weapons, they were encumbered by the length of their swords, the weight of their armor, the magnitude of their shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their chief, if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares of an enemy less brave but more artful than themselves. They might be bribed, for the Barbarians were venal; or surprised in the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of a summer's campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a plentiful supply of wine and of food. This general character of the Franks was marked with some national and local shades, which I should ascribe to accident rather than to climate, but which were visible both to natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of the great Otho declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that the Saxons could dispute with swords better than with pens, and that they preferred inevitable death to the dishonor of turning their backs to an enemy. It was the glory of the nobles of France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the Italians, who in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had degenerated from the liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards. 93 92 By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges 92 In Saxonia certe scio....decentius ensibus pugnare quam calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare, (Liutprand, p 182.) ธงเ 98 Φραγγοὶ τοίνυν καὶ Λαγόβαρδοι λόγον ἐλευθερίας περὶ πολλοῦ ῦνται, ἀλλ ̓ οἱ μὲν Λαγόβαρδοι τὸ πλέον τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρετῆς νῦν ἀπωλεσαν Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died A. D. 911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to have been composed 940, by a native of Venetia, discriminates in these verses the manners of Italy and France: Quid inertia bello Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris prætenditis armis. Non eailem Gallos similis vel cura remordet A of Romans, and their national sovereign might fix his occa sional or permanent residence in any province of their com mon country. In the division of the East and West, an ideal unity was scrupulously observed, and in their titles, laws, and statutes, the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded by the same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the purple resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these, Justinan was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years, regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right of conquest, the august title of Emperor of the Romans." motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to restore the pristine honors of the Tyber: an extravagant project, (exclaims the malicious Byzantine,) as if he had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron." But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy he entered Rome not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit of twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient capital of the world." The final revolt and separation of Italy was accomplished about two centuries. after the conquests of Justinian, and from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of the Latin tongue. That legislator : Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras, (Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, 1. n. 94 Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (1. v. p. 157,) TOTOS 'Puμαίων αὐτοκράτωρ ονόματί τε καὶ πράγματι. Yet the specific title of Em peror of the Romans was not used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French and German emperors of old Rome. 95 Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his barbarous verse: Τὴν πόλιν τὴν βασίλειαν ἀποκοσμῆσαι θέλων, and it confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, and the Historia 96 Paul. Diacon. 1. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in Vitis Pontificum. a Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p. 141. ་ had composed his Institutes, his Code, and his Pandects, in a language which he celebrates as the proper and public style of the Roman government, the consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of Constantinople, of the camps and tribunals of the East." But this foreign dialect was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic provinces, it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the interpreters of he laws and the ministers of the state. After a short conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete institutions of human power: for the general benefit of his subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels in the two languages: the several parts of his voluminous jurisprudence were successively translated; the original was forgotten, the version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic merit deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal, as well as popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs," and Maurice by the Italians, 100 are distinguished as the first of the Greek Cæsars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent revolution was accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and the ruins of the Latin speech were darkly preserved in the 98 97 Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss. Græc. Medii Ævi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.) The Greek language was Koivos, the Latin was πάτριος to himself, κυριώτατος to the πολιτείας σχῆμα, the system of government. 98 Οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ Λατινική λέξις καὶ φράσις εἰσέτι τοὺς νόμους κρύπτουσα τοὺς συνεῖναι ταύτην μὴ δυναμένους ἰσχυρῶς ἀπετείχιζε, (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p 369.) The Code and Pandects (the latter by Thalelæus) were trans lated in the time of Justinian, (p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A. D. 570,) cxx. Novellas Græcas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heinec cius, Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa. 99 Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the Arabs. A tempore Augusti Cæsaris donec imperaret Tiberius Cæsar spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii, et præcipua pars exercitûs Ro mani: extra quod, conciliarii, scribæ et populus, omnes Græci fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam Græcanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The Christian and ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him some advantage over the more ignorant Moslems. 10 Primus ex Græcorum genere in Imperio confirmatus est; or. ac cording to another MS. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c. 15, p. 443,) in Græ corum Imperio. terms of jurisprudence and the acclamations of the pa.ace. After the restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the names of Franks and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent; and these haughty Barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the alier of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of Roman; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent appellation of Greeks. 101 But this contemptuous appellation was indignantly rejected by the prince and people to whom it was applied. Whatsoever changes had been introduced by the lapse of ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken succession from Augustus and Constantine; and, in the lowest period of degeneracy and decay, the name of ROMANS adhered to the last fragments of the empire of Constantinople.102 While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, the Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor could the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman disciples. After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, the studies of the Greeks insensibly retired to some regular monasteries, and above all, to the royal college of Constantinople, which was burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian.103 In the pompous style of the age, the presi 201 Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutâstis, putavit Sanctissimus Papa, (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis) displicere Romanorum nomen.* His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum Imperatorem Græcorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.) 102 By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p. 3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives, who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The kings of Constantinople, says the historian, ἐπὶ τὸ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς σεμνύνεσθαι, 'Ρωμαίων βασιλεῖς τε καὶ αὐτοκράτ τορας ἀποκαλεῖν, Ελλήνων δε βασιλεῖς οὐκέτι οὐδαμῆ ἀξιοῦν. 199 See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, 1. ii. p. 150, 151,) who collecta the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at least of Zonaras, (tom. ii, * Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of Liutprand, (apud Murat. Script Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which Gibbon refers.) But with some inaccuracy or cenfusion, which rarely occurs in Gibbon's references, the rem of the quotation which as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear dent of that foundation was named the Sun of Science: his twelve associates, the professors in the different arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac; a library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to their inquiries; and they could show an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in length, the intes ines, as it was fabled, of a prodigious serpent.104 But the sev enth and eighth centuries were a period of discord and darkness the library was burnt, the college was abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the foes of antiquity; and a sav age ignorance and contempt of letters has di graced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties.105 In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the restoration of science.10 After the fanaticism of the Arabs had subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Cæsar Bardas, the uncle of Michael the Third, was the gen erous protector of letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica: his pro 1. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,) Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist. Imaginum, p. 99-111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library. 104 According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. 1. xiv. p. 53,) this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The MS. might be renewed--But on a serpent's skin? Most strange and incredible! 105 The aλóyta of Zonaras, the ǎypia kai pabia of Cedrenus, are strong words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns. 106 See Zonaras (1. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus, (p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by igno rance into a conjurer; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in MS. are in the library of V'enna (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui Berant! |