Decay of taste and of two languages which are no longer living may consume the time and damp the ardour of the youthful student. The poets and orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects genius. of our Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius, without precept or example, was abandoned to the rude and native powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of nations, But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation. Not a single composition of history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most eloquent!! in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses were silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of political or city verses.113 112 To censure the Byzantine taste, Ducange (Prefat. Gloss. Græc. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius, Jerom, Petronius, George Hamartolus, Longinus, who give at once the precept and the example. 113 The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as, from their easiness, they aru The minds of the Greeks were bound in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition, which extends her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions and miracles they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior talents: the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools or pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and Chrysostom.114 Want of national emulation. In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and independence, which is repeated on a larger scale, but in a looser form, by the nations of modern Europe: the union of language, religion, and manners, which renders them the spectators and judges of each other's merit: 115 the independence of government and interest, which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them to strive for preeminence in the career of glory. The situation of the Romans was less favourable; yet in the early ages of the republic, which fixed the styled by Leo Allatius, usually consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Con stantine Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p. i. p. 345 346, edit. Basil. 1762)." 114 As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John Damascenus, in the viiith century, is revered as the last father of the Greek, church. 115 Hume's Essays, vol. i. p. 125. "earliest English poetry, and has con"tinued to be a favourite with us in "compositions of particular kinds. The "only difference is, that, instead of fifteen "syllables with an accent on the penulti"mate syllable, the English measure is "of fourteen, with an accent on the last syllable. Rhyme, which is found in "the earliest specimens of English verse, appears to have been adopted by the Greeks in a later age from the Italians, as it is not found before the time when the Venetians in Crete, the Genoese at "Constantinople and elsewhere, and other "Italians in several parts of the islands "and continent of Greece, had introduced many of their customs, and when the greater part of the Romaic poetry con"sisted of translations or imitations o "Italian romances." Leake, Peloponne siaca, p. 135.-S. " The national character, a similar emulation was kindled among the states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and sciences they aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters. The empire of the Casars undoubtedly checked the activity and progress of the human mind: its magnitude might indeed allow some scope for domestic competition; but when it was gradually reduced, at first to the East, and at last to Greece and Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes of barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of men. The language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected, in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder if they fainted in the race, since they had neither competitors to urge their speed, nor judges to crown their victory. The nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions t the Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and military virtue was rekindled in the Byzantine empire. NOTE A. As Gibbon has not given an account of the Byzantine law in any part of his work, a brief history of its sources may be stated in this place, more especially as the labours of modern scholars have thrown new light upon the subject. Although the compilation of Justinian was mainly intended for people who spoke Greek, the emperor restricted its use by promulgating it in the Latin language, which was unintelligible to the greater part of his subjects. This defect was remedied to a great extent by a Greek school of jurists, which had flourished even before his reign, and who translated the Corpus Juris into the Greek language. The consequence was that the original was soon disused throughout the Eastern empire, and that Greek translations of the Institutions, the Pandects, and the Code usurped their place. These translations, however, were not stamped by any official authority; and in the times of confusion which followed the reign of Heraclius even the translations were neg. lected, and their place was supplied by (See p. 2.) the writings of commentators, who had published abridgments of the laws. Leo III., the Isaurian, attempted to remedy this evil by publishing a Greek Manual of Law, which became the primary authority in all the courts of the empire. This Manual, which was revised by Constantine Copronymus, the son of Leo, bore the title of Ecloga ('Exλoyǹ râv vóμwv), and is still extant in many manuscripts, which till a recent time were erroneously supposed to be the Prochiron, or Manual of Basil, Constantine, and Leo, of which we shall speak presently. The Eckga of Leo and Constantine Copronymus contains eighteen titles, and adopts an crder entirely different from that of the Institutions of Justinian. It omits entirely several very important matters, such as servitudes and the different modes of acquiring property. Its authority was abrogated by Basil I., who severely censures it on account of its imperfections, and declares it to be an insult to the earlier legislators. It was not, however, entirely disused, since the MSS. which contain it are all ater than the ninth century. A more complete reform in the Byzantine law was effected by Basil I. His legislation was comprised in three works: 1. Prochiron (zgóxugos vópos), a manual intended to serve as an introduction to the science. 2. Basilica (rà Baridixá), a revision of the ancient laws. 3. Epanogoge (Exarayoyù tŵr voμ), a second edition of the Prochiron Manual published after the Basilica. The Prochiron is issued in the names of Basil, and of his two sons, Constantine and Leo, and was probably published in A.D. 870. It contains forty titles. The former half of the work is executed in an entirely different manner from the latter. In the first twenty titles the same plan has been followed as in the Basilica; the extracts from the Institutions are first given, and these are followed successively by extracts from the Pandects, Code, Novellæ of Justinian, and then by the Novellæ of subsequent emperors; but in the last twenty titles this well-arranged plan is abandoned, from a determination to hurry the work to a conclusion. The Ecloga of Leo, which Basil so strongly condemns, now becomes the basis of his work; the extracts from the Institutions and the Novellæ are very numerous, while the Pandects and the Code are almost entirely neglected. A complete edition of the Prochiron was published for the first time by Zachariä in 1837. The Basilica contains a complete code of Byzantine law. It was originally published by Basil about 884, under the title of the Revision of the Old Laws ('Avaxábagcis twy xaha vóμ). It was divided into forty books, although Basil in his Prochiron had announced that the new Code would consist of sixty books. This Code, however, was again revised and enlarged by Leo the Philosopher, and was published in his own name and that of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus between 905 and 911. It is this new and revised Code in sixty books which we now possess under the title of Basilica or Imperia! laws. The earlier code of Basil has entirely disappeared. The Basilica, like the compilation of Justinian, is a collection of all the authorities of Byzantine law. It is compiled from the Greek translations of Justinian's laws, and from the Greek commentaries on them, which had received the sanction of the Byzantine legal schools. It was not a new translation of the Latin text of Justinian, but it employed the Greek texts which had been in existence more than three centuries. Each of the sixty books is distributed into titles, which are again subdivided into chapters and paragraphs. Each title contains, with more or less accuracy, all the laws relating to this subject in the Institutions, the Pandects, the Code, and the Novellæ, and thus presents in one place the enactments upon a subject previously dispersed in four collections. The Basilica does not contain everything which is found in the Corpus Juris, but it contains numerous fragments of the opinions of the ancient jurists and of imperial constitutions which are not in the compilation of Justinian. There is no complete MS. of the Basilica. The best edition is by Heimbach, in five volumes 4to., Leipzig, 1833, seq. The publication of the Basilica led to the gradual disuse of the original compilations of Justinian in the East. But the Roman law was thus more firmly established in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Basilica continued to be the law of the Byzantine empire till its conquest by the Turks, and has been declared to be the law of the new kingdom of Greece. The best histories of the Byzantine law are by Zachariä, Historia Juris GræcoRomani Delineatio, and by Montreuil, Histoire du Droit Byzantin, Paris, 3 vols. 8vo., 1843-46. See also Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. i. p. 285, seq.-S. CHAPTER LIV. THEIR PERSECUTION BY THE ORIGIN AND DOCTRINE OF THE PAULICIANS. Supine superstition - In the profession of Christianity the variety of national characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and of the Greek Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative church. devotion Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding their silent submission, were agitated in vehement and subtle controversies, which enlarged their faith at the expense, perhaps, of their charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the seventh century the peace and unity of the church was invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire the sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and in the decrees of six councils the articles of the Catholic faith had been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of superstition the Virgin and the saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were preached by the monks, and worshipped by the people; and the appellation of people might be extended, without injustice, to the first ranks of civil society. At an unseasonable moment the Isaurian emperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects : under their influence reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their visible deities, and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of orthodoxy. In this passive |