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 laws, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honour of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics, the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the three first reigns 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 of the Geoponics of Constantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three books, and every citizen might apply to his contemporaries or 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 successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy. Their imper 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 has 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 alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these military rudiments may be 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 from the rules of criticism. The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the despicable pageantry 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 stained with the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit: the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the geo A closer survey will indeed reduce fections. the value of the gift, and the gratitude Tof 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 Basilics 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 formerly aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, 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 Metaphrast. The merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The imperial library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new editor. (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.) On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 425-514.) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Romani, p. 396–399.) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom. i. p. 450-458.) as his. torical civilians, may be usefully consulted. Forty-one books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by Charles books have since been discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman's Annibal Fabrottus, (Paris, 1647.) in seven tomes in folio; four other Novus the sixty books, John Leunclavius has printed (Basil, 1575.) an eclogue or synopsis. The hundred and thirteen novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis. I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics, (by Nicholas Niclas, Lipsiæ, 1781. 2 vols. in octavo.) I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two books of Hippiatrica, or Horse-physic, were published at Paris, 1530, in folio. (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 493-500. Of these fifty-three books, or titles, only two have been preserved Daniel Hæschelius, August. Vindel. 1603.) and de Virtutibus et Vitiis, nd printed, de Legationibus. (by Fulvins Ursinus, Antwerp, 1582. and by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634.) h The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible of the original texture. i According to the first book of the Cyropædia, professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. A good edition of all the Scriptores Tactici would be a task not unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new MSS., and his learning might illustrate the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and, alas! Quintus Icilius is no more. k After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus: Καππαδόκην ποτ' εχιδνα κακη δακεν, αλλά και αυτή Κατθανε, γευσαμένη αίματος ιοβόλου. graphy and manners of the barbaric world are Embassy of Liut. delineated with curious accuracy. Of prand. 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 Otho, 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 observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand 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 the successful invasion of the Franks or Latins. The themes, or empire, and its limits in every age. The vanity of the Greek princes most eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of the Euphrates: the appellation and prætor of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil the second, revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries, of the Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the metropolis of Antioch, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance of Christ and Cæsar: one third of Italy was an nexed to the throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed; and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighbourhood of Rome. In the eleventh 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 dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors. After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Ægean or Holy Sea ;" and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms. General wealth After the final division between the provinces of the sons of Theodosius, the swarms of barbarians from Scythia 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 was 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, their 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 same princes might assert, with the harbours of Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, dignity and truth, that of all the mo- and populous. that the faithful or rebel emirs insulted the majesty narchs of Christendom they possessed of the throne and capital. The remaining provin- the greatest city, the most ample revenue, the most ces under the obedience of the emperors, were cast flourishing and populous state. With the decline into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the pre- and fall of the empire, the cities of the west had sidents, the consulars, and the counts, was super-decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome. seded by the institution of the themes," or military governments, which prevailed under the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and seventeen in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful or capricious: the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear, were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that were maintained at the expense, and for the guard, of the respective divisions. 1 The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephorum Phocam, is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. m See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p. 1-30. who owns, that the word is our waλaia. Deμa is used by Maurice (Stratagem. I. ii. c. 2.) for a legion, from whence the name was easily trans. ferred to its post or province. (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 487, 488.) Some etymologies are attempted for the Opsician, Optimician, Thracesian, themes. 'Aycos Teλayos, as it is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the corrupt names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been transformed by geographers and seamen. (D'Anville, Geographie ness. the 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, Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could be discovered which had not been vioAncienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la Grece, p. 6 The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos, (Observations de Belon, fol. 32. verso,) monte sants, might justify the epithet of holy, ayos, a slight alteration from the the figurative name of aryes, or goats, to the bounding waves. (Vosoriginal ayatos, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave sius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 829.) According to the Jewish traveller who had visited Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the great city of the Ismaelites. (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par Baratier, tom. ↳ c. 5. p. 46.) lated by some fierce barbarian, impatient to despoil, | yet remained of their sickly and withered roots. 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 a calamities of war were imbittered 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 Lee 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 pr. nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation; and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still adhered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke 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, which eludes 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 Scythia, who fled from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably entertained their followers were encouraged to build new cities and to cultivate waste lands; 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 seated 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 twenty-nine 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. Prim State of Pelo VoDians. : As early as the eighth century, in ponnesus: Scla- the troubled reign of the Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, were overrun by some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops, had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what TP. Ες λαβώθη δε πασα ή χώρα και γεγονε βαρβαρος, says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. 6. p. 25.) in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo kewise observes, και πάσαν Ηπειρον, και Ελλαδα σχεδόν, και Μακεδονίαν, και Πελοποννησον, Σκύθαι Σκλάβοι νέμονται" (l. vii. p. 98. In this irruption, the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the Grecian 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 a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the prætor 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 for ever devoted to the service and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes in the neighbourhood of Helos and Lacedæmon, 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 extorted a golden bull to define the rights and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, 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 liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Eleuthero, or free Laconians. In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dishonour the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the cape of Malea: they accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine prætor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their dependence. The freemen 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 baptized 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 proscribed in the Freemen of Laconia. edit. Hudson;) a passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance, (Geograph. Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191.) to enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A. D. 980.) of this petty geographer. q Strabon. Geograph. 1. viii. p. 562. Pausanias, Græc. Descriptio, I. iii. c. 21. p. 264, 265. Plin. Hist. Natur. I. iv. c. 8. Cities and re venue of Peloponnesus, forty cities were still numponnesus. bered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique splendour and their present desolation. The duty of military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the lands or benefices of the province: a sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousands pounds sterling,)| and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honours; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold,' Roman world. In the theme of Pelo- | mination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian die, and adorned by the labours of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane." In his description of the Greek manufactures, 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 workmanship. Among the colours, he celebrates, with affectation of eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold: the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers: the restments that were fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of oriental pearls.* Till the twelfth century, Greece alone, of all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs of the east and west scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and Lisbon, were famous for the manufacture, the use, and perhaps the exportation, of silk. But the wealth of the province, and Manufactures, especially of silk, the trust of the revenue, were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufactures; and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponnesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the manufactures of linen, woollen, and more especially of 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 Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous people: the men, women, and children, were distributed according to 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 Peloponnesus 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 spots 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 deno-creasing demand of the western world. The decay r Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, 1. ii. c. 50, 51, 52. The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's Leap, so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church. Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere, similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suas. (Liutprand in Legat. p. 489.) u See Constantine, (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76. p. 195. 197. in Script. post Theophanem,) who allows himself to use many technical or bar. barous words: barbarous, says he, τῇ των πολλων αμαθία, καιγον γαρ ETTI TOUTOLS KOLVONEKTEIV. Ducange labours on some; but he was not a weaver. The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula in proem, in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. v. p. 256.) is a copy of those of Greece. Without transcrib. ing his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage the strange word exarentasmata is very It was first introduced into Sicily by the Normans; and this emi- transported from gration of trade distinguishes the vic- Greece to Sicily, tory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless bostilities of every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, his lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and artificers 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 excepted only the male and female manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labour, says the Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old Eretrians in the service of Darius. A stately edifice, in the palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious colony; and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to satisfy the in properly changed for exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor. Fal candus lived about the y Inde ad interiora Græciæ progressi, Corinthium, Thebas, Athenas, antiquâ nobilitate celebres, expugnant; et, maximâ ibidem preda direptâ, opifices etiam, qui sericos pannos texere solent, ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis gloriam, captivos deducunt. Quas Rogerius, in Palermo Sicilia metropoli collocans, artem texendi suos edocere præcipit; et exhinc prædicta ars illa, prius à Græcis tantum inter christianos habita, Romanis patere cœpit ingeniis. (Oth Frisingen. de Gestis Frederici I. 1. i. c. 33. in Muratori Script. Ital. tom, vi. p. 668.) This exception allows the bishop to celebrate Lisbo and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio prænobilissima, (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 415.) z Nicetas in Manuel, 1. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes these Greeks as skilled ευητριους οθονας ὑφαίνειν, 28 154 προσανοέχοντας των εξαμ των και χρυσοπάτων ςόλων. a Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and made sugar in the plains of Palermo, ན་མ། ra! ཨས་གླུ ཏུ of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the trou- | fruits of her own economy and that of her deceased Revenue of the I must repeat the complaint that the Greek empire. 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 Europe and Asia the rivulets of gold and silver 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 twelfth century, is lost in his admiration of the Byzantine riches. "It is here," says Benjamin of Tudela," 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 her sovereign twenty thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants 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 three hundred and sixty-five days would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions 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 the second, 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; one hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred thousand of silver, the See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by Machiavel, but by the more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi. Muratori, who has inserted it in the eleventh volume of his Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378.) From the MS. statutes, as they are quoted by Muratori in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. ii. dissert. xxx. p. 46-48.). d The broad silk manufacture was established in England in the year 1620. (Anderson's Chronological Deduction, vol. ii. p. 4.) but it is to the revocation of the edict of Nantes that we owe the Spitalfields colony. e Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom, i. c. 5. p. 44-52. The Hebrew text has been translated into French by that marvellous child Baratier, who has added a volume of crude learning. The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels. f See the continuator of Theophanes, (l. iv. p. 107.) Cedrenus, (p. 544.) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157.) husband. The avarice of Basil is not less renowned than his valour and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and rewarded without breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand pounds of gold, (about eight millions sterling,) which he had buried in the subterraneous 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 tranquillity. emperors. Whatever might be consumed for Pomp and the present wants, or reserved for the luxury of the future use, of the state, the first and most sacred demand was 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 tumult of the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to enjoy, the rustic festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by the exercise of the chace and the calmer occupation of fishing; and, in the summer heats, they were shaded 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 villas; 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 The palace of of the imperial residence, was fixed Constantinople. during eleven centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice of the first Constantine was a copy, or rival, of ancient Rome; the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the wonders of the old world, and in the tenth century, the Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins, g Zonaras, (tom, ii. 1. xvii. p. 225.) instead of pounds, uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a literal sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty-fold the treasure of Basil. h For a copious and minute description of the imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (I. ii. c. 4. p. 113-123.) of Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never has laborious Germany produced two antiquarians more laborious and accurate than these two natives of lively France. i The Byzantine palace surpasses the capitol, the palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood, (paidpov ayahua,) the temple of Adrian at Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c. according to the epigram (Autholog, Græc. I. iv. p. 488, 489. Brodæi, apud Wechel) ascribed to Julian, ex-præfect of Egypt. Seventy-one of his epigrams, some lively, are collected in Brunck; (Analect. Græc. tom. ii. p. 495-510.) but this is wanting. |