son could
not expiate his father's crimes. The sea was still open for his retreat;
but the news of the revolution had flown along the coast; when fear had
ceased, obedience was no more: the Imperial galley was pursued and taken
by an armed brigantine; and the tyrant was dragged to the presence of
Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long chain round his neck. His
eloquence, and the tears of his female companions, pleaded in vain for
his life; but, instead of the decencies of a legal execution, the new
monarch abandoned the criminal to the numerous sufferers, whom he had
deprived of a father, a husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an eye
and a hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss:
and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the bitterness of
death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a rescue, he was
carried through the city, and the basest of the populace rejoiced to
trample on the fallen majesty of their prince. After a thousand blows
and outrages, Andronicus was hung by the feet, between two pillars, that
supported the statues of a wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could
reach the public enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or
brutal cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their
swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In this
long and painful agony, "Lord, have mercy upon me!" and "Why will you
bruise a broken reed?" were the only words that escaped from his mouth.
Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the man; nor can we blame
his pusillanimous resignation, since a Greek Christian was no longer
master of his life.

I have been tempted to expatiate on the extraordinary character and
adventures of Andronicus; but I shall here terminate the series of the
Greek emperors since the time of Heraclius. The branches that sprang
from the Comnenian trunk had insensibly withered; and the male line was
continued only in the posterity of Andronicus himself, who, in the
public confusion, usurped the sovereignty of Trebizond, so obscure in
history, and so famous in romance. A private citizen of Philadelphia,
Constantine Angelus, had emerged to wealth and honors, by his marriage
with a daughter of the emperor Alexius. His son Andronicus is
conspicuous only by his cowardice. His grandson Isaac punished and
succeeded the tyrant; but he was dethroned by his own vices, and the
ambition of his brother; and their discord introduced the Latins to the
conquest of Constantinople, the first great period in the fall of the
Eastern empire.

If we compute the number and duration of the reigns, it will be found,
that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty emperors,
including in the Augustan list some female sovereigns; and deducting
some usurpers who were never acknowledged in the capital, and some
princes who did not live to possess their inheritance. The average
proportion will allow ten years for each emperor, far below the
chronological rule of Sir Isaac Newton, who, from the experience of more
recent and regular monarchies, has defined about eighteen or twenty
years as the term of an ordinary reign. The Byzantine empire was most
tranquil and prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary
succession; five dynasties, the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian,
and Comnenian families, enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony
during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and four
generations; several princes number the years of their reign with those
of their infancy; and Constantine the Seventh and his two grandsons
occupy the space of an entire century. But in the intervals of the
Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and broken, and the name of
a successful candidate is speedily erased by a more fortunate
competitor. Many were the paths that led to the summit of royalty: the
fabric of rebellion was overthrown by the stroke of conspiracy, or
undermined by the silent arts of intrigue: the favorites of the soldiers
or people, of the senate or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were
alternately clothed with the purple: the means of their elevation were
base, and their end was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the
nature of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer
measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and contempt on
the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager, in a narrow span, to
grasp at a precarious and short-lived enjoyment. It is thus that the
experience of history exalts and enlarges the horizon of our
intellectual view. In a composition of some days, in a perusal of some
hours, six hundred years have rolled away, and the duration of a life or
reign is contracted to a fleeting moment: the grave is ever beside the
throne: the success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the
loss of his prize and our immortal reason survives and disdains the
sixty phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly
dwell on our remembrance. The observation that, in every age and
climate, ambition has prevailed with the same commanding energy, may
abate the surprise of a philosopher: but while he condemns the vanity,
he may search the motive, of this universal desire to obtain and hold
the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of the Byzantine series, we
cannot reasonably ascribe the love of fame and of mankind. The virtue
alone of John Comnenus was beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of
the princes, who precede or follow that respectable name, have trod with
some dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish
policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the Isaurian,
Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus, the second Basil,
and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are almost equally balanced;
and the remainder of the Imperial crowd could only desire and expect to
be forgotten by posterity. Was personal happiness the aim and object of
their ambition? I shall not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery
of kings; but I may surely observe, that their condition, of all others,
is the most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For
these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the revolutions
of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of the modern world,
which cannot easily repeat either the triumph of Alexander or the fall
of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed
them to domestic perils, without affording any lively promise of foreign
conquest. From the pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by
a death more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but the
most glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from their
subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious
without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the Barbarians of
the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the loss of the provinces
was terminated by the final servitude of the capital.

The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the Cæsars to the
last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen hundred years: and the
term of dominion, unbroken by foreign conquest, surpasses the measure of
the ancient monarchies; the Assyrians or Medes, the successors of Cyrus,
or those of Alexander.

End Of Vol. IV.