Officers of the state, army. 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; the palace, and in the revolution of ages, the counts and præfects, and the the prætor and quæstor, insensibly descended, while their servants rose above their heads to the first honours of the state. 1. 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 Curopalata," so illustrious in the age of Justinian, was supplanted by the Protovestiare, 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 his silver wand at the public and private audience. 2. In the ancient system of Constantine, the name of Logothete, or accountant, was applied to the receivers of the finances: the principal officers were distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of the posts, the army, the private and public treasure; and the great Logothete, the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies.42 His discerning eye pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due subordination, by the eparch or præfect of the city, the first secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and the red or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor alone. 43 The introductor and interpreter of foreign ambassadors were the great Chiauss 44 and the Dragoman, two names of Turkish origin, and which are still familiar to the Sublime Porte. 3. From 45 41 Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine pro rerum vocitatus Cura-Palati; says the African Corippus (de Laudibus Justini, 1. i. 136); and in the same century (the vith) Cassiodorus represents him, who, aureâ virgâ decoratus, inter obsequia numerosa, ante pedes Regios primus incederet (Variar. vii. 5). But this great officer (unknown) veriyor, exercising no function, vu de diuía, was cast down by the modern Greeks to the xvth rank (Codin. c. 5, p. 65 [ed. Par.; p. 35, ed. Bonn]). 42 Nicetas (in Manuel, 1. vii. c. i. [p. 262, ed. Bonn]) defines him as AaTivay [βούλεται] φωνὴ Καγκελάριον, ὡς δ ̓ Ἕλληνες εἴποιεν Λογοθέτην. Yet the epithet of μέγας was added by the elder Andronicus (Ducange, tom. i. p. 822, 823). 43 From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is still visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion and cinnabar, or purple. The emperor's guardians, who shared in this prerogative, always marked in green ink the indiction and the month. See the Dictionnaire Diplomatique (tom. i. p. 511-513), a valuable abridg ment. The sultan sent a Zacús to Alexius (Anna Comnena, 1. vi. p. 170 [tom. i. p. 301, ed. Bonn]; Ducange ad loc.); and Pachymer often speaks of the uiyas τlanús (1. vii. c. 1, 1. xii. c. 30, 1. xiii. c. 22). The Chiaoush basha is now at the head of 700 officers (Rycaut's Ottoman Empire, p. 349, octavo edition). 45 Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter D'Herbelot, p. 854, 855); xęwro; τῶν ἑρμηνέων, οὓς κοινῶς ὀνομάζουσι δραγομάνου;, says Codinus (c. v. No. 70, p. 67 [p. 40, ed. Bonn]). See Villehardouin (No. 96), Busbequius (Epist. iv. p. 338), and Ducange (Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Græc. et Latin.). 46 the humble style and service of guards, the Domesties insensibly rose to the station of generals; the military themes of the East and West, the legions 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 Protostrator, 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 Stratopedurch was the great judge of the camp: the Protospathaire commanded the guards; the Constable, the great Eteriarch, and the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers, who, in the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the Byzantine armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of the great Duke; in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of the fleet; and, in his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of Saracen extraction, but which has been naturalised 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 emoluments, their dress and titles, their mutual salutations and respective pre-eminence, were balanced with more exquisite labour than would have fixed the constitution of a free people; and the code was almost perfect when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and servitude, was for ever buried in the ruins of the empire. The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted by the emperor. flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with ourselves. The mode of adoration,49 of falling prostrate on the ground and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting only on Sundays, when it Adoration of 47 48 46 Kové raudes, or xovróstavkos, a corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the French Connétable. In a military sense it was used by the Greeks in the xith century, at least as early as in France. 47 It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the xiith century Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the great officers. 48 This sketch of honours and offices is drawn from George Codinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of Constantinople by the Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work (de Officiis Ecclesiæ et Aula C. P.) has been illustrated by the notes of Goar, and the three books of Gretser, a learned Jesuit. 49 The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare." See our learned Selden (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942), in his Titles of Honour. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be of Persian origin. "Adoro is a compound of ad and oro, and does not come from ad os, though oro is of the same root as os.-S. was waved, from a motive of religious pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, Reception of bishop of Cremona,50 asserted the free spirit of a Frank and ambassadors. the dignity of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne, the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and thrice he touched the ground with his forehead. He arose; but in the short interval the throne had been hoisted by an engine from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious narrative the bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte, and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy or Russia. After a long journey by the sea and land, from Venice to Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with strangers or natives. At his first audience he offered the gifts of his master-slaves, and golden vases, and costly armour. The ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed before his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a royal banquet,31 in which the ambassadors of the nations were marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own table, the emperor, as the most signal favour, sent the plates which he had tasted; and his favourites were dismissed with a robe of honour.52 In the morn 50 The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople, all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly described by himself (Hist. 1. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471; Legatio ad Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479-489). si Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced, on his forehead, a pike or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked, though cinctured (campestrati), together, and singly, climbed, stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum mirabilius nescio (p. 470 [Liutpr. Hist. vi. c. 4). At another repast an homily of Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elatâ voce non Latine" (p. 483 [Murat. S. I. t. ii.]). 52 Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honour (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p. 84).b On the contrary, the passage is: "Hac "in cœnâ voce Latiná Beati Joannis Chry"sostomi homiliam in Apostolorum Ac"tibus legere jussit.”—S. b This is doubtful. Diez in his Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen, p. 159 (Bonn, 1853), assigns to gala a Teutonic origin, and derives it from Processions tions. ing and evening of each day his civil and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their labour was repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence. In his regular or extraordinary processions and acclama- through the capital, he unveiled his person to the public view the rites of policy were connected with those of religion, and his visits to the principal churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek calendar. On the eve of these processions the gracious or devout intention of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the most precious furniture, the gold and silver plate and silken hangings, were displayed from the windows and balconies; and a severe discipline restrained and silenced the tumult of the populace. The march was opened by the military officers at the head of their troops: they were followed in long order by the magistrates and ministers of the civil government: the person of the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and at the church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long life 3 and victory were the burden of every song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated in the Latin, Gothic, Persian, French, and even English language, by the mercenaries who sustained the real or fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine Porphyrogenitus this science of form and flattery has been reduced into a pompous and trifling volume,56 which the vanity of succeeding times 55 54 53 Пuxevi is explained by sinμiluv (Codin. c. 7 [c. 6, p. 53, ed. Bonn]; Ducange, Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 1199). 54 Κονσέρβετ Δέους ἠμπέριουμ βέστρουμ-βίκτως τῆς σέμπερ—βήβητε Δόμην Ημπεράτορες, v μovaros ävvos (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215 [tom. i. p. 370, ed. Bonn]). The want of the Latin V obliged the Greeks to employ their ß; nor do they regard quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange sentences might puzzle a professor. 55 Πολυχρονίζουσι Βάραγγοι, κατὰ τὴν πάτριον καὶ οὗτοι γλῶσσαν αὐτῶν, ἤγουν Ἰγκλινιστί, (Codin. p. 90 [p. 57, ed. Bonn]). I wish he had preserved the words, however corrupt, of their English acclamation. 56 For all these ceremonies see the professed work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, with the notes, or rather dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the rank of the standing courtiers, p. 80 [ed. Lips.; tom. i. p. 136, ed. Bonn], not. 23, the Old High German geil, Anglo-Saxon gal, "gay," Old High Germ. geili, "pride, pomp." From gala come the Italian and Spanish galante, and French galant.-S. might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the same acclamations were applied to every character and every reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he might remember that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or conspired against the life, of his predecessor.57 58 the Cæsars The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine, without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood with Marriage of the blood of the Cæsars, by their marriage with a royal with foreign virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman nations. prince. The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride, and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by nature to seek a mate among the animals of his own species; and the human species is divided into various tribes, by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days of freedom and virtue a senator would have scorned to match his daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian wife: 9 and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice.60 This perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; Imaginary and the impious prince who should stain the majesty of stantine. law of Con 62; for the adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240 [p. 162, 414, ed. Bonn], not. 131; the processions, p. 2 [p. 5, ed. Bonn], &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim, not. 25, &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177-214 [c. 68-73, p. 303-369, ed. Bonn], not. 9, 93, &c.; the Gothic games, p. 221 [p. 381, ed. Bonn], not. 111; vintage, p. 217 [c. 78, p. 373, ed. Bonn], not. 109: much more information is scattered over the work. Et privato Othoni nuper atque eadem dicenti nota adulatio (Tacit. Hist. i. 85). 58 The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be explained and rectified by the Familia Byzantine of Ducange. Sequiturque nefas! Egyptia conjunx (Virgil, Eneid viii. 686). Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long line of kings. Quid te mutavit? (says Antony in a private letter to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est (Sueton. in August. c. 69). Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites. Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit (Suetonius in Tito, c. 7). Have I observed elsewhere that this Jewish beauty was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country, |