June 11] of Rome and Christianity. To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with each other in baseness and profusion; the dexterity of Cantacuzene obtained the preference; but the succour and victory were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire. The inclining scale was decided in his favour by the death of (A.D. 1345, Apocaucus, the just, though singular, retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or plebeians, whom he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in the capital and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was assigned for the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising the walls and narrowing the cells had been ingeniously contrived to prevent their escape and aggravate their misery; and the work was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the tyrant. His guards watched at the gate, and, as he stood in the inner court to overlook the architects, without fear or suspicion, he was assaulted and laid breathless on the ground, by two resolute prisoners of the Palæologian race, 32 who were armed with sticks and animated by despair. On the rumour of revenge and liberty, the captive III.] from the throne, and the old man had been murdered in prison by the rebellious nobles of Servia, who feared lest a reconciliation should take place with his son. Stephen Dushan passed seven years of his youth at Constantinople, where he became acquainted with all the defects of the Byzantine government and with all the vices of Greek society. The circumstances in which the rival Emperors were placed during the year 1345 were extremely favourable to his ambitious projects, and he seized the opportunity to extend his conquests in every direction. To the east he rendered himself master of the whole valley of the Strymon, took the large and flourishing city of Serres and garrisoned all the fortresses as far as the wall that defended the pass of Christopolis. He extended his dominions along the shores of the Adriatic, and to the south he carried his arms to the gulf of Ambracia. He subdued the Vallachians of Thessaly, and placed strong garrisons in Achrida, Kastoria, and Joannina. Flushed with victory he at last formed the ambitious scheme of depriving the Greeks of their political and ecclesiastical supremacy in the Eastern Empire and transferring them to the Servians" (Finlay, iv. p. 441-2). In 1346 he was crowned at Skopia as "Tsar of the Serbs and Greeks," and gave his son the title of Kral; and he raised his archbishop to the rank of Patriarch. The prosperity of his reign is better shown by the growth of trade in the Servian towns than by the increase of Servian territory. Moreover Stephen did for Servia what Yaroslav did for Russia; he drew up a code of laws, which might be quoted to modify Gibbon's contemptuous references to the Servians as barbarians. This Zakonik has been repeatedly edited, by Schafarik, Miklosich, Novakovich and Zigel.] $2 The two avengers were both Palæologi, who might resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86 [leg. 87-8]) and Nic. Gregoras (1. xiv. c. 10). multitude broke their fetters, fortified their prison, and exposed from the battlements the tyrant's head, presuming on the favour of the people and the clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall of an haughty and ambitious minister; but, while she delayed to resolve or to act, the popu lace, more especially the mariners, were excited by the widow of the Great Duke to a sedition, an assault, and a massacre. The prisoners (of whom the far greater part were guiltless or inglorious of the deed) escaped to a neighbouring church; they were slaughtered at the foot of the altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause of the young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the fairest terms of accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute, the empress felt and complained that she was deceived by the enemies of Cantacuzene; the patriarch was employed to preach against the forgiveness of injuries; and her promise of immortal hatred was sealed by an oath under the penalty of excommunication." But Anne soon learned to hate without a teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the indifference of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the competition of a rival empress; and, on the first symptoms of a more yielding temper. she threatened the patriarch to convene a synod and degrade him from his office. Their incapacity and discord would have afforded the most decisive advantage; but the civil war was pro tracted by the weakness of both parties; and the moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped the reproach of timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the provinces and cities;* 38 Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the empress, the mother d his sovereign (1. iii. 33, 34), against whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particul animosity (l. xiv. 10, 11; xv. 5). It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same time. $4 ["The Greek Empire consisted of several detached provinces when Cantac zenos seated himself on the throne; and the inhabitants of these different par could only communicate freely by sea. The direct intercourse by land, between Constantinople and Thessalonica, by the Egnatian Way, was interrupts for the Servian Emperor possessed Amphipolis, and all the country about ta mouth of the Strymon from Philippi to the lake Bolbe. The nucleus of the perial power consisted of the city of Constantinople and the greater part of Thr On the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, the Greek possessions were confined to t suburb of Skutari, a few forts and a narrow strip of coast extending from Chale don to the Black Sea. In Thrace the frontier extended from Sozopolis along t mountains to the south-west, passing about a day's journey to the north of Ad enters nople. A.D. ary [Febru and the realm of his pupil was measured by the walls of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest, till he had secured in his favour the public voice and a private correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati,35 had succeeded to the office of Great Duke: the ships, the guards, He reand the golden gate were subject to his command; but his Constantihumble ambition was bribed to become the instrument of 1347, Janutreachery; and the revolution was accomplished without danger aryl s or bloodshed. Destitute of the powers of resistance or the hope of relief, the inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends and enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his benefactor. The marriage of his daughter with John Palæologus was at length consummated: the hereditary right of the pupil was acknowledged; but the sole administration during ten years was vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general amnesty quieted the apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was celebrated with the appearance of concord and magnificence, and both were equally fallacious. nople, and descending to the Aegean Sea at the pass and fortress of Christopolis. It included the districts of Morrha and the Thracian Chalkidike [of which Gratianopolis was the chief town]. The second portion of the Empire in importance consisted of the rich and populous city of Thessalonica, with the western part of the Macedonian Chalkidike and its three peninsulas of Cassandra, Longos and Azionoros [Aytov "Opos]. By land it was entirely enclosed in the Servian empire. The third detached portion of the empire consisted of a part of Vallachian Thessaly and of Albanian Epirus, which formed a small imperial province interposed between the Servian empire and the Catalan duchy of Athens and Neopatras. The fourth consisted of the Greek province in the Peloponnesus, which obtained the name of the Despotat of Misithra, and embraced about one third of the peninsula. Cantacuzenos conferred the government on his second son, Manuel, who preserved his place by force of arms after his father was driven from the throne. The remaining fragments of the empire consisted of a few islands in the Aegean Sea which had escaped the domination of the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Knights of St. John; and of the cities of Philadelphia and Phocaea, which still recognised the suzerainty of Constantinople, though surrounded by the territories of the emirs of Aidin and Saroukhan. Such were the relics of the Byzantine empire." Finlay, iii. p. 447-8.] 35 The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic. Gregoras (1. xv. c. 8), but the name is more discreetly suppressed by his great accomplice (Cantacuzen. 1. iii. c. Reign of A.D. 1347, 1355, Janu ary During the late troubles, the treasures of the state, and even the palace, had been alienated or embezzled: the royal banquet was served in pewter or earthenware; and such was the proud poverty of the times that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the paltry artifices of glass and gilt leather. ance. I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacutacuzene. zene.37 He triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph Jan. 8-4.D. Were clouded by the discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His followers might style the general amnesty an act of pardon for his enemies and of oblivion for his friends: in his cause their estates had been forfeited or plundered; and, as they wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed the selfish generosity of a leader who, on the throne of the empire, might relinquish without merit his private inheritThe adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes by the precarious favour of an usurper; and the thirst of revenge was concealed by a tender concern for the succession, and even the safety, of her son. They were justly alarmed by a petition of the friends of Cantacuzene, that they might be released from their oath of allegiance to the Palæologi and entrusted with the defence of some cautionary towns: a measure supported with argument and eloquence; and which was rejected (says the Imperial historian) "by my sublime and almost incredible virtue". His repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions; and he trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his wrongs in the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus advanced in the years of manhood, he began to feel and to act for himself; and his rising ambition was rather stimulated than checked by the imitation of his father's vices. If we may trust his own professions, Cantacuzene laboured with honest industry to correct these sordid and 36 Nic. Greg. 1. xv. 11. There were, however, some pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones had only παντοδαπὴν χροιὰν πρὸς τὸ διαυγές. 37 From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continues his history, and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication of his son Matthew, A.D. 1357 (1. iv. c. 1-50, p. 705-911). Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of Constanti nople, in the year 1351 (1. xxii. c. 3, p. 660, the rest, to the conclusion of the xxirth book, p. 717, is all controversy); and his fourteen last books are still Mss. in the king of France's library. [See Appendix 1.] 38 The emperor (Cantacuzen. 1. iv. c. 1) represents his own virtues, and Nie Gregoras (1. xv. c. 11) the complaints of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration. sensual appetites, and to raise the mind of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In the Servian expedition 39 the two emperors showed themselves in cordial harmony to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government. After the conclusion of the peace, Palæologus was left at Thessalonica, a royal residence and a frontier station, to secure by his absence the peace of Constantinople, and to withdraw his youth from the temptations of a luxurious capital. But the distance weakened the powers of control, and the son of Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking companions, who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot of Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At his request, the empress-mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and the office of mediation: she returned without success; and unless Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the sincerity, or at least the fervour, of her zeal. While the regent grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous hand, she had been instructed to declare that the ten years of his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after a full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighed for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of an heavenly crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication would have restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would have been relieved by an act of justice. Palæologus alone John Palwas responsible for his future government; and, whatever might takes up be his vices, they were surely less formidable than the calamities against of a civil war, in which the barbarians and infidels were again 1353 39 [One important consequence of the Servian conquests, and the wars connected therewith, may be noticed here, the Albanian invasion of Greece. The highlanders of northern Epirus, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, and speaking an idiom which represents the old Illyrian language, descended into Thessaly, laid it waste, and were a terror to the Catalan adventurers themselves. They settled in the Thessalian mountains and spread over Greece, where they formed a new element in the population. The Albanian settlers speak their own language, amid the surrounding Greeks, to the present day, therein differing remarkably from the Slavonic settlers, who adopted the Greek tongue. For the Albanians, see Hahn, Albanesische Studien, 1853; G. Meyer, Albanesische Studien, in Sitzungsberichte of Vienna Academy, vols. 104, 107, 125, 132, 134 (1883-1896), and his Essays und Studien, p. 49 sqq.] æologus arms him. A.D. |