LIII. CHAP. 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 cieling, 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,s1 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 morning 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 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 Proces sions and tions. 51 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 redidit: utrum mirabilius nescio (p. 470). At another repast, an homily of Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non Latine (p. 483). 52 Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or Caloat, in Arabic, a robe of honour (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p. 84). LIII. purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the most pre- CHAP. cious 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 lifes 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,54 Gothic, Persian, French, and even English language,55 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 might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet the calmer reflection 53 Πολυχρονίζει» is explained by ευφημίζειν (Codin. c. 7. Ducange, Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 1199). 54. Κωνσέρβετ Δενς ημπεριυμ βεςραμ....βίκτορ σες σεμπεροβηβητε Δομινι Ημπερατορες ην μέλτος ανος (Ceremon. c. 75. p. 215). 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 Βαράγγοι κατα την πατριαν γλώσσαν και ετοι, ηγεν Ινκλινισι eλvxponitur (Codin. p. 90). 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. not. 23. 62; for the adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95. 240. not. 131; the processions, p. 2, &c. not. p. 3, &c; the acclamations, passim, not. 25, &c; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177...214. not. 9. 93, &c; the Gothic games, p. 221. not. 111; vintage, p. 217. not. 109: much more information is scattered over the work. LIII. CHAP. 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 Marriage of the Ca tions. The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constansars with tine, without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their foreign na- blood with the blood of the Cæsars, by their marriage with a royal virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman prince.58 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;59 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 alli 57 Et privato Othoni et Nuper eadem dicenti nota adulatio (Tacit. Hist. i. 85). 58 The thirteenth chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be explained and rectified by the Familiæ Byzantine of Ducange. 59 Sequiturque nefas Ægyptia conjunx (Virgil, Æneid viii. 688). 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 enquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites. 60 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. tine. exception, ances had been condemned by the founder of the church CHAP. and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of LIII. St. Sophia; and the impious prince who should stain the Imaginamajesty of the purple was excluded from the civil and ec- ry law of clesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors Constanwere instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father Constantine the fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections, three answers were prepared, which solved the dif ficulty and established the law. I. The deed and the guilt The first of Constantine Copronymus were acknowledged. The Isau- A. D. 733. rian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance, he accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could not be The scalleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian usurper, A. D. 941. ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honour, of the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from the law of Constantine; the clergy, the senate, and the people, disapproved the conduct of Romanus ; and he was reproached, both in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III. For the marri- The third, age of his own son with the daughter of Hugo king of Italy, a more honourable defence is contrived by the wise Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the fidelity and valour of the Franks;61 and his prophetic spirit 61 Constantine was made to praise the eyever and give of the Franks, with whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers (Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with these compliments. cond, A. D. 943. LIII. CHAP. beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo king of France was the lineal descendant of Charlemagne;" and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of Italy. His father was a private noble and if Bertha derived her female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favourite concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele.63 The daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather bethrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years, the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebei 62 Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp. c. 26.) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious king Hugo (περιβλεπτο ρηγος Ουγονως). A more correct idea may be formed from the criticism of Pagi, the Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgement of St. Marc, A. D. 925...946. 63 After the mention of the three goddesses, Liutprand very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur, earum nati ex incertis patribus origi nem ducunt (Hist. 1. iv. c. 6); for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. 1. v. c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercitio Hymenæi, 1. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, I. iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona was a lover of scandal. |