soon followed by the inauguration of a journal, entirely devoted
to works on "Byzantine" subjects, by the same scholar. The
Byzantinische Zeitschrift would have been impossible thirty-
five years ago and nothing showed more surely the turn of the
tide. Professor Krumbacher's work seems likely to form as im-
portant an epoch as that of Ducange. It may be added that
designs have been framed for a Corpus of Greek Inscriptions of
the Christian period, and for a collection of Greek Acts and
Charters of the Middle Ages.8
Meanwhile in a part of Europe which deems itself to have
Byzantine received the torch from the Emperors as it has received their
torch from the Patriarchs, and which has always had a special
regard for the city of Constantine, some excellent work was
being done. In Russia, Muralt edited the chronicle of George
the Monk and his Continuers, and compiled Byzantine Fasti.
The Journal of the Ministry of Public Instruction is the store-
house of a long series of most valuable articles dealing, from
various sides, with the history of the later Empire, by those
indefatigable workers Vasilievski and Uspenski.
In 1894,
Krumbacher's lead was followed, and the Vizantiiski Vremennik,
a Russian counterpart of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, was
started under the joint editorship of Vasilievski and Regel.
Much good work has also been done by the Russian Archæo-
logical Institute of Constantinople.
The study of works of architecture in ancient cities, like
Constanti Athens, Rome, or Constantinople, naturally entails a study of
the topography of the town; and in the case of Constantinople
this study is equally important for the historian.
Little pro-
gress of a satisfactory kind can be made until either Constanti-
nople passes under a European government, or a complete
change comes over the spirit of Turkish administration. The
region of the Imperial Palace and the ground between the
Hippodrome and St. Sophia must be excavated before certainty
8 At present we have the valuable but inadequate Acta et diplomata of
Miklosich and Müller.
on the main points can be attained. Labarte's a priori re-
construction of the plan of the palace, on the basis of the
Ceremonies of Constantine Porphyrogennetos and scattered
notices in other Greek writers, was wonderfully ingenious and
a certain part of it is manifestly right, though there is much
which is not borne out by a more careful examination of the
sources. The next step was taken by a Russian scholar
Bieliaev who has recently published a most valuable study on
the Cerimonies, in which he has tested the reconstruction of
Labarte and shown us exactly where we are,-what we know,
and what with our present materials we cannot possibly know.
Between Labarte and Bieliaev the whole problem was obscured
by the diligent unscholarly work of Paspatês, an enthusiastic
Greek antiquarian; whose chief merit was that he kept the
subject before the world. The general topography of the city
has been illuminated by Mordtmann's valuable Esquisse topo-
graphique (1902), and the special topography of the walls,
gates, and adjacent quarters by the admirable work of Professor
van Millingen.
Gibbon The Slays
various relations
On the Slavonic side of the history of the Empire
is most conspicuously inadequate. Since he wrote,
causes have combined to increase our knowledge of Slavonic Later
antiquity. The Slavs themselves have engaged in methodical
investigation of their own past; and, since the entire or partial
emancipations of the southern Slavs from Asiatic rule, a general
interest in Slavonic civilisation has grown up throughout
Europe. Gibbon dismissed the history of the First Bulgarian
Kingdom, from its foundation in the reign of Constantine
Pogonatus to its overthrow by the second Basil, in two pages.
To-day the author of a history of the Empire on the same
scale would find two hundred a strict limit. Gibbon tells us
nothing of the Slavonic missionaries, Cyril and Methodius,
round whose names an extensive literature has been formed.
It is only in comparatively recent years that the geography of
Byzantina, Ocherki, materialy, i zamietki po Vizantiiskim drevnostiam,
the Illyrian peninsula has become an accessible subject of
The investigation of the history of the northern peoples who
came under the influence of the Empire has been stimulated
(1) Slavs in by controversy, and controversy has been animated and even
embittered by national pride. The question of Slavonic settle-
ments in Greece has been thoroughly ventilated, because Fall-
merayer excited the scholarship of Hellenes and Philhellenes
to refute what they regarded as an insulting paradox.10 So,
(2) Origin too, the pride of the Roumanians was irritated by Roesler, who
denied that they were descended from the inhabitants of
Trajan's Dacia and described them as later immigrants of the
Hungary too has its own question. Are
the Magyars to be ethnically associated with the Finns or
given over to the family of the Turks, whom as champions of
Christendom they had opposed at Mohácz and Varna? It was
a matter of pride for the Hungarian to detach himself from the
Turk; and the evidence is certainly on his side. Hunfalvy's
conclusions have successfully defied the assaults of Vámbéry."
(4) Origin Again in Russia there has been a long and vigorous contest,-
Russian the so-called Norman or Varangian question. No doubt is
Normannic felt now by the impartial judge as to the Scandinavian origin
(3) Ugro-
Finnic or
Turkish
Progress in
Slavonic
archæ-
ology and
history
of the princes of Kiev, and that the making of Russia was due
to Northmen or Varangians. Kunik and Pogodin were rein-
forced by Thomsen of Denmark; and the pure Slavism of
Ilovaiski 12 and Gedeonov, though its champions were certainly
able, is a lost cause.
From such collisions sparks have flown and illuminated
10 Fallmerayer's thesis that there is no pure Hellenic blood in Greece was
triumphantly refuted. But his antagonists, on their side, have gone much too
far. It cannot be denied that there was a large Slavonic element in the country
parts, especially of the Peloponnesus.
In a paper entitled, The Coming of the Hungarians, in the Scottish
Review of July, 1892, I have discussed the questions connected with early Magyar
history, and criticized Hunfalvy's Magyarország Ethnographiája (1876) and
Vámbéry's A magyarok eredete (1882). One of the best works dealing with the
subject has been written by a Slav (C. Grot).
12 Ilovaiski's work Istoriia Rossii, vol. i. (Kiev period), is, though his main
thesis as to the origins is a mistake, most instructive.
dark corners. For the Slavs the road was first cleared by
Šafarik. The development of the comparative philology of
the Indo-Germanic tongues has had its effect; the Slavonic
languages have been brought into line, chiefly by the lifework
of Miklosich; and a special journal for Slavonic studies, edited
by Jagič, has existed for many years.
The several countries
of the Balkan lands have their archeologists and archæological
journals; and the difficulty which now meets the historian is
not the absence but the plenitude of philological and historical
literature.
The foregoing instances will serve to give a general idea of
the respects in which Gibbon's history might be described as
behind date. To follow out all the highways and byways of
progress would mean the usurpation of at least a volume by
the editor. What more has to be said, must be said briefly
in notes and appendices. That Gibbon is behind date in
many details, and in some departments of importance, simply
signifies that we and our fathers have not lived in an ab-
solutely incompetent world. But in the main things he is
still our master, above and beyond "date". It is needless
to dwell on the obvious qualities which secure to him im-
munity from the common lot of historical writers,-such as
the bold and certain measure of his progress through the ages;
his accurate vision, and his tact in managing perspective; his
discreet reserves of judgment and timely scepticism; the
immortal affectation of his unique manner. By virtue of
these superiorities he can defy the danger with which the
activity of successors must always threaten the worthies of
the past. But there is another point which was touched on in
an earlier page and to which here, in a different connexion,
we may briefly revert. It is well to realise that the greatest
history of modern times was written by one in whom a dis-
trust of enthusiasm was deeply rooted.13 This cynicism was
"And who regarded history as "little more than the register of the crimes,
follies and misfortunes of mankind" (see below, p. 84).
not inconsistent with partiality, with definite prepossessions,
with a certain spite. In fact it supplied the antipathy which
the artist infused when he mixed his most effective colours.
The conviction that enthusiasm is inconsistent with intellectual
balance was engrained in his mental constitution, and con-
firmed by study and experience. It might be reasonably
maintained that zeal for men or causes is an historian's marring,
and that "reserve sympathy" is the first lesson he has to
learn. But without venturing on any generalisation we must
consider Gibbon's zealous distrust of zeal as an essential and
most suggestive characteristic of the "Decline and Fall". -
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