from

Greece to

Sicily.

CHAP. Grecce alone, of all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs of the East and West scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and Lisbon, were famous for the manufacture, the use, and perhaps the extransported portion, of silk. It was first introduced into Sicily by the Normans; and this emigration of trade distinguishes the victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostilities of every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, his lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and artificers of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and disgraceful to the Greek emperor.22 The king of Sicily was not insensible of the value of the present; and, in the restitution of the prisoners, he excepted only the male and female manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labour, says the Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old Eretrians in the service of Darius.23 A stately edifice, in the palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious colony; 24 and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to satisfy the increasing demand of the western world. The decay of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles of the island, and the competition of the Italian cities. In the year thirteen hundred and fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister republics, enjoyed the lucrative monopoly.25 A domestic revolution dispersed the

22 Inde ad interiora Græciæ progressi Corinthum, Thebas, Athenas, antiquâ nobilitate celebres expugnant; et maxima ibidem prædâ direptà opifices etiam qui sericos pannos texere solent, ob ignominian Imperatoris illius, suique principis gloriam, captivesdeducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliæ metrop li collocans, ar em texendi suos edocere præcepit; et exhinc prædictæ ars illa, prius à Græcistantum inter Christianos habita, Romanis patere cœpit ingenus (Otho Frisingen. de Gestis Frederic: I. I. i. c. 33. in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 663) This exception allows the bishop to celebrate Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio prænobilissimæ (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'al a, tom. ix p. 415).

23 Nce as a uel 1. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes these Greeks as skilled ευήτριες οθονας ὑφαίνειν, as isῳ προσανοέχοντας των εξαμίτων και χρυσ

σοπας ων τελών.

24 H Falcand's styles them nobiles officinas. The Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and made sugar in the plain of

Palermo.

25 See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by Machiavel, but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi. Muratori, who has inserted it in the

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manufacturers to Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and CHAP. even the countries beyond the Alps; and thirteen years after this event, the statutes of Modena enjoin the planting of mulberry trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk.26 The northern climates are less propitious to the education of the silk-worm; but the industry of France and England27 is supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China.

the Greek

empire.

I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty Revenue of memorials of the times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the revenue, and the resources of the Greek empire. From every province of Europe and Asia, the rivulets of gold and silver discharged into the Imperial reservoir a copious and perennial stream. The separation of the branches from be trunk encreased the relative magnitude of Constantinople; and the maxims of despotism contracted the state to the capital, the capital to the palace, and the palace to the royal person. A Jewish traveller, who visited the East in the twelfth century, is lost in his admiration of the Byzantine riches. "It is here," says Benjamin of Tudela, "in the queen of cities, that the tributes of the Greek em"pire are annually deposited, and the lofty towers are filled "with precious magazines of silk, purple, and gold. It is "said, that Constantinople pays each day to her sovereign twenty thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants of Persia “and Egypt, of Russia and Hungary, of Italy and Spain, "who frequent the capital by sea and land."28 In all pecuniary matters, the authority of a Jew is doubtless respectable; but as the three hundred and sixty-five days would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions sterling, I am tempted to retrench at least the numerous festivals of the Greek calendar. The mass of treasure that was saved by

xith volume of his Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian Antiquities (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378).

26 From the MS. statutes, as they are quoted by Muratori in his Italian Antiquities (tom. ii. dissert. xxx. p. 46...48).

27 The broad silk manufacture was established in England in the year 1620 (Anderson's Chronological Deduction, vol. ii. p. 4): but it is to the revocation of the edict of Nantes, that we owe the Spitalfields colony.

28 Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom. i c. 5. p. 44...52. The Hebrew text has been translated into French by that marvellous child Baratier who has added a volume of crude learning. The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi, are not a sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels.

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CHAP. Theodora and Basil the second, will suggest a splendid, though indefinite, idea of their supplies and resources. The mother of Michael, before she retired to a cloister, attempted to check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful son, by a free and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited; one hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred thousand of silver, the fruits of her own economy and that of her deceased husband.29 The avarice of Basil is not less renowned than his valour and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and rewarded without breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand pounds of gold (about eight millions sterling), which he had buried in the subterraneous vaults of the palace.30 Such accumulation of treasure is rejected by the theory and practice of modern policy; and we are more apt to compute the national riches by the use and abuse of the public credit. Yet the maxims of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his enemies; by a republic respectable to her allies; and both have attained their respective ends, of military power, and domestic tranquillity.

Pomp and

rors.

Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or luxury of reserved for the future use, of the state, the first and most the empe- sacred demand was for the pomp and pleasure of the emperor; and his discretion only could define the measure of his private expense. The princes of Constantinople were far removed from the simplicity of nature; yet, with the revolving seasons, they were led by taste or fashion to withdraw to a purer air, from the smoke and tumult of the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to enjoy, the rustic festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by the exercise of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing, and in the summer heats, they were shaded from the sun, and refreshed by the cooling breezes from the sea. The coasts and islands of Asia and Europe were covered with their magnificent villas: but, instead of the modest art which secretly strives to hide itself and to decorate the scenery of nature, the marble structure of their gardens served only to expose the riches of

29 See the continuator of Theophanes (1. iv. p. 107), Cedrenus (p. 544), and Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157).

30 Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xvii. p. 225), instead of pounds, uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a literal sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty fold the treasure of Basil.

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of Con

the lord, and the labours of the architect. The successive CHAP. casualties of inheritance and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietor of many stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which twelve were appropriated to the ministers of state; but the great palace," the centre of the Imperial The palace residence, was fixed during eleven centuries to the same stantinople. position, between the hippodrome, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice of the first Constantine was a copy or rival of ancient Rome; the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the wonders of the old world,32 and in the tenth century, the Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins, by an unquestionable pre-eminence of strength, size,and magnificence.33 But the toil and treasure of so many ages had produced a vast and irregular pile: each separate building was marked with the character of the times and of the founder; and the want of space might excuse the reigning monarch who demolished, perhaps with secret satisfaction, the works of his predecessors. The economy of the emperor Theophilus allowed a more free and ample scope for his domestic luxury and splendour. A favourite ambassador who had astonished the Abbassides themselves by his pride and liberality, presented on his return the model of a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently constructed on the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied and surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus 34 were accompanied with gardens, and with five churches, one of which was conspicuous for size and beauty: it was crowned with three domes, the roof of gilt brass reposed on columns of

31 For a copious and minute description of the Imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (1. ii. c. 4. p. 113...123.) of Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never has laborious Germany produced two antiquarians more laborious and accurate than these two natives of lively France.

32 The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood (Paidρov ayahua), the temple of Adrian at Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c. according to an epigram (Antholog. Græc. I. iv. p. 488, 489. Brodæi, apud Wechel) ascribed to Julian, ex-præfect of Egypt. Seventy-one of his epigrams, some lively, are collected in Brunck (Analect. Græc. tom. ii. p. 493...510); but this is wanting.

33 Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine solum, verum etiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram munitionibus præstat (Liutprand, Hist. 1. v. c. 9. p. 465)

34 See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes (p. 59. 61. 86), whom I have followed in the neat and concise abstract of Le Beau (Hist. du Bas-Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436. 438).

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CHAP. Italian marble, and the walls were incrused with marbles of various colours. In the face of the church, a semi-circular portico, of the figure and name of the Greek sigma, was supported by fifteen columns of Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of a similar construction. The square before the sigma was decorated with a fountain, and the margin of the bason was lined and encompassed with plates of silver. In the beginning of each season, the bason, instead of water, was replenished with the most exquisite fruits, which were abandoned to the populace for the entertainment of the prince. He enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle from a throne resplendent with gold and gems, which was raised by a marble stair-case to the height of a lofty terrace. Below the throne were seated the officers of his guards, the magistrates, the chiefs of the factions of the circus; the inferior steps were occupied by the people, and the place below was covered with troops of dancers, singers, and pantomimes. The square was surrounded by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various offices of business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was named from the annual distribution of robes of scarlet and purple by the hand of the empress herself. The long series of the apartments was adapted to the seasons, and decorated with marble and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and mosaics, with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His fanciful magnif.cence employed the skill and patience of such artists as the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have despised their frivolous and costly labours; a golden tree, with its leaves and branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds, warbling their artificial notes, and two lions of massy gold, and of the natural size, who looked and roared like their brethren of the forest. The successors of Theophilus, of the Basilian and Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of leaving some memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace most splendid and august, was dignified Furniture with the title of the golden triclinium.35 With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks aspired to imitate their so

and attendance.

35 In aureo triclinio quæ præstantior est pars potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens cæteras partes (filiis) distribuerat (Liutprand. Hist. 1. v. c. 9. p. 469). For this lax signification of Triclinium (ædificium tria vel plura xan scilicet se complectens), see Ducange (Gloss. Græc. et Observations sur Joinville, p. 240.) and Reiske (ad Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p. 7).