LXII.

one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, fince he C HA P. poffeffes a revenue of one thousand pounds fterling; and by a tribunal of the eight geronti or elders, chofen in the eight quarters of the city: the noble families cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; but their principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanour, a fur-cap, and the lofty appellation of archen. By fome, who delight in the contraft, the modern language of Athens is represented as the most corrupt and barbarous of the feventy dialects of the vulgar Greek (58): this picture is too darkly coloured; but it would not be eafy, in the country of Plato and Demofthenes, to find a reader, or a copy, of their works. The Athenians walk with fupine indifference (among the glorious ruins of antiquity; and fuch is the debafement of their character, that they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predeceffors (59).

CHAP.

(58) Ducange, Gloffar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8. who quotes for his author Theodofius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet Spon (tom. ii. p. 194.) and Wheeler (p. 355.), no incompetent judges, entertain a more favourable opinion of the Attic dialect.

(59) Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of Athens, which they still call Athini. From the us Tay Alavay, we have formed our wn barbarism of Setines.

CHA P. LXIII.

Civil Wars, and Ruin of the Greek Empire.-Reigns of Andronicus, the Elder and Younger, and John Paleologus. -Regency, Revolt, Reign, and Abdication of John Cantacuzene. Establishment of a Genoefe Colony at Pera or Galata.-Their Wars with the Empire and City of Conflantinople.

CHAP. THE long reign of Andronicus (1) the elder is chiefly

LXIII.

Superftition of Andronicus and the times,

A. D.

TH memorable, by the difputes of the Greek church, the

invafion of the Catalans, and the rife of the Ottoman He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous power. prince of the age; but fuch virtue, and fuch learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of fociety. A flave of the most abject super1282-1320. ftition, he was furrounded on all fides by vifible and invifible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the reign of the Palæologi, the choice of the patriarch was the most important bufinefs of the ftate; the heads of the Greek church were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues, their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible. By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanafius (2) excited the hatred of the clergy and the people: he was heard to declare, that the finner fhould fwallow the laft dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolish tale was propagated, of his punishing a facrilegious afs that had tafted the lettuce of a convent garden.

(1) Andronicus himfelf will justify our freedom in the invective (Nicephorus Gregoras, 1. i c. 1.), which he pronounced against hiftoric falfèhood. It is true, that his cenfure is more pointedly urged against calumny than against adulation.

(2) For the anathema in the pigeon's neft, fee Pachymer (1. ix. c. 24.), who relates the general hiftory of Athanafius (1. viii. c. 13-16. 20-24. 1. x. c. 27-29.31-36. 1. xi. c. 1-3.5, 6. 1. xiii. c. 8. 10. 23. 35.), and is followed by Nicephorus Gregoras (1. vi. 5. 7. 1. vii. c. 1. 9.), who includes the fecond retreat of this fecond Chryfoftom.

LXIII.

garden. Driven from the throne by the univerfal clamour, C HA P. Athanafius composed before his retreat two papers of a very oppofite caft. His public teftament was in the tone of charity and refignation; the private codicil breathed the direft anathemas against the authors of his difgrace, whom he excluded for ever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and the faints. This laft paper he inclofed in an earthen pot, which was placed, by his order, on the top of one of the pillars in the dome of St. Sophia, in the diftant hope of discovery and revenge. At the end of four years, fome youths, climbing by a ladder in search of pigeons nefts, detected the fatal fecret; and, as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication, he trembled on the brink of the abyfs which had been fo treacherously dug under his feet. A fynod of bifhops was inftantly convened to debate this important queftion: the rafhness of these clandeftine anathemas was generally condemned; but as the knot could be untied only by the fame hand, as that hand was now deprived of the crofier, it appeared that this pofthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some faint teftimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author of the mischief; but the confcience of the emperor was still wounded, and he defired, with no lefs ardour than Athanafius himself, the restoration of a patriarch, by whom alone he could be healed. At the dead of night, a monk rudely knocked at the door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing a revelation of plague and famine, of inundations and earthquakes. Andronicus ftarted from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he felt, or thought that he felt, a flight motion of the earth. The emperor on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanafius; and, after a proper refiftance, the faint, from whom this meffage had been fent, confented to abfolve the prince, and govern the church, of Conftantinople. Untamed by difgrace, and hardened by folitude, the fhepherd was again odious to the flock; and his enemies contrived a fingular, and as it proved a fuccefsful, mode of revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or foot-cloth of his throne, which they fecretly replaced with the decoration of a fatirical picture. The emperor was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and Athanafius leading the tractable

beaft

CHA P. beast to the feet of Chrift. The authors of the libel were LXII. detected and punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Chriftian priest in fullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed by his fucceffor.

First difputes be

tween the elder and

younger

If this tranfaction be one of the moft curious and important of a reign of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my materials, fince I reduce into fome few pages the enormous folios of Pachymer (3), Cantacuzene (4), and Nicephorus Gregoras (5), who have compofed the prolix and languid ftory of the times. The name and fituation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might infpire the moft lively curiofity. His memorials of forty years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication of the empire; and it is obferved, that, like Mofes and Cæfar, he was the principal actor in the fcenes which he defcribes. But in this eloquent work, we fhould vainly feek the fincerity of an hero or a penitent. Retired in a cloyster from the vices and paffions of the world, he prefents not a confeffion, but an apology, of the life of an ambitious ftatefman. Instead of unfolding the true counfels and characters of men, he difplays the fmooth and fpecious furface of events, highly varnished with his own praises and thofe of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their ends always legitimate: they confpire and rebel without any views of intereft; and the violence which they inflict or fuffer is celebrated as the fpontaneous effect of reafon and virtue.

After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder Andronicus affociated his fon Michael to the honours of the purple; and from the age of eighteen to his pre

mature

Androni

cus,

A. D. 1320.

(3) Pachymer, in feven books, 377 folio pages, defcribes the first twentyfix years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date of his compofition by the current news or lye of the day (A. D. 1308). Either death or difguft prevented him from refuming the pen.

(4) After an interval of twelve years, from the conclufion of Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his firft book (c. 1-59. p. 9-150.) relates the civil war, and the eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious comparifon with Mofes and Cæfar, is fancied by his French tranflator, the prefident Coufin.

(5) Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire life and reign of Andronicus the Elder (1. vi. c. 1-1. x. c. 1. p. 96-291.). This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a falfe and malicious reprefentation of his conduct.

LXII.

mature death, that prince was acknowledged, above twenty- CHA P. five years, as the fecond emperor of the Greeks (6). At the head of an army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy nor the jealousy of the court: his modefty and patience were never tempted to compute the years of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his liberality either by the virtues or vices of his fon. The fon of Michael was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whofe early favour he was introduced by that nominal refemblance. The bloffoms of wit and beauty encreased the fondness of the elder Andronicus; and, with the common vanity of age, he expected to realize in the fecond, the hope which had been difappointed in the firft, generation. The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a favourite; and, in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the augufl triad was formed by the names of the father, the fon, and the grandfon But the younger Andronicus was fpeedily corrupted by his infant greatnefs, while he beheld with puerile impatience the double obftacle that hung, and might hang, over his rifing ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness, that he to eagerly afpired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes the most precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indifcreet demand was the fovereignty of fome rich and fertile fland, where he might lead a life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the loud and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital: the fums which his parfimony denied were fupplied by the Genoefe ufurers of Pera; and the oppreffive debt, which confolidated the intereft of a faction, could be difcharged. only by a revolution. A beautiful female, a matron in rank, a prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicus in the rudiments of love; but he had reafon to fulpect the nocturnal vifits of a rival; and a ftranger pafling through the street was pierced by the arrows of his guards, VOL. VI. who

R

(6) He was crowned May 21ft, 1295, and died October 12th, 1320 (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.). His brother Theodore, by a fecond marriage, inherited the marquifate of Monferrat, apoftatifed to the religion and manners of the Latins (ότι και γνωμη και πιςεί και σχηματι, και γένειαν xgpa nai waow elegy Activos nv axpaspuns. Nic. Greg. 1. ix. c. 1.), and founded a dynafly of Italian princes, which was extinguished A. D. 1533(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249-253.).