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. (16) 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 Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, (17) 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 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 thousand 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(18) was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold.(19)

But the wealth of the province, and 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 denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, 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.(20) In his description of the Greek manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price, according to the weight and quality of the

(16) Strabon. Geograph. 1. viii. p. 562. Pausanias, Græc. Descriptio. 1. iii. c. 21, p. 264, 265. Plin Hist. Natur. 1. iv. c. 8.

(17) Constantin. de Administrando Imperio. 1. ii. c. 50, 51, 52.

(18) The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocess. 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 Greck church.

(19) 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).

(20) See Constantine (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76, p. 195. 197, in Script. post. Theophanem), who allows himself to use many technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he, Tη Tv оXλwv aμáðiα Kadov yap ETTI TOUTOLS KOLOVλEKTεLV. Ducange labours on some; but he was not a weaver,

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 vestments that were fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of oriental pearls.(21) 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. 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 artificers of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and disgraceful to the Greek emperor.(22) 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.(23) A stately edifice, in the palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious colony;(24) and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to satisfy the increasing demands 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 thirteen hundred and fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister republics, enjoyed the lucrative monopoly.(25) A domestic revolution dispersed the manufacturers to Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and even the countries beyond the Alps; and thirteen years after this event, the statutes of Modena enjoin the planting of mulberry trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk.(26) The northern climates are less propitious to the education of the silk-worm; but the industry of France and England(27) is supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China. 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 Europe and Asia,

(21) The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. v. p. 256), are a copy of those of Greece. Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage, the strange word exarentasmata is very properly changed for exanthematu by Carisius, the first editor. Falcandus lived about the year 1190.

(22) Inde ad interiora Græciæ progressi Corinthum, Thebas, Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres expugnant; et maxima ibidem præda direpta opifices etiam qui sericos pannos texere solent, ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis gloriam, captivos deducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliæ metropoli collocans, artem texendi suos edocere præcepit; et exhinc prædictæ ars illa, prius à Græcis tantum inter Christianos habita, Romanis patere cœpit ingeniis (Otho Frisingen de Gestis Frederici I. I. i. c. 33, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 668). This exception allows the bishop to celebrate Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio prænobilissima (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 415).

(23) Nícetas in Manuel, 1. ii. c. 8, p. 65. He describes these Greeks as skilled cuntolus olovas vdaivεiv, 28 ιςω προσανοεχοντας των εξαμίτων και χρυσοπαςων ςαλων.

(24) Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and made sugar in the plain of Palermo.

(25) See the life of Castruccio Casticani, not by Machiavel, but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi. Muratori, who has inserted it in the xith volume of his Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian Antiquities (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378).

(26) From the MS. statutes, as they are quoted by Muratori in his Italian Antiquities (tom. ii. dissert. xxx. p. 46-48).

(27) 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.

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."( ."(28) 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 fruits of her own economy and that of her de-. ceased husband.(29) 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.(30) 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.

Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or reserved for 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 chase 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,(31) the centre of the Imperial residence, was fixed during eleven centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and the

(28) 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.

(29) See the continuator of Theophanes (1. iv. p. 107), Cedrenus (p. 544,) and Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xvi. p. 157).

(30) Zonaras (tom. iii. 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.

(31) For a copious and minute description of the Imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (1. 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

gardens, which descended by many a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice of the first Constantine was a copy or a rival of ancient Rome; the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the wonders of the old world,(32) and in the tenth century, the Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins, by an unquestionable pre-eminence of strength, size, and magnificence.(33) But the toil and treasure of so many ages had produced a vast 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. A favourite ambassador who had astonished the Abbassides themselves by his pride and liberality, presented on his return the model of a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently constructed on the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied and surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus (34) 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 incrusted with marbles of various colours. In the face of a church, a semicircular portico, of the figure and name of the Greek sigma, was supported by fifteen columns of Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of a similar 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, which was raised by a marble staircase to the height of a lofty terrace. Below the throne were seated the officers of his guards, 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; and the purple 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 painting, sculpture, and mosaics, with a 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 the 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 some memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace most splendid and august, was dignified with the title of the golden triclinium. (35) 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,

(32) The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood (dardpov ayahua), the temple of Adrian at Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c. according to an epigram (Antholog. Græc. 1. 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. 493-510); but this is wanting.

(33) Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine solum, verum etiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram munitionibus præstat (Liutrand, Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 465).

(34) See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes (p. 59. 61. 86), whom I have followed in the neat and concise abstract of Le Beau (Hist. du Bas. Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436. 438).

(35) In aureo triclinio quæ præstantior est pars potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens cæteras partes (filiis) distribuerat (Liutprand, Hist. 1. v. c. 9, p. 469). For this lax signification of Triclinium (ædificium tria vel plura kλvn scilicet eye complectens), see Ducange (Gloss. Græc. et Observations sur Joinville, p. 240,) and Reiske (ad Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p. 7).

they were mistaken by the children for kings.(36) A matron of Peloponnesus, (37) 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 five hundred miles from Patras to Constantinople, her age or indolence declined the fatigue of a horse or carriage: the soft litter or bed of Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten robust slaves; and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of three hundred was 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 manufactures of Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and woollen; but the most acceptable of her presents consisted in three hundred beautiful youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs;(38) "for she was not ignorant," says the historian, "that the air of the palace is more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd's dairy to the flies of the summer." During her lifetime, she bestowed the greater part of her estates in Peloponnesus, and her testament instituted Leo the son of Basil her universal heir. After the payment of the legacies, fourscore villas or farms were added to the Imperial domain; and three thousand slaves of Danielis were enfranchised by their new lord, and transplanted 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 our 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, than by the steward of the public, fortune.

To

In an absolute government, which levels the distinctions 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 Vespasian to Alexius Comnenus, (39) the Cesar 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. elude 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 Alexius interposed a new and super-eminent dignity. The happy flexibility of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names of Augustus and emperor, (Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union produced the sonorous title of Sebastocrator. He was exalted above the Cesar 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. (40) 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 o lappets of pearl depended on either cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the Sebastocrator and Cesar were green; and on their open coronets or

(36) In equis vecti (says Benjamin of Tudela) regum filiis videntur persimiles. I prefer the Latin ver sion of Constantine (l'Empereur, p. 46,) to the French of Baratier (tom. i. p. 39).

(37) See the account of her journey, munificence, and testament, in the Life of Basil, by his grandson Constantine (c. 74, 75, 76, p. 195-197).

(38) Carsamatium Kaptiuades, (Ducange, Gloss.) Græci vocant, amputatis virilibus et virga, puerum eunuchum quos Verdunenses mercatores ob immensum lucrum facere solent et in Hispaniam ducere (Liutprand, 1. vi. c. 3, p. 470.)-The last abomination of the abominable slave trade! Yet I am surprised to find in the xth century, such active speculations of commerce in Lorraine.

(39) See the Alexiad (1. iii. p. 78, 79,) of Anne Comnena, who, except in filial piety, may be compared to Mademoiselle de Montpensier. In her awful reverence for titles and forms, she styles her father Επισημοναρχης, the inventor of this royal art, the τεχνη τεχνων, and επίσημη επισήμων.

(40) Σтεμμа, 5ɛdavis, diadŋpa; see Reiske, ad Ceremoniale, p. 14, 15. Ducange has given a learned dissertation on the crowns of Constantinople, Rome, France, &c. (sur Joinville, xxv. p. 289–303); but af his thirty-four models none exactly tally with Anne's description.