LXII.

picture is too darkly coloured; but it would CHAP. not be easy, 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 debasement of their character, that they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predeceffors 59.

59 Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of Athens, which they ftill call Athini. From the Tv Aonny, we have formed our own barbarism of Setines.

CHAP.

LXIII.

Superstition of Andronicus and

the times, A. D. 12821320.

CHA P. LXIII.

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

TH

HE long reign of Andronicus' the elder is chiefly memorable, by the difputes of the Greek church, the invafion of the Catalans, and the rife of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous prince of the age; but fuch virtue, and fuch learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of society. A flave of the most abject fuperftition, he was furrounded on all fides by visible and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell lefs dreadful to his fancy, than thofe 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

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

mifchievous

2

LXIII.

mifchievous or contemptible. By his intempe- CHAP. rate difcipline, the patriarch Athanafius excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the finner fhould swallow the last 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 gården. Driven from the throne by the univerfal clamour, Athanafius compofed before his retreat two papers of a very opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity and refignation; the private codicil breathed the direft anathemas against the authors of his dif grace, whom he excluded for ever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and the faints. This laft paper he inclosed 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 difcovery and revenge. At the end of four years, fome youths, climbing by a ladder in fearch 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 abyss which had been fo treacherously dug under his feet. A fynod of bishops was inftantly convened to debate this important queftion: the rafhnefs of thefe clan

2 For the anathema in the pigeon's neft, fee Pachymer, (1. ix. c. 24.), who relates the general hiftory of Athanafius (1. viii. E. 13—16. 20-24. 1. x. c. 27–29. 31—36. I. xi. c. 1-3. 5, 6. 1. xiii. c. 8. 10. 23. 35.), and is followed by Nicephorus Gre goras (1. vi. 5. 7. 1. vii. c. i. 9.), who includes the fecond retreat of this fecond Chryfoftom.

LXIII.

CHAP. deftine 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 testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author of the mischief; but the confcience of the emperor was ftill 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 started 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 bifhops and monks to the cell of Athanafius; and, after a proper refistance, the faint, from whom this message had been fent, confented to abfolve the prince, and govern the church, of Conftantinople. Untamed by disgrace, 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 ftole 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 beast to the feet of Chrift. The authors of the libel were detected and punished;

but

but as their lives had been fpared, 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.

If this tranfaction be one of the most 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, and Nicephorus Gregoras', who have compofed the prolix and languid ftory of the times. The name and fituation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might inspire the most 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 should vainly feek the fincerity of an hero or a penitent. Retired in a cloyster from the vices.

3 Pachymer, in feven books, 377 folio pages, describes the first twenty-fix 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 disgust 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 first 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 translator, 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. 96más 291.). This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and malicious representation of his conduct.