12

bis exclusion from the throne was compensated by the royal CHAP. title and the provinces beyond the Hellespont. But he pru- LXI. dently exchanged that distant and difficult conquest for the n kingdom of Thessalonica or Macedonia, twelve days' journey from the capital, where he might be supported by the neighbouring powers of his brother in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the proper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, who trod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties of the value of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of Thermopyla; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli, which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused, with intemperate joy, the triumph over the lives and fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage of the situation, and the ample or scanty sup plies for the maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long lost dependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through their imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium.14 I shall not descend to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the dutchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica:15 the principal fiefs were held by the service of constable, chamberlain, cupbearer, butler, and chief cook; and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights and archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of his share, and their first efforts

12 Villehardouin (No. 159, 160. 173--177,) and Nicetas (p. 387–394,) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405,) and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries.

is Napoli di Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport of Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbour (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p. 227.)

14 I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See de Rebus post C. P. expugnatum, p. 375-384. 15 A city surrounded by the river Hebrus, and six leagues to the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII.

CHAP. were generally successful. But the public force was weakLXI. ened by their dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor and the king of Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the field; they were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of the marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers.16

Revolt of the Greeks,

&t.

Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still assertA. D. 1904, ed the title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne might be moved to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius, or excited to revenge by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic alliance, a common interest, a similar guilt, and the merit of extinguishing his enemies, a brother and a nephew, induced the more recent usurper to unite with the former the relics of his power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honours in the camp of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and should rarely trust, their fellow criminals: he was seized in the bath, deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and turned out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those who with more propriety could hate, and with more justice could punish, the assassin of the emperor Isaac, and his son. As the tyrant, pursued by fear or remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he was seized by the Latins of Constantinople, and condemned, after an open trial, to an ignominious death. His judges debated the mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel, or the stake; and it was resolved that Mourzoufle17 should ascend the Theodosian column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and forty-seven feet in height.8 From the summit he was cast down headlong, and dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of innumerable spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired the accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this singular event. 19 The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was sent by the marquis a cap

16 Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146-158,) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the marshal are acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 337,) μεγα παρα τοις Λατινων δυναμένω τρατεύμασι; unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible in their own memoirs.

17 See the fate of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas (p. 393,) Villehardouin (No. 141145. 163,) and Guntherus (e. 20, 21.) Neither the marshal nor the monk affords a grain of pity for a tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more unexampled than his crine.

18 The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso-relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured, by Gyllius (Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, &c.) and Tournefort (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231.)

19 The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks concerning this columna fatidica, is unworthy of notice: but it is singular enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes (Chiliad, ix. 277,) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a man sitting on the column, clap, ping his hands and uttering a loud exclamation.

Lascaris,

A. D. 1204

-1222

tive to Italy, and a gift to the king of the Romans; but he CHAP. had not much to applaud his fortune, if the sentence of LXI. imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress in the n Alps to a monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the national calamity, had been given in marriage to a young hero who continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek princes.20 The valour of Theodore Lascaris was sig-Theodore nalized in the two sieges of Constantinople After the flight emperor of of Mourzoufle, when the Latins were already in the city, he Nice, offered himself as their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his ambition, which might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have infused a soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid, and Theodore retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia, beyond the immediate view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under the title, at first of despot, and afterward of emperor, he drew to his standard the bolder spirits, who were fortified against slavery by the contempt of life; and as every means was lawful for the public safety, implored without scruple the alliance of the Turkish sultan. Nice, where Theodore established his residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna, and Ephesus, opened their gates to their deliverer he derived strength and reputation from his victories, and even from his defeats; and the successor of Constantine preserved a fragment of the empire from the banks of the Mæander to the suburbs of Nicomedia, and at length The dukes of Constantinople. Another portion, distant and obscure, was to of possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni, a son of the vir- Trebizond. tuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His name was Alexius; and the epithet of great was applied perhaps to his stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of the Angeli, he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: his birth gave him ambition, the revolution independence; and without changing his title, he reigned in peace from Sinope to the Phasis, along the coast of the Black Sea. His nameless son and successor is described as the vassal of the sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances; that Comnenian prince was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the title of Emperor was first assumed by the The despote pride and envy of the grandson of Alexius. In the West, a third fragment was saved from the common shipwreck by Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the revo

20 The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which Nice tas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope,) are learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familia Byzantine of Ducange.

21 Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus Gregoras, which will here. after be used, the Byzantine writers disdain to speak of the empire of Trebi zond, or principality of the Lazi; and among the Latins it is conspicuous only in the romances of the xivth or xvth century. Yet the indefatigable Ducauge has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192,) two authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (t. xxxi. c. 144,) and the protonotary Ogerius (apud Wading, A. D. 1279, No. 4.)

and empe

of Epirus.

CHAP. lution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. LXI. His flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his freedom; by his marriage with the governor's daughter, he commanded the important place of Durazzo, assumed the title of despot, and founded a strong and conspicuous principality in Epirus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, which have ever been peopled by a warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their service to their new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins from all civil and military honours, as a nation born to tremble and obey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies; their nerves were braced by adversity; whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the ambiguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and the country, would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude; and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The Roman emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed with power for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise, and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by a titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious confederates; the fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, were held and ruled, by the sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended their ramifications of tyranny to the most sequestered villages. Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of the priest, who was invested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of religion and language for ever separated the stranger and the native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the memory of their conquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on the captive land: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and the defects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed the secret, that they were not invincible. As the fear of the Greeks abated, their hatred increased. They murmured, they conspired; and before a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the succour of a barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude they trusted.29

22 The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment: «δεν των άλλων εθνων εις Αρεος έργα παρασυμβεβλήσθαι ήνείχοντο, αλλ' εδε τις των χαρίτων ή των μέσων παρα τοις βαρβαροις τέτοις επεξενίζετο, και παρά το το είναι την φυσιν ήσαν ανήμεροι, και τον χολον είχον τα λίγα προτρέχοντα.

23 I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the eight books of the

rian war,

The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and CHAP. early embassy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the re- LXI. Toited chief of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, The Bulgafrom whom he had received the regal title and a holy banner; A. D. 1205. and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy, he might aspire to the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find, that the count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the successors of Constantine and his ambassadors were dismissed with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon by touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne. His resentment21 would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood: his cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of association and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheath their daggers in the breasts of the victorious. strangers; but the execution was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, had transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal; and the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene of the massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to Adrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were slain or expelled by the furious multitude; the garrisons that could effect their retreat fell back on each other toward the metropolis; and the fortresses, that separately stood against the rebels, were ignorant of each other's and of their sovereign's fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and CaloJohn, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives, and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. 25

Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched a swift messenger to recall count Henry and his

Histoire de C. P. sous l'Empire des François, which Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin, and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work.

24 In Calo-John's answer to the Pope, we may find his claims and complaints (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109 :) he was cherished at Rome as the prodigal son. 25 The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde was converted to Christianity (A. D. 1370) by Lewis king of Hungary,