 Chapter 52 Part 4 of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Christine The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5, Chapter 52, Part 4 Under the reign of Alma Monk at Baghdad, of Michael the Stammerer at Constantinople, the islands of Crete and Sicily were subdued by the Arabs. The former of these conquests is disdained by their own writers, who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos, but it has not been overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a clear light on the affairs of their own times. A band of Andalusian volunteers, discontented with the climate or government of Spain, explode their adventures by sea. But as they sailed in no more than 10 or 20 galleys, their warfare must be branded with the name of piracy. As the subjects and secretaries of the White Party, they might lawfully invade the dominions of the Black Helliffs. A rebellious faction introduced them into Alexandria. They cut in pieces both friends and foes, pillaged the churches and the mosques, sold about 6,000 Christian captives, and maintained their station in the capital of Egypt, till they were oppressed by the forces and the presence of Alma Monk himself. From the mouth of the Nile to the Hellespond, the islands and sea coasts, both as the Greeks and Muslims, were exposed to their depredations. They saw, they invited, they tasted the fertility of Crete, and soon returned with 40 galleys to a more serious attack. The Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested. But when they descended with their plunder to the seashore, their vessels were in flames and their chief, Abu Qab, confessed himself the author of the admissions chief. Their clamors accused his menace or treachery. Of what do you complain? replied the crafty emmer. I have brought you to a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is your true country, reposed from your toils, and forget the barren place of your nativity. And our wives and children? Your beauty's captives will supply the place of your wives, and in their embraces you will soon become the fathers of a new progeny. The first habitation was their camp, with a ditch and rampart in the bay of Suda, but an apostate Monk led them to a more desirable position in the eastern parts, and the name of Condux, their fortress and colony, has been extended to the whole island, and is a corrupt and modern appellation of Kandia. The hundred cities of the age of Minos were diminished to 30, and of these, only one, most probably Kidonia, had courage to retain the substance of freedom and the profession of Christianity. The Saracens of Crete soon repaired the loss of their navy, and the timbers of Mount Ida were launched into the main. During a hostile period of 138 years, the Princess of Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with fruitless curses and ineffectual arms. The loss of Sicily was occasioned by an act of superstitious rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue. Orphimius appealed to the reason and policy of the Saracens of Africa, and soon returned with the imperial purple, a fleet of 100 ships and an army of 700 horse and 10,000 foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of the ancient Salinos. But after some partial victories, Syracuse was delivered by the Greeks. The apostate was slain before her walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of feeding on the flesh of their own horses. In their turns they were relieved. By a powerful reinforcement of their brethren of Andalusia, the largest and western part of the island was gradually reduced, and the commodious harbor of Palermo was chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the Saracens. Syracuse preserved about 50 years the face which she had sworn to Christ and to Caesar. In the last and fatal siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which had formally resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They stood about 20 days against the battering rams and catapult, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers. And the place might have been relieved if the mariners of the imperial fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a church to the Virgin Mary. The deacons Theodosius, with the bishop and clergy, was dragged in chains from the altar to Palermo, cast into a subterranean's dungeon, and exposed to the hourly peril of death or apostasy. His pathetic and not inelegant complaint might be read as the epitaph of his country. From the Roman conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive isle of Ortigia, had insensibly declined. Yet the relics were still precious. The plate of the cathedral weighed 5,000 pounds of silver. The entire spoil was computed at one million of pieces of gold, about 400,000 pounds sterling. And the captives must outnumber the 17,000 Christians who were transported from the sack of Tauramenium into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion and language of the Greeks were eradicated, and such was the docility of the rising generation that 15,000 boys were circumcised and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimid Caliph. The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbours of Palermo Bicerta and Tunis 150 towns of Calabria and Campania were attacked and pillaged, nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the Caesars and Apostles. Had the Mohammedans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But the Caliphs of Baghdad had lost their authority in the west. The aglabites and Fatimids deserved the provinces of Africa. Their emers of Sicily aspired to independence, and the design of conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of serocenes from the African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tiber and to approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling people, but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Austrian way. Their invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goth, the Vandals and the Lombards, but the Arabs disdain both the Gospel and the legend, and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly offerings. The royal altar was torn away from the shrine of St. Peter. And if the bodies or the buildings were left untired, their deliverance must be imputed to the haze rather than the scruples of the serocenes. In their course along the Appian way they pillaged Funti and besieged Cayetta, but they had turned aside from the walls of Rome and by their divisions the capital was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The same danger still impended on the heads of the Roman people and their domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African emir. They claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign, but the Karlovingian standard was overthrown by the attachment of the barbarians. They meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors, but the attempt was reasonable and the sacco remote and precarious. Their distress appeared to receive some aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief, but the pressing emergency superseded the forms and intrigues of an election. And the unanimous choice of Pope Leo the Force was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born a Roman. The courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in his breast and amidst the ruins of his country he stood erect like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads above the fragments of the Roman Forum. The first days of his reign were consecrated to the purification and removal of relics, to prayers and processions and to all the solemn offices of religion which served at least to heal the imagination and restore the hopes of the multitude. The public defence had been long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of his means and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo. Fifteen towers in the most accessible stations were built or renewed. Two of these commanded on either side of the Tiber and an iron chain was drowned across the stream to impede the ascent of a hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite by the welcome news that the siege of Cayetta had been raised and that a part of the enemy with their sacrilegious plunder had perished in the waves. But the storm which had been delayed soon burst upon them with their doubled violence. The Oglobite, who reigned in Africa, had inherited from his father a treasure and an army, a fleet of Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbours of Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouths of the Tiber, sixteen miles from the city, and their discipline and numbers appeared to threaten, not a transient inroad, but a serious design of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had formed an alliance with the vassals of the Greek Empire, the free and maritime states of Galleta, Naples and Amalfi. And in the hour of danger their galleys appeared in the port of Ostia under the command of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and valiant youth, who had already languished the fleets of the Cerescenes. With his principal companions, Caesarius was invited to the Lateran Palace and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire their errand, and to accept with joy and surprise their providential sucker. The city-bands in arms attended their father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the same god who had supported Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the waves of the sea would strengthen the hands of his champions against the adversaries of his holy name. After a similar prayer, and with equal resolution, the Muslims advanced to the attack of the Christian galleys, which preserved their advantageous station along the coast. The victory inclined to the side of the allies, when it was less gloriously decided in their favor by a sudden tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the stoutest mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbor, while the Africans were scattered and dashed in pieces among the rocks and islands of a hostile shore. Those who escaped from shipwreck and hunger neither found nor deserved mercy at the hands of their emplacable pursuers. The sword and the gibbet reduced the dangerous multitude of captives, and the remainder was more usefully employed to restore the sacred edifices, which they had attempted to subvert. The pontiff at the head of the citizens and allies paid his grateful devotion at the shrines of the apostles, and among the spoils of this naval victory, 13 Arabian boughs of pure and messy silver were suspended round the outer of the fisherman of Galilee. The reign of Leo IV was employed in the defense and ornament of the Roman state. The churches were renewed and embellished. Near 4,000 pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses of St. Peter, and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of gold of the weight of 216 pounds, embossed with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a string of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects less glory on the character of Leo than the paternal care with which he rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria and transported the wandering inhabitants of Sanctum Cali to his new foundation of Leopolis, 12 miles from the seashore. By his liberality, a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children, was planted in the station of Porto at the mouth of the Tiber. The falling city was restored for their use. The fields and vineyards were divided among the new settlers. Their first efforts were assisted by a gift of horses and cattle. And the hardy exiles, who breathed revenge against the Saracens, swore to live and die under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the west and north who visited the threshold of the apostles had gradually formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and their various habitations were distinguished in the language of the times as the schools of the Greeks and Goths of the Lombards and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to sacrilegious insult. The design of enclosing it with walls and towers exhausted all that authority could command or charity would supply. And the pious labor of four years was animated in every season and at every hour by the presence of the indefatigable Pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which he bestowed on the Vatican. Yet the pride of the dedication was tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in thug clothes and ashes, the songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and litanies. The walls were besprinkled with holy water and the ceremony was concluded with a prayer that, under the guardian care of the apostles and the angelic host, both the old and the new Rome might ever be preserved pure, prosperous and impregnable. The emperor Teophiles, son of Michael the Stammerer, was one of the most active and high-spirited princess who reigned at Constantinople during the Middle Age. In offensive or defensive war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens, formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and defeats. In the last of those expeditions, he penetrated into Syria and besieged the obscure town of Sosopetra, the casual birthplace of the Caliph Matassem, whose father Haroun was attended in peace or war by the most favored of his wives and concubines. The revolt of a Persian imposter employed at that moment the arms of the Saracen and he could only intercede in favor of a place for which he felt unacknowledged some degree of filial affection. These solicitations determined the emperor to wound his pride in so sensible a part. Sosopetra was leveled with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were marched or mutilated with ignominous cruelty and a thousand female captives were forced away from the adjacent territory. Among these a matron of the house of Abbas invoked, in an agony of despair, the name of Matassem and the insults of the Greeks engaged the honor of her kinsmen to avenge his indignity and to answer her appeal. Under the reign of the two elder brothers, the inheritance of the youngest had been confined to Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. This frontier station had exercised his military talents and among his accidental climbs to the name of Octonary, the most meritorious are the eight battles which he gained or fought against the enemies of the Quran. In this personal quarrel the troops of Iraq, Syria and Egypt were recruited from the tribes of Arabia and the Turkish hordes. His cavalry might be numerous, though we should deduct some myriads from the hundred and thirty thousand horses of the royal staples and the expense of the armament was computed at four million sterling or one hundred thousand pounds of gold. From Tarsus, the place of assembly, the Saracens advanced in three divisions along the high road of Constantinople. Mottasem himself commanded the center and the one guard was given to his son Abbas who, in the trial of the first adventurers might succeed with the more glory or fail with the least reproach. In the revenge of his injury the caliph prepared to retaliate a similar affront. The father of Teophilus was a native of Amorium in Phrygia. The original seat of the imperial house had been adorned with privileges and monuments and whatever might be the indifference of the people, Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value in the eyes of the sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium was inscribed on the shields of the Saracens and their three armies were again united under the walls of the devoted city. It had been proposed by the wisest consulers to evacuate Amorium to remove the inhabitants and to abandon the empty structures to the vain resentment of the barbarians. The emperor embraced the more generous resolution of defending in a siege and battle the country of his ancestors. When the armies drew near the front of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely planted with spears and javelins. But the event of the action was not glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were broken but it was by the swords of 30,000 Persians who had obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine Empire. The Greeks were repulsed and vanquished and it was by the arrows of the Turkish cavalry and had not their bow strings been damped and relaxed by the evening rain very few of the Christian could have escaped with the emperor from the field of the battle. They breezed at Doloyum at the distance of three days until Philos, reviewing his trembling squadrons forgave the common flight both of the prince and people. After this discovery of his weakness he vainly hoped to deprecate the fate of Amorium. The inexorable Caliph rejected with contempt his prayers and promises and detained the Roman ambassadors to be the witnesses of his great revenge. They had nearly been the witnesses of his shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty-five days were encountered by a faithful governor, a veteran garrison and a desperate people and the serocenes must have raised the siege if a domestic traitor had not pointed to the weakest part of the wall a place which was decorated with the statues of a lion and a bull. The bow of Mothosem was accomplished with unrelenting rigor, tired rather than satiated with distraction. He returned to his new palace of Samara in the neighborhood of Baghdad while the unfortunate Teophiles implored the tardy and doubtful aid of his western rival, the Emperor of the Franks. Yet in the siege of Amorium about seventy-thousand Muslims had perished. Their loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty-thousand Christians and the sufferings of an equal number of captives who were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of prisoners. But in the national and religious conflict of the two empires, peace was without confidence and war without mercy. Quarter was seldom given in the feud. Those who escaped the edge of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude or exquisite torture and the Catholic emperor relates with visible satisfaction the execution of the Saracens of Crete who were flayed alive or plunged into cauldrons of boiling oil. To a point of honor Mutasim had sacrificed a flourishing city two hundred thousand lives and the property of millions. The same Caliph descended from his horse and dirtied his robe to relieve the distress of a decrepit old man who, with his laden ass, had tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect with the most pleasure when he was summoned by the angel of death? With Mutasim, the aides of the Abbasides, the glory of his family and nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over the east and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria and Egypt, they incessively lost the free-born and martial virtues of the desert. The courage of the south is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice. The active power of enthusiasm had decayed and the mercenary forces of the Caliphs were recruited in those climates of the north of which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the Turks who dwelt beyond the oxus and jihadis, the robust youths, either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the exercises of the field and the profession of the Mohammedan faith. The Turkish guards stood in arms round the throne of their benefactor and their chiefs adsorbed the dominion of the palace and the provinces. Mutasim, the first author of this dangerous example, introduced into the capital above 50,000 Turks. Their licentious conduct provoked the public indignation and the quarrels of the soldiers and people induced the Caliph to retire from Baghdad and establish his own residence and the camp of his barbarian favorites at Samara on the Tigris, about 12 leagues above the city of Peace. His son Motavakal was a jealous and cruel tyrant. Audious to his subjects, he cast himself on the fidelity of the strangers and these strangers, ambitious and apprehensive, were tempted by the rich promise of a revolution. At the instigation, or at least in the cause of his son, the burst into his apartment at the hour of supper and the Caliph was cut into seven pieces by the same swords which he had recently distributed among the guards of his life and throne. To this throne, yet streaming with the father's blood, Montaser was triumphantly led, but in a reign of six months he found only the pangs of a guilty conscience. If he wept at the sight of an old tapestry which represented the crime and punishment of the son of Kostros, if his days were abridged by grief and remorse, we may allow some pity to a parasite who exclaimed in the bitterness of death that he had lost both this world and the world to come. After this act of treason, the ensigns of royalty, the garment and walking staff of Mohammed were given and torn away by the foreign mercenaries who, in four years, created, deposed and murdered three commanders of the faithful. As often as the Turks were inflamed by fear or rage or avarice, these caliphs were dragged by the feet exposed naked to the scorching sun, beaten with iron clubs and compelled to purchase by the abdication of their dignity, a short reprieve of inevitable fate. At length, however, the fury of the tempest was spent or diverted. The Abbasidis returned to the last turbulent residence of Baghdad. The insolence of the Turks was curbed with the firmer and more skillful hand, and their numbers were divided and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been taught to trample on the successors of the prophet, and the blessings of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism that I seem to repeat the story of the parietarians of Rome. While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, the pleasure and the knowledge of the age, it burned with consecrated heat in the breasts of the chosen few, the congenial spirits who were ambitious of reigning either in this world or in the next. How carefully, however, the book of prophecy had been sealed by the Apostle of Mecca, the wishes and, if he may profan the word, even the reason of fanaticism might believe that after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, the same God in the fullness of time would reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the 277th year of the Hegira, and in the neighborhood of Kaffa, an Arabian preacher of the name of Kamas, assumed the lofty and incomprehensible style of the guide, the director, the demonstration, the word, the Holy Ghost, the camel, the herald of the messiah, who conversed with him in a human shape, and the representative of Muhammad, the son of Ali, of Saint John the Baptist and of the angel Gabriel. In his mystic volume, the percepts of the Quran were refined to a more spiritual sense. He relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting and pilgrimage, allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and forbidden food, and nourished the fervor of his disciples by the daily repetition of fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the rustic crowd awakened the attention of the magistrates of Kaffa. Ultimate persecution assisted the progress of the new sect, and the name of the prophet became more revered after his person had been withdrawn from the world. His twelve apostles dispersed themselves among the Bedouins. A race of men, says Abu Feda, equally devoid of reason and of religion. And the success of their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution. The Karmacians were ripe for rebellion since they disclaimed the title of the House of Abbas and abhorred the worldly pomp of the Caliphs of Baghdad. They were so skeptical of discipline since they evolved a blind and absolute submission to their Imam, who was called to the prophetic office by the voice of God and the people. Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of their substance and spoil. The most flagitious sins were no more than the type of disobedience, and the present were united and concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they prevailed in the province of Bahrain, along the Persian Gulf. Far and wide, the tribes of the desert were subject to the scepter, or rather to the sword of Abu Said and his son Abu Tahir. And these rebellious Imams could muster in the field a hundred and seven thousand fanatics. The mercenaries of the Caliph were dismayed at the approach of an enemy who neither asked nor accepted quarter, and the difference between them in fortitude and patience is expressive of the change with three centuries of prosperity had effected in the character of the Arabians. Such troops were disconfited in every action. The cities of Raqqa and Balbek, of Kafa and Basura, were taken and pillaged. Baghdad was filled with consternation, and the Caliph trembled behind the wails of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu Tahir advanced to the gates of the capital with no more than five hundred horse. By the special order of Mohtadea, the bridges had been broken down, and the person or head of the rebel was expected every hour by the commander of the faithful. His lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised Abu Tahir of his danger and recommended a speedy escape. Your master said the intrepid, Karmasian to the messenger, is at the head of thirty thousand soldiers, three such men as these are wanting in his host. At the same instant, turning to three of his companions, he commanded the first to plunge a dagger into his breast, the second to leap into the Tigris, and the third to cast himself headlong down a precipice. They obeyed without murmur. Relate continued the Imam, what you have seen. Before the evening your general shall be chained among my dogs. Before the evening the camp was surprised and the menace was executed. The wrapping of the Karmasians was sanctified by their aversion to the worship of Mecca. They robbed a caravan of pilgrims and twenty thousand devout Muslims were abandoned on the burning sands to the death of hunger and thirst. Another year they suffered the pilgrims to proceed without interruption. But in the festival of devotion, Abu Tahir stormed the holy city and trampled on the most vulnerable relics of the Muhammadan faith. Thirty thousand citizens and strangers were put to the sword. The sacred precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead bodies. The veil of Samzam over flooded with blood. The golden spout was poured from its place. The veil of the Kaaba was divided among these impious sectaries. And the black stone, the first monument of the nation, was born away in triumph to their capital. After this deed of sacrilege and cruelty, they continued to infest the confines of Iraq, Syria and Egypt. But the vital principle of enthusiasm had wizard at the root. Their scruples or their avarice again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca and restored the black stone of the Kaaba. And it is needless to inquire into what factions they were broken or by whose sword they were finally extirpated. The sect of the Karmathians may be considered as the second visible cause of the decline and fall of the Empire of the Caliphs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Christine. The third and most obvious cause was the weight and magnitude of the Empire itself. The Caliph Al-Ma'mon might proudly assert that it was easier for him to rule the east and the west than to manage a chess board of two feet square. Yet I suspect that in both those games he was guilty of many fatal mistakes. And I perceive that in the distant provinces the authority of the first and most powerful of the Abbasidis was already impaired. The analogy of despotism invests a representative with the full majesty of the prince. The division and balance of powers might relax the habits of obedience, might encourage the passive subject to inquire into the origin and administration of civil government. He who is born in the purple is seldom worthy to reign. But the elevation of a private man, of a peasant, perhaps, or a slave, affords a strong presumption of his courage and capacity. The visceral of the remote kingdom aspires to secure the property and inheritance of his precarious trust. The nations must rejoice in the presence of their sovereign. And the command of armies and treasures are at once the object and the instrument of his ambition. A change was scarcely visible as long as the loot notes of the caliph were content with their precarious title. While they are solicited for themselves or their sons, a renewable of the imperial grant and still maintained on the coin and in public prayers the name and prerogative of the commander of the faithful. But in the long and hereditary exercise of power they assume the pride and attributes of royalty. The alternative of peace or war, of reward and punishment depended solely on their will and the revenues of their government were reserved for local services or private magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the successors of the prophet or centenuous gift of an elephant or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings or some pounds of muskin amber. After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Abbasidis the first symptoms of disobedience broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab, the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Haroun, bequeathed to the dynasty of Aglabites the inheritance of his name and power. The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the injury and loss and pursued only with poison the founder of the Edricites who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the shores of the western ocean. In the east the first dynasty was that of the Tahirites the posterity of the Valiantacha who, in the civil wars of the sons of Haroun had served with too much zeal and success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was sent into honorable exile to command on the banks of the Oxos and the independence of his successors who reigned Ikkorosan to the fourth generation was palliated by their modest and respectful demirner the happiness of their subjects and the security of their frontier. They were supplanted by one of those adventures so frequent in the annals of the east who left his trade of a brazier from whence the name of Sofarides for the profession of a robber. In an external visit to the treasure of the Prince of Sistan Jacob, the son of Lace stumbled over a lump of salt which he invariably tasted with his tongue. Salt among the orientals is the symbol of hospitality and the pious robber immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery of this honorable behavior recommended Jacob pardon and trust. He led an army at first for his benefactor at last for himself subdued Persha and threatened the residents of the Abbasides. On his march towards Baghdad the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience in bed to the ambassador of the Caliph and beside him on a table were exposed a naked scimitar, a crust of brown bread and a bunch of onions. If I die, said he, your master is delivered from his fears. If I live, this must determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without reluctance to the homely fare of my use. From the haze where he stood the descent would not have been so soft or harmless. A timely death secured his own repose who paid with the most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother Amrú to the palaces of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbasides were too feeble to contend too proud to forgive. They invited the powerful dynasty of the Samanites who passed the oxos with ten thousand horse so poor that their stirrups were of wood so brave that they vengished the Sofarian army eight times more numerous than their own. The captive Amrú was sent in chains a grateful offering to the court of Baghdad and as the victor was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Corassan the realms of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the Caliphs. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by the Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Yüksekid. These barbarians in religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet emerged from the bloody factions of the palace to a provincial command and an independent throne. Their names became famous and formidable in their time but the founders of these two potent dynasties confessed either in words or actions the vanity of ambition. The first on his deathbed implored the mercy of God with his own power. The second and the midst of 400,000 soldiers and 8,000 slaves concealed from every human eye the chamber where he attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings and those Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbasidies during an interval of 30 years. In the decline of the empire Mesopotamia the northern cities of Mosul and Aleppo was occupied by the Arabian princes of the tribe of Hamadan. The poets of their court could repeat without a blush that nature had formed their continuances for beauty their tongues for eloquence and their hands for liberality and valor. But the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder and parasite. At the same fatal period the Persian kingdom was again usurped by the dynasty of the Bovites by the sword of three brothers who, under various names were styled the support and columns of the state and who, from the Caspian sea to the ocean, would suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign the language and genius of Persia revived and the Arabs 304 years after the deaths of Muhammad were deprived of the title of commander of the east. Rahadi, the 20th of the Abbasidies and the 39th of the Successors of Muhammad was the last who deserved the title of commander of the faithful. The last says Abu Feda who spoke to the people or conversed with the learned the last who, in the expense of his household represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient Caliphs. After him the lords of the eastern world reduced to the most abject misery and exposed to the blouse and insults of the servile condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed their dominions was also affected but that capital still contained an innumerable multitude weighing of their past fortune discontented with their present state and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of nations. Their idleness was exercised by faction and controversy. Under the mask of piety the rigid followers of Hanbal invaded the pleasures of domestic life burst into the houses of plebeians and princes. The wine broke the instruments, beat the musicians and dishonored with infamous suspicions the associates of every handsome youth. In each profession which allowed room for two persons the one was a watery the other an antagonist of Ali and the apostates were awakened by the clamorous grief of the secretaries who denied their title and cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military force but who could satisfy their avarice or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each other and the chief commanders the emirs al-Omrah imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns and violated the sanctuary of the mosque and harem. If the Caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any neighbouring prince their deliverance was a change of servitude till they were prompted by despair to invite the Bovids the Soutans of Persia who silenced the factions of Baghdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers were assumed by Moizal Dovlat the second of the three brothers and a steppend of 60,000 pounds sterling was assigned by his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the faithful. But on the 40th day at the audience of the ambassadors of Khorasan and in the presence of a trembling multitude the Caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon while the command of the stranger put hands of his dilemmates. His palace was pillaged his eyes were put out and the mean ambition of the Abbasidis aspired to the vacant station of danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity the luxurious Caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled by their armor and silken robes they fasted, they prayed they studied the koan and the tradition of the sonnets they performed with zeal and knowledge the functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respective nations still waited on the successors of the Apostle the oracles of the law unconscious of the faithful and the weakness or division of their tyrants sometimes restored the Abbasidis to the sovereignty of Baghdad but their misfortunes had been embittered by the triumph of the Fatimids the real or spurious progeny of Ali arising from the extremity of Africa these successful rivals extinguished in Egypt and Syria both the spiritual and temporal authority of the Abbasidis and the monarch of the Nile insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the Tigris In the declining age of the Caliphs in the century which elapsed after the war of Teophilus and Motosem the hostile transactions of the two nations were confined to some inroads by sea and land the fruits of their close vicinity and indelible hatred but when the eastern world was convulsed and broken the Greeks were aroused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest and revenge the Byzantine Empire since the accession of the Sicilian race had reposed in peace and dignity and they might encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty emir whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national foes of the Marhometan faith the lofty titles of the morning star and the death of the Saracens were applied in the public acclamations to Nisophorus Focas a prince as renowned in the camp as he was unpopular in the city in the subordinate station of great domestic or general of the east he reduced the island of Crete and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so long defied the impunity, the majesty of the empire his military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the enterprise which had so often failed with loss and dishonor the Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe and level bridges which he cast from the vessels to the shore seven months were consumed in the siege of Candia the despair of the native Cretans were stimulated by the frequent aid of the president of Africa and Spain and after the massive wall and double ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was still maintained in the streets and houses of the city the whole island was subdued in the capital and a submissive people accepted without resistance the baptism of the conqueror Constantinople uploaded the long forgotten pomp of a triumph but the imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the services or satisfy the ambition of Nisaforos after the death of the younger Romanos the force in lineo descent of the Pasilian race his widow Teofania successively married Nisaforos Focas and his assassin John Tzimiskes the two heroes of the age they reigned as the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons and the 12 years of their military command formed the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals the subjects and confederates whom they led to war appeared at least in the eyes of an enemy 200,000 strong and of these about 30,000 were armed with curuses a train of 4000 moves attended their march and their evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes a series of bloody and indecisive combat is nothing more than an anticipation of what would have been affected in a few years by the course of nature but I shall briefly prosecute the conquest of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the desert of Baghdad the cities of Mopsuestia and Tassus in Kilikia first exercised the skill and perseverance of their troops on whom at this moment I shall not hesitate to bestow the name of Romans in the double city of Mopsuestia which is divided by the river Sarus 200,000 Muslims were predestined to death or slavery a surprising degree of population which must at least include the inhabitants of the dependent districts they were surrounded and taken by assault but Tassus was reduced by the slow progress of famine and no sooner had the Saracens yielded unhonorable terms that they were mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval suckers of Egypt they were dismissed with a safe conduct to the confines of Syria a part of the old Christians had quietly lived under their dominion and the vacant habitations were replenished by a new colony but the mosque was converted into a stable the pulpit was delivered to the flames many rich crosses of golden gems the spoils of ascetic churches were made a grateful offering for the victory or ever is of the emperor and he transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tassus which were fixed in the walls of Constantinople an eternal monument of his victory after they had forced and secured the narrow passes of Mount Amanos the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their arms into the heart of Syria yet, instead of assaulting the walls of Antioch the humanity or superstition of Nisyphus appeared to respect the ancient metropolis of the east he contended himself with drawing around the city a line of circumambulation left a stationary army and instructed his lieutenant to expect without impatience the return of spring but in the depths of winter in a dark and rainy night an adventurous subaltern with 300 soldiers approached the rampart applied his scaling ladders occupied two adjacent towers stood firm against the pressure of mortitudes and bravely maintained his post till he was relieved by the torty so effectual support of his reluctant chief the first tomoth of slaughter and rapines subsided the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored and the efforts of a hundred thousand serocenes of the armies of Syria and the fleets of Africa were consumed without effect before the walls of Antioch the royal city of Aleppo led to Saifat Dovlat of the dynasty of Hamadan who clouded his past glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his kingdom and capitulated the Roman invaders in his stately palace that stood without the walls of Aleppo they joyfully seized a well furnished magazine of arms a stable of 1400 mules and 300 bags of silver and gold but the walls of the city withstood the strokes and the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of Joss Han their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen and mercenaries the guard of the gates and ramparts was deserted and while they furiously charged each other in the marketplace they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a common enemy the male sex was exterminated by the sword 10,000 youths were led into captivity the weight of the precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of burden the superfluous remainder was burned and after a licentious possession of 10 days the Romans marched away from the naked and bleeding city in their Syrian inroads they commanded the husbandsmen to cultivate their lands that they themselves in the ensuing season might reap the benefit more than 100 cities were reduced to obedience and 18 pulpits of the principal were committed to the flames to expate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mohammed the classic names of Hierapolis, Apamea and Emessa revive for a moment in the list of conquest the emperor Timiskis encamped in the paradise of Damascus and accepted the ransom of a submissive people and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable fortress of Tripoli on the sea coast of Nikia in the face of Heraclius the Euthritis below the passage of Mount Taurus had been impervious and almost invisible to the Greeks the river yielded a free passage to the victorious Timiskis and the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa Martiropolis, Amida and Nisibis the ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood of the Tigris his ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping the virgin treasure's effect patana a well-known name under which the Byzantine writer has concealed the capital of the Abbasidis the consternation of the fugitives had already defused the terror of his name but the fanciest riches of Baghdad had already been dissipated by the avarice and prodigality of domestic tyrants the prayers of the people and the stern demands of the loitenant of the Bovids required the caliph for the defense of the city the helpless Mothi replied that his arms, his revenues and his provinces had been torn from his hands and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to support the emir was inexorable the furniture of the palace was sold and the pottery price of 40,000 pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury but the apprehensions of Baghdad were relieved by the retreat of the Greeks thirst and hunger guarded the desert of Mesopotamia and the emperor satiated with glory and laden with oriental spoils returned to Constantinople and displayed in his triumph the silk, the aromatics and 300,000,000 of gold and silver yet the powers of the east had been bent, not broken by this transient hurricane after the departure of the Greeks with princes returned to their capitals the subjects disclaimed their involuntary oaths of allegiance the Muslims again purified their temples and our turn the idols of the saints and martyrs the Nestorians and Jacobites preferred the Seraphine to an Orthodox master and the numbers and spirit of the Melheeds were inadequate to the support of the church and state of these extensive conquests Antioch Galicia and Isle of Cyprus was alone restored a permanent and useful accession to the Roman Empire End of Chapter 52 Part 5 Chapter 53 Part 1 of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5 This is LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5 Chapter 53 Fate of the Eastern Empire Part 1 Fate of the Eastern Empire in the 10th Century Extentant Division Wealth and Revenue Palace of Constantinople Titles and Offices Pride and Power of the Emperors Tactics of the Greeks, Arabs and Franks Lost of the Latin Tongue Studies and Solitude of the Greeks Array of historic light seems to be from the darkness of the 10th Century We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of Constantine Porphyngenitus which he composed at a mature age for the instruction of his son and which promised to unfold the state of the Eastern Empire both in peace and war and abroad. In the first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the Church and Palace of Constantinople according to his own practice and that of his predecessors. In the second he attempts an accurate survey of the provinces the themes, as they were denominated, both of Europe and Asia. The system of Roman tactics the discipline and order of the troops and the military operations of the land and sea are explained in the third of these diadetic collections which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. In the fourth of the Administration of the Empire he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine policy in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labours of the age the practical systems of law agriculture and history might redown to the benefit and the honour of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilix the code and pandex of civil jurisprudence were gradually framed in the three first regions of that prosperous dynasty. The art of agriculture had amused the leisure and exercised the pens of the best and wisest of the ancients and their chosen precepts are comprised in the twenty books on the geoponics of Constantine. At his command the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodised in fifty-three books and every citizen might apply to his contemporaries or to himself the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator the sovereign of the east descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe and if his successes and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares we may inherit and enjoy a legacy. A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift and the gratitude of posterity. In the possession of these imperial treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance and the fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The Basilix will sink to a broken copy a partial and mutilated version in the Greek language of the laws of Justinian but the sense of the old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry and the absolute prohibition of divorce concubinage and interest for money enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the historical book a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome he might learn to what a pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formally aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new edition of the Lives of the Saints which the great logothate or Chancellor of the Empire was directed to prepare and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metafraced. The merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eye of a sage than the toil of a single husbandman who multiplies the gifts of the Creator and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in expounding the precepts of the destroying art which had been taught since the days of Xenophon as the art of heroes and kings. But the tactics of Leo and Constantine are mingled with the baser ally of the age in which they lived. It was destitute of original genius. They implicitly transcribed the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the property of style and method. They blindly confounded the most distant and discordant institutions. The phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon the legions of Cato and Tarjan of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use or at least the importance of these military rudiments was fairly questioned. Their general theory is dictated by reason. But the merit as well as difficulty consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study. The talents of a commander are appropriated to those calm though rapid minds which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations. The former is the habit of a life. The latter the glance of a moment. And the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created for the rules of criticism. The book of ceremonies is a recital tedious yet imperfect of the despicable patentry which had infected the church and state since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the other. A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and useful information as the curiosity of government only can obtain instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities and malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants. Such information the historian would have been pleased to record. Nor should his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects the population of the capital and provinces the amount of the taxes and revenues the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the imperial standard have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher and his son Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is strained with the same blemishes yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit. The antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous but the geography and manners of the barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn and to describe the metropolis of the east. The ambassador of the great Otto a bishop of Cremona has painted the state of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century. His style is glowing his narrative lively his observations keen and even the prejudices and passions of Litprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius. From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine Empire the provinces and wealth the civil government and military force the character and literature of the Greeks in a period of six hundred years from the reign of Heraclius to his successful invasion of the Franks or Latins. After the final division between the Sons of Theodosius the swarms of barbarians from Cyphea and Germany overspread the provinces and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion her limits were inviolate or at least entire and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and Italy but the possession of these new conquests were transient and precarious and almost a moiety of the eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian Caliphs and after the reduction of Africa the lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval powers and it was from their extreme stations the harbors of Crete and the fortress of Sicilia that the faithful or rebel Amirs insulted the magistery of the throne and capital. The remaining provinces under the obedience of the emperors were cast into a new mould and the jurisdiction of the presidents the consulers and the counts were overstated by the institution of the themes or military governments which prevailed under the successes of Heraclius and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the 29 themes 12 in Europe and 17 in Asia the originers obscure the etymology doubtful or capricious the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating but some particular names that sound the most strangely to Aria were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that were maintained at the expense and for the guard of the respective divisions The vanity of the Greek princes most eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost Aminion a new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of the Euphrates the Appalachian and Preator of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calibria and a fragment of the Duchy of Benevence was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy In the decline of the Arabian Empire the successors of Constantine might not indulge their pride in more solid advantages The victories of Nicophorus John's emissies and Basil II revived the fame and enlarge the boundaries of the Roman name The province of Cilicia the islands of Crete and Cyprus the city of Cilicia the islands of Crete and Cyprus were restored to the allegiance of Christ and Caesar One third of Italy was annexed to the throne of Constantinople The kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed and the last sovereign of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from the sources of the Tigris to their neighbourhood of Rome In the 11th century the prospect was again clouded by new enemies and new misfortunes The relics of Italy were swept away by the Norman adventurers and almost all the Asiatic branches were severed from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors After these losses the emperors of the Comemnian family continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus and from Belgrade to Nice Tres Bond and the winding stream of the Mianda The spacious provinces of Thrace Macedonia and Greece were obedient to their scepter The possession of Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete was accompanied by the 50 islands of the Aegean or a Holy Sea and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms The same princes might assert with dignity and truth that of all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city the most ample revenue the most flourishing and popular state the most affluent city the most affluent city the most popular state With the decline and fall of the empire the cities of the west had decayed and fallen nor could the ruins of Rome or the mud walls, wooden hovels and narrow precincts of Paris and London prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation and extent of Constantinople her stately palaces and churches and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people her treasures might attract but her virgin strength had repelled and still promised to repel the audacious invasion of the Persian and Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian The provinces were less fortunate and impregnable and few districts, few cities could be discovered which had not been violated by some fierce barbarian impatient to despoil because he was hopeless to possess From the age of Justinian the eastern empire was sinking below its former level The powers of destruction were more active than those of improvement and the calamities of war were embittered by the more permanent evils of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny The captive who had escaped from the barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of his sovereign The Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer and emaciated the body by fasting and the multitude of convents and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service of mankind Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most dexterous and diligent of nations Their country was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate and situation and in the support and restoration of the arts The patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the war-like spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe The provinces that still adhered to the empire were repealed and enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrevocably lost From the oak of the caliphs the Catholics of Syria Egypt and Africa retired to the allegiance of their prince to the society of their brethren The movable wealth pollutes the search of oppression accompanied and alleviated their exile and Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of Alexandria and Tyre The chiefs of Armenia and Syria who fled from hostile or religious persecution were hospitably entertained Their followers were encouraged to build new cities and to cultivate wastelands and many spots both in Europe and Asia preserved the name, the manners or at least the memory of these national colonies Even the tribes of barbarians who had ceded themselves in arms on the territory of the empire were gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state and as long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers Did we possess sufficient materials to survey the 29 themes of the Byzantine monarchy our curiosity might be satisfied with a chosen example It is fortunate enough that the clearest light should be thrown on the most interesting province and the name of Peloponnesus will awaken the attention of the classic reader As early as the 8th century in the troubled reign of the iconoclasts Greece and even Peloponnesus were overrun by some Slavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria The strangers of old Cadmus and Deneus and Pelopes had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and learning But the savages of the north eradicated what yet remained of their sickly and withered roots In this eruption the country and the inhabitants were transformed and the Roman blood was contaminated and the proudest nobles of Peloponnesus were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves By the diligence of succeeding princes the land was in some measure purified from the barbarians and the humble remnant was bound by an oath of obedience, tribute and military service which they often renewed and often violated The siege of Patras was formed by the descendants of the Slavonians of Peloponnesus and the Saracens of Africa In their latest distress a pious fiction of the approach of the Priator of Corinth revived the courage of the citizens Their sally was bold and successful The strangers embarked the rebels submitted and the glory of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger who fought in the foremost ranks under the character of St Andrew the Apostle The shrine which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory and the captive race was forever devoted to the service and vassalage of the Metropolitan Church of Patras By the revolt of the two Slovenian tribes in the neighbourhood of Helos and Lhasa de Mon the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed They sometimes insulted the weakness and sometimes resisted the oppression of the Byzantine Government Till at length the approach of their hostile brethren exhorted a golden bull to define the rights and obligations of the Ezorites of the Ezorites in Melenghi whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold From these strangers the Imperial Geographer has accurately distinguished a domestic and perhaps original race who in some degree might derive their blood from the much injured Helots The liberty of the Romans and especially of Augustus had enfranchised the maritime cities in the Dominion of Sparta and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Elithero of Free Laconians In the time of Constantine Porphyogenitus they had acquired the name of Minotius under which they dishonoured the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores Their territory Baron of Corn Bert Frutul of Olives extended to the Cape of Malia They accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine Priator and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity rather than of their dependence The Freeman of Laconia assumed the character of Romans and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks By the zeal of the Emperor Basil they were baptised in the faith of Christ But the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were prescribed in the Roman world In the theme of Peloponnesus forty cities were still numbered and the declining state of Sparta, Argos and Corinth may be suspended in the tenth century at an equal distance, perhaps between their anti-explender and their present desolation The duty of military service either in person or by substitute was imposed on the lands or benefits of the province A sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenets The same capitation was shared among several heads of inferiors On the proclamation of an Italian war the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary ablation of one hundred pounds of gold four thousand pounds sterling and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent A sacrilegious prophet was exalted from the sale of ecclesiastical honours and the indignant Bishop Lucarda was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold But the wealth of the province and the trust of the revenue were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufacturers And some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponnesias and the workmen in parchment and purple This denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the manufacturers of linen woollen and more especially silk The two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of Homer and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign of Justinian These arts which were exercised at Corinth Thebes and Argus afforded food and occupation to enumerous people The men, women and children of their age and strength And, if many of these were domestic slaves, their masters who directed the work and enjoyed the profit were of a free and honourable condition The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesias presented to the emperor Basil her adopted son were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool of a pattern which imitated the appearance of a peacock's tail of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church erected in the triple name of Christ of Michael the Archangel and of the prophet Elijah She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen of various use and denomination The silk was painted with a tyrian dye and adorned by the labours of the needle and the linen was so exquisitely fine that an entire piece might be followed over cane In his description of the Greek manufacturers an historian of Sicily discriminates their price according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of the texture the beauty of the colours and the taste and materials of the embroidery A single or even a double or treble thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale But the union of six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly worksmanship Among the colours he celebrates with affectation of eloquence the fiery blaze of scarlet and the softer luster of the green The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold The more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nice imitation of flowers The vestments that were fabricated for the palace or for the altar often glittered stones and the figures were delineated in strings of oriental pearls Till the 12th century Greece alone, of all the countries of Christendom was possessed of the instinct who was taught by nature and of the workmen who were instructed by art to prepare this elegant luxury But the secret had been stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs who were born to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel And two cities of Spain Elmira and Lisbon were famous for the manufacture the use and perhaps the exportation of silk It was first introduced into Sicily by the Normans and this emigration of trade distinguishes the victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostilities of every age After the sack of Corinth, Athens and Thebes, his lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and artifices of both sexes a trophy glorious to their master and disgraceful to the Greek emperor The king of Sicily was not insensible of the value of the present and, in the restitution of the prisoners, he accepted only the male and female manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth Who labor, says the Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord like the old Eretrians in the service of Darius A stately edifice in the palace of Palomo was erected for the use of this industrious colony and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to satisfy the increasing demand of the western world The decay of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles of the island and the competition of the Italian cities In the year 1314 Lucca alone among her sister republics enjoyed the lucrative monopoly A domestic revolution dispersed the manufacturers to Florence Bologna, Venice, Milan and even the countries beyond the Alps and 13 years after this event the statutes of Medina enjoyed the planting of mulberry trees and regulated the duties on raw silk The northern climates are less proprietors to the education of the silkworm But the industry of France and England is supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China End of Chapter 53 Part 1 Chapter 53 Part 2 of the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5 This is a LibriVox recording A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Lizzie Driver The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Volume 5 Chapter 53 Fate of the Eastern Empire Part 2 I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty memorials of the times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the revenue and the resources of the Greek Empire From every province of Asia and Europe the units of gold and silver are discharged into the imperial reservoir a copious and perennial stream The separation of the branches from the trunk increased the relative magnitude of Constantinople And the maxims of despotism contracted the state to the capital the capital to the palace and the palace to the royal person A Jewish traveller who visited the east in the 12th century is lost in his admiration of the Byzantine riches It is here says Benjamin of Tadila In the queen of cities that the tributes of the Greek Empire are annually deposited and the lofty towers are filled with precious magazines of silk, purple and gold It is said that Constantinople pays each day to a sovereign 20,000 pieces of gold which are levied on the shops, taverns and markets of Persia and Egypt of Russia and Hungary of Italy and Spain who frequent the capital by sea and land In all pecuniary matters the authority of a Jew is doubtless respectable But as the 365 days would produce an early income exceeding 7 million sterling I am tempted to retrench at least the numerous festivals of the Greek calendar The mass of treasure that was saved by Theodora and Basil II will suggest a splendid though indefinite idea of their supplies and resources The mother of Michael before she retired to a cloister attempted to check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful son by a free and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited £109,000 of gold and £300,000 of silver the fruits of her own economy and that of a deceased husband The avarice of Basil is not less renowned than his valor and fortune His victorious armies were paid and rewarded without breaking into the mass of £200,000 of gold about 8 million sterling which he had buried in the subterranean vaults of the palace Such accumulation of treasure is rejected by the theory and practice of modern policy and we are more apt to compute the national riches by the use and abuse of the public credit Yet the maxims of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his enemies by a republic respectable to her allies and both have attained their respective ends of military power and domestic tranquility Whatever might be consumed for the present once or reserved for the future use of the state the first and most sacred demand for the pomp and pleasure of the emperor and his discretion only could define the measure of his private expense The princes of Constantinople were far removed from the simplicity of nature Yet, with the revolving seasons they were led by taste or fashion to withdraw to a purer air from the smoke and turmoil of the capital They enjoyed, or infected to enjoy the rustic festival of the vintage Their leisure was amusing by the exercise of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing and in the summer heats they were shielded from the sun and refreshed by the cooling breezes from the sea The coasts and islands of Asia and Europe were covered with their magnificent fillers But instead of the modest art which secretly strives to hide itself and to decorate the scenery of nature the marble structure of their gardens served only to expose the riches of the lord and the labours of the architect The successive casualties of inheritance and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietor of many stately houses in the city and suburbs of which twelve were appropriated to the ministers of state But the great palace the centre of the imperial residence was fixed during eleven centuries to the same position between the hippodrome the Cathedral of Saint Sophia and the gardens which descended by many ateris to the shores of the prepontis The primitive edifice of the first Constantine was a copy or rival of ancient Rome The gradual improvements of his successors aspire to emulate the wonders of the old world and in the tenth century the Byzantine palace excited the admiration at least of the Latins by an unquestionable preeminence of strength size and magnificence But the toil and treasure of so many ages had produced a fast and irregular pile Each separate building was marked with the character of the times and of the founder and the want of space might excuse the reigning monarch who demolished, perhaps with secret satisfaction the works of his predecessors The economy of the emperor Theophilus allowed a more free and ample scope for his domestic luxury and splendour The favourite ambassador who had astonished the Abbasides themselves by his pride in liberality presented on his return the model of a palace which the Caliph of Baghdad had recently constructed on the banks of the Tigris The model was instantly copied and surpassed The new buildings of Theophilus were accompanied with gardens and with five churches one of which was conspicuous for size and beauty It was crowned with three domes The roof of gilt brass reposed on columns of Italian marble and the walls were encrusted with marbles of various colours In the face of the church a semicircular portico of the figure and name of the Greek Sigma was supported by 15 columns of Phrygian marble and the subterraneous faults of the construction The square before the Sigma was decorated with a fountain and the margin of the basin was lined and encompassed with plates of silver In the beginning of each season the basin, instead of water was replenished with the most exquisite fruits which were abandoned to the populace for the entertainment of the Prince He enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle from a throne resplendent with gold and gems raised by a marble staircase to the height of a lofty terrace Below the throne was seated the offices of his guard The magistrates, the chiefs of the factions of the circus the inferior steps were occupied by the people and the place below was covered with troops of dancers, singers and pantomimes The square was surrounded by the Hall of Justice the arsenal and the various offices of business and pleasure The chamber was named from the annual distribution of robes of scarlet and purple by the hand of the Empress herself The long series of the apartments was adapted to the seasons and decorated with marble and porphyry with paintings, sculpture and mosaics with the profusion of gold, silver and precious stones His fanciful magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists as the times could afford but the taste of Athens would have despised their frivolous and costly labours A golden tree with its leaves and branches which sheltered a multitude of birds warbling their artificial notes and two lions of massy gold and of natural size who looked and roared like their brethren of the forest The successors of Theophilus of the Basilian and Comnenian dynasties were not less ambitious of leaving the memorial of their residence and the portion of the palace most splendid in August was dignified with the title of the Golden Tricleum With becoming modesty the rich and noble Greeks aspired to imitate their sovereign and when they passed through the streets on horseback in their robes of silk and embroidery they were mistaken by the children for kings A matron of Peloponnesus who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil the Macedonian was excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the greatness of her adopted son In a journey of 500 miles from Patras to Constantinople her rage or indolence declined the fatigue of a horse or carriage The soft litter or beard of Danielus was transported on the shoulder of ten robust slaves and as they were relieved at easy distances a band of 300 were selected for the performance of this service She was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence and the honours of a queen and whatever might be the origin of her wealth her gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity I have already described the fine and curious manufacture of the Peloponnesus of linen, silk and woollen but the most acceptable of her presence consisted in 300 beautiful youths of whom one hundred were eunuchs for she was not ignorant says the historian that the air of the palace is more congenial to such insects than a shepherd's starey to the flies of the summer During her lifetime she bestowed the greater part of her estates in Peloponnesus and her testament insulted Leo the son of Basil her universal heir After the payment of the legacies four score-villas or farms were added to the imperial domain and three thousand slayers of Danielis were enfranchised by their new lord and transported as a colony to the Italian coast From this example of a private matron we may estimate the wealth and magnificence of the emperors yet her enjoyments are confined by a narrow circle and, whatsoever may be its value the luxury of life is possessed with more innocence and safety by the master of his own house than by the steward of the public fortune In an absolute government which levels the distinction of noble and plebeian birth the sovereign is the sole fountain of honour and the rank both in the palace and the empire depends on the titles and offices which are bestowed and resumed by his arbitrary will above a thousand years from Vespisian to Alexis Comnenus the Caesar was the second person or at least the second degree after the supreme title of Augustus was more freely communicated to the sons and brothers of the reigning monarch to allude without violating his promise to a powerful associate the husband of his sister and, without giving himself an equal to reward the piety of his brother Isaac the crafty Alexis interposed in new and supreme eminent dignity the happy flexibility of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the name of Augustus and Emperor Sebestus and Autocrata and the union produces the sonorous title of Sebestocrata he was exalted above the Caesar on the first step of the throne the public acclamations repeated his name and he was only distinguished from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments of the head and feet the emperor alone could assume the purple or red buskins and the close diadem or tiara which imitated the fashion of the Persian kings it was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels the crown was formed by a horizontal circle and two arches of gold at the summit, the point of their intersection was placed a globe or cross and two strings or lapets or pearl depended on either cheek instead of red the buskins of the Sebastian Crattor and Caesar were green and on their open coronets or crowns the precious gems were more sparingly distributed beside and below the Caesar the fancy of Alexis created the panhyper Sebestus and the proto-Sebestos whose sound and signification will satisfy egregie and ear they imply a superiority and a priority above the simple name of Augustus and this sacred and primitive title of the Roman Prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the Byzantine court the daughter of Alexis applause with fond complacency this artful gradation of hopes and honours but the science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity and this feign dictionary was easily enriched by the pride of his successors to their favourite sons or brothers they imparted the more lofty appellation of lord or despot which was illustrated with new ornaments and prerogatives and placed immediately after the person of the emperor himself five titles of one despot two Sebesto creator three Caesar four Panhyper Sebestos and five proto-Sebestos were usually confined to the princes of his blood they were the emanations of his majesty but as the exercise to know regal functions their existence was useless and their authority precarious but in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must be divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and treasury, the fleet and army the titles alone can differ and in the revolution of ages the Counts and Prefects the Priator and Questa insensibly descended while their servants rose above their heads to the first honours of the state one in a monarchy which refers every object to the person of the prince the care and ceremonies of the palace form the most respectable department the Cura Palate so illustrious in the age of Dostinian was supplanted by the proto-Vestaire whose primitive functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe from thence his jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of pomp and luxury and he presided with the silver one for the public and private audience two in the ancient system of Constantine the name of Logothate or accountant was applied to the receivers of the finances the principal officers were distinguished as the Logothates of the domain of the post, the army the private and public treasure and the great Logothate the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues is compared with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies his discerning eye pervaded the civil administration and he was assisted induce abordination by the eparchal prefect of the city the first secretary and the keepers of the privy seal the archives and the red or purple link which was reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor alone the introductor and interpreter of foreign ambassadors were the great choices in the dragoman two names of Turkish origin and which are still familiar to the sublime port three from the humble style and service of the guards the domestics insensibly rose to the station of generals the military themes of the east and west the legion of Europe and Asia were often divided till the great domestic was finally invested with the universal and absolute command of the land forces the proto strata in his original functions was the assistant of the emperor when he mounted on horseback he gradually became the lieutenant of the great domestic in the field and his jurisdiction extended over the stables, the cavalry and the royal train of hunting and hawking the strato pedarch was the great judge of the camp the proto spafe commanded the guards the constable, the great atriarch and the acolyte were the separate chiefs of the Franks the barbarians and the verangai or English the mercenary strangers who at the decay of the national spirit formed the nerve of the Byzantine armies four the naval powers were under the command of the great duke in his absence they obeyed the great drungare of the fleet and in his place the emir or admiral a name of saracen extraction but which has been naturalized in all the modern languages of Europe of these officers and of many more whom it would be useless to enumerate the civil and military hierarchy was framed their honours and demolments their dress and titles their mutual salutations and respective preeminence were balanced with more exquisite labour than would affix the constitution of a free people and the code was almost perfect when this baseless fabric the monument of pride and servitude was forever burned in the ruins of the empire End of chapter 53 part 2