with some degree of amazement and terror. "The Franks," says the emperor Constantine, "are bold and valiant to the verge of temerity; and their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt of danger and death. In the field and in close onset, they press to the front, and rush headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed by the firm connexions of consanguinity and friendship; and their martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging their dearest companions. In their eyes a retreat is a shameful flight, and flight is indelible infamy." 96 A nation endowed with such high and intrepid spirit must have been secure of victory, if these advantages had not been counterbalanced by many weighty defects. The decay of their naval power left the Greeks and Saracens in possession of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance and supply. In the age which preceded the institution of knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of cavalry; and in all perilous emergencies their warriors were so conscious of their ignorance that they chose to dismount from their horses and fight on foot. practised in the use of pikes or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of their swords, the weight of their armour, 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 Un 96 In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the Lombards, or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiæ medii Ævi. 97 Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus) equitandi ignari pedestris pugnæ sunt inscii; scutorum magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo, galearumque pondus neutra parte pugnare eos sinit; ac subridens, impedit, inquit, ac eos [leg. eos et] gastrimargia hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c. Liutprand in Legat. p. 480, 481 [c. 11]. sunk in despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of the Latin By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from oblivion of Britain to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privilege of language Romans, and their national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent residence in any province of their common country. In the division of the East and West an ideal unity was scrupulously preserved, 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 * In Saxoniâ certe scio . . . decentius ensibus pugnare quam calamis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare (Liutprand, p. 482 [c. 22]). * Φράγγοι τοίνυν καὶ Λογγίβαρδοι λόγον ἐλευθερίας περὶ πολλοῦ ποιοῦνται, ἀλλ ̓ οἱ μὲν Λογγίβαρδοι τὸ πλέον τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρετῆς νῦν ἀπώλεσαν. Leonis Tactica, c. 18 [§ 80], p. 805. The emperor Leo died A.D. 911; an historical poem, which ends in 916 and appears to have been composed in 940 [between 915 and 922], by a native of Venetia, discriminates in these verses the manners of Italy and France: -Quid inertia bello Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris prætenditis armis, (Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, 1. ii. in Muratori, of these Justinian 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. 100 A motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus and to restore the pristine honours of the Tiber: 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.101 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 for ever deserted, the ancient capital of the world.102 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 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.103 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 the 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 100 Justinian, says the Historian Agathias (1. v. p. 157 [c. 14]), Tрwтos Poμalwv αὐτοκράτωρ ὀνόματι καὶ πράγματι. Yet the specife title of Emperor of the Romans was not used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French and German emperors of old Rome. 101 Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his barbarous verse [3836 sqq.]: Τὴν πόλιν τὴν βασιλείαν ἀποκοσμῆσαι θέλων, Καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν χαρίσασθαι [τῇ] τριπεμπέλῳ Ρώμῃ, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella : Voluit in urbem Romam Imperium transferre (1. xix. p. 157, in tom. i. pars i. of the Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori). 102 Paul. Diacon. 1. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p. 141. 103 Consult the preface of Ducange (ad Gloss. Græc. medii Evi) and the Novels of Justinian (vii. lxvi.). The Greek language was Kouós, the Latin was warpios to himself, κυριώτατος to the πολιτείας σχῆμα, the system of government. were successively translated: 104 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,105 and Maurice by the Italians,106 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 terms of jurisprudence and the acclamations of the palace. 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 aliens of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of Romans; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent appellation of Greeks. 107 But this con- The Greek temptuous appellation was indignantly rejected by the prince and their and people to whom it is applied. Whatsoever changes been introduced by the lapse of ages, they alleged a lineal unbroken succession from Augustus and Constantine; in the lowest period of degeneracy and decay, the name of subjects re had tain and and name of and, 104 Οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ Λατινικὴ 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 Thaleleus) were translated in the time of Justinian (p. 258, 366). Theophilus, one of the original triumvirs, has left an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. [Edited by G. O. Reitz, 2 vols., 1752; G. A. Rhalles, 1836; E. C. Ferrini, 2 parts, 1884-88.] On the other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople (A.D. 570), cxx. Novellas Græcas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius, Hist. J. R. p. 396), for the use of Italy and Africa. 103 Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the Franks or Romans, the vilith 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 exercitus Romani; extra quod, consiliarii, scribæ et populas, 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. 10s Primus ex Græcorum genere in Imperio confirmatus est [the right reading]; or, according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus (1. iii. c. 15, p. 443), in Græcorum Imperio. 107 Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit Sanctissimus Papa (an audacious irony), ita vos [vobis] displicere Romanorum nomen [c. 51]. His nuncios [nuncii cum literis quibus], rogabant Nicephorum Imperatorem Græcorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum amicitiam faceret (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486 [c. 47]). [The citation is verbally inaccurate.] assert the Romans Period of ignorance Revival of Greek learning ROMANS adhered to the last fragments of the empire of Constantinople. 108 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.109 In the pompous style of the age, the president 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 shew an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in length, the intestines, as it was fabled, of a prodigious serpent.110 But the seventh 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 savage ignorance and contempt of letters has disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties." In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the restoration of science.112 After the fanaticism of the Arabs had sub 108 By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated (1. i. p. 3 [p. 6, ed. Bonn]): 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 τῷ σφας αὐτοὺς σεμνύνεσθαι Ῥωμαίων βασιλεῖς τε και αὐτοκράτορας ἀποκαλεῖν, Ἑλλήνων δὲ βασιλεῖς οὐκέτι οὐδαμῆ ἀξιοῦν. 109 See Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150, 151), who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at least of Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xv. p. 104 [c. 3]), Cedrenus (p. 454 [i. 795, ed. Bonn]), Michael Glycas (p. 281 [p. 522, ed. Bonn]), Constantine Manasses (p. 87 [1. 4257]). After refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim (Hist. Imaginum, p. 90-111), like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library. 110 According to Malchus (apud Zonar. 1. xiv. p. 53 [leg. 52; c. 2]) this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be renewed-but on a serpent's skin? Most strange and incredible! 111 The aλoyía of Zonaras, the apyía кal àμaðía of Cedrenus, are strong words, perhaps not ill suited to these reigns. 112 See Zonaras (1. xvi. p. 160, 161 [c. 4]) and Cedrenus (p. 549, 550 [ii. 168-9, ed. Bonn]). Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles |
