oath ness. seduced by the more active pleasure of commanding their equals. The legislative and executive power were centered in the person of the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the senate were finally eradicated by Leo the Philosopher.78 A lethargy of servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks; in the wildest tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a free constitution; and the private character of the prince was the only source and measure of their public happiSuperstition riveted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia, he was solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they pledged their passive and unconditional Coronation obedience to his government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as much as possible from the capital punishments of death and mutilation; his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand, and he promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the canons of the holy church." But the assurance of mercy was loose and indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible judge, and, except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the subjects of the civil magistrate; at the nod of a tyrant, the bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity. In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too weighty for his hands; and the motions of the 73 A constitution of Leo the philosopher (lxxviii. [Zacharia, Jus Græco-Rom. iii. p. 175]), ne senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked despotism, ἐξ οὗ τὸ μόναρχον κράτος τὴν τούτων ἀνήπται διοικησιν, και άκαιρον καὶ μάταιον τὸ [leg. τὸν] ἄχρηστον μετὰ τῶν χρείαν παρεχομένων συνάπτεσθαι [leg. συντάττεσθαι]. 7+ Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121 [p. 87, ed. Bonn]) gives an idea of this oath so strong to the church πιστός και γνήσιος δοῦλος καὶ υἱὸς τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας, 60 weak to the people καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι φόνων καὶ ἀκρωτηριασμῶν καὶ [τῶν] ὁμοίων τούτοις κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν. royal image are ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favourite, who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of slaves; and experience has proved that whatever is gained in the extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power. force of the depend Greeks, the Saracens, From and the Franks Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he Military may assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately to guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. the age of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike qualifications. Greeks The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the Navy of the service of the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for the protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their enemies.75 A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of Constantinople for the blood of the Sclavonians and Turks, the Bulgarians and Russians: their valour contributed to the victories of Nicephorus and Zimisces; and, if an hostile people pressed too closely on the frontier, they were recalled to the defence of their country and the desire of peace by the wellmanaged attack of a more distant tribe.76 The command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the 75 If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the ambassador of Otho: Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus. Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eam classibus aggrediar, bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quæ fluminibus sunt vicina redigam in favillam (Liutprand in Legat. ad Nicephorum Phocam, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. p. 481 [c. 11]). He observes in another place [c. 45], qui cæteris præstant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani. 76 Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in quâ ortus est pauper et [gunnata, id est] pellicen Saxonia; pecuniâ quâ pollemus omnes nationes super eum [ipsum] invita bimus; et quasi Keramicum confringemus (Liutprand in Legat. p. 487 [c. 531). The two books, De administrando Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy. columns of Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the successors of Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval stores and dexterous artificers; the situation of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deeps gulfs, and numerous islands accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation; and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen to the Imperial fleet." Since the time of the Peloponnesian and Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the science of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art of constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three, or six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind, each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople, as well as to the mechanicians of modern days.78 The Dromones 79 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire were content with two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five and twenty benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied their oars on either side of the vessel. То these we must add the captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect with his armour-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and the labours of combat and navigation were more regularly divided between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But for the most part they were of the light and manageable size; 77 The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo (Meurs. Opera, tom. vi. p. 825848), which is given more correct from a manuscript of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 372-379), relates to the Naumachia or naval war. [On the Byzantine navy, compare Appendix 5.] 78 Even of fifteen or sixteen rows of oars, in the navy of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use; the forty rows of Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace, whose tonnage, according to Dr. Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c., p. 231-236), is compared as 4 to one, with an English 100-gun ship. 79 The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described with two tier of oars that I must censure the version of Meursius and Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind attachment to the classic appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine historians are sometimes guilty of the same inaccuracy. and, as the cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with of signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the 80 Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p. 185. He calmly praises the stratagem as a βουλὴν συνετὴν καὶ σοφήν; but the sailing round Peloponnesus is described by his terrified fancy as a circumnavigation of a thousand miles. The continuator of Theophanes (1. iv. p. 122, 123 [c. 35]) names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus, mount Argus, Isamus, Egilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus [Cyrizus], Mocilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the great palace. He affirms that the news were transmitted v àkapeî, in an indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by saying too mach, says nothing. How much more forcible and instructive would have been the definition of three or six or twelve hours! [See above, vol. v. p. 213, note 34.] VOL. VI.-7 Tactics and character of the Greeks and engines, of clothes and linen, of bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a flourishing colony.82 The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gunpowder, produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these liquid combustibles the city and empire of Constantinople owed their deliverance; and they were employed in sieges and seafights with terrible effect. But they were either less improved or less susceptible of improvement; the engines of antiquity, the catapultæ, balista, and battering-rams, were still of most frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence of fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the quick and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were fruitless to protect with armour against a similar fire of their enemies. Steel and iron were still the common instruments of destruction and safety; and the helmets, cuirasses, and shields of the tenth century did not, either in form or substance, essentially differ from those which had covered the companions of Alexander or Achilles.88 But, instead of accustoming the modern Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use of this salutary weight, their armour was laid aside in light chariots, which followed the march, till, on the approach of an enemy, they resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual incumbrance. Their offensive weapons consisted of swords, battleaxes, and spears; but the Macedonian pike was shortened a fourth of its length, and reduced to the more convenient measure of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the Scythian and Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors lament the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth, till the age of forty, should assiduously practise the 82 See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, l. ii. c. 44, p. 176-192 [leg. 376-392]. A critical reader will discern some inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the knowledge of these profitable mysteries. [See above, p. 60, note 135.] 83 See the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters, περὶ ὅπλων, περὶ ὁπλίσεως and περὶ yvuvarías, in the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of Constantine. [On the organization and tactics of the Byzantine army, see Oman's Art of War, ii. Bk. iv. chaps. ii. and iii.] |