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A. D. 972.

an, but of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theo- CHAP. phano and Anne, were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, Otho of on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited this Germany, alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation: but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance of her country.64 In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the north, Wolodomir, great Wolodoprince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman pur- Russia, ple; and his claim was enforced by the threats of war, the A. D. 988. promise of conversion, and the offer of a powerful succour against a domestic rebel. A victim of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign and an hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighbourhood of the Polar circle.65 Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Jeroslaus was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king of France, Henry I. sought a wife on the last borders of Europe and Christendom.66

64 Licet illa Imperatrix Græca sibi et aliis fuisset satis utilis et optima, &c. is the preamble of an inimical writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A. D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc, under the proper years.

65 Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 221. Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque, tom. ii p. 112. Pagi, Critica, A. D. 987, No. 6. a singular concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are raped among the saints of the Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and ate ignorant of her virtues.

66 Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Ruscam, filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into Russia, and the father grata ter tim cum multis donis misit. This event happened in the year 1951. See the passages of the original chronicles in Bouquet's Historians of France (om. xi. p. 29. 159. 161. 319. 384. 481). Voltaire might wonder at this alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the country, religion, &c. of Jercslaus. ...a name so conspicuous in the Russian annals.

mir of

CHAP.
Liil.

Despotic power.

In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds, superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be 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.67 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 happiness. Superstition rivetted 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 obeCoronation dience 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.68 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 Greck 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

oath.

67 A co istitution of Leo the philosopher (lxxviii.) ne senatus-consulta amplius ha..", speaks the language of naked despotism, & 8 to μovaρxov xpœτος την τότων ανήπται διοίκησιν, και ακαιρον και μάταιον το άχρησον μετά των χρειαν παρεχομένων συνάπτεσθαι.

63 Caliu (de Odeis, c. xvii. p. 129, 121.) gives an idea of this oath so Soprons to the churcu πίσος και γνησιος δόλος και υιος της άγιας εκκλησίας, με make to the people και απέχεσθαι φόνων και ακρωτηριασμων και όμοιων τετοις κατά το δυνατον.

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of Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the CHAP. 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 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

and the

Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he Military may assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately de- Greeks, the pend to guard him against his foreign and domestic ene- Saracens, mies. From the age of Charlemagne to that of the Cru- Franks. sades, 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.

The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the Navy of service of the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power the Greeks. for the protection of their,coasts, and the annoyance of their enemies.69 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

69 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 eum 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 kalicarum, tom. ii. pars i. p. 481). He observes in another place, qui cæteris præstant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani.

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CHAP 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 well-managed attack of a more distant tribe.70 The command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the columns of Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the successors of Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval stores and dextrous artificers: the situation of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep 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 Peloponesian 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.72 The Dromones,73 or light gallies of the Byzantine empire, were content with two tiers of oars; each tier was composed of five and twenty benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plyed their oars on either side of the vessel. To 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

70 Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in quâ ortus est pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecuniâ quâ pollemus omnes nationes super eum invitabimus; et quasi Keramicum confringemus (Liutprand in Legat. p. 487). The two books, de administrando Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy.

71 The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo (Meurs. Opera. tom. vi. p. 825...848), 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.

72 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 41 to one, with an English 100 gun ship.

73 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.

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with defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, CHAP. which they used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed through the port-holes 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: and as the cape of Malca in Peloponesus was still clothed with its ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. The principles of maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of Thucydides: a squadron of gallies still advanced in a crescent, charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers in the midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and colours of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night the same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break, to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By land, the fire signals were repeated from one mountain to another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprized of the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus.75 Some estimate may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve gallies, and seventy-five vessels

74 Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. Ixi. p. 185. He calmly praises the stratagem as a ß8λnv ovvεtny xai σo¶ny; but the sailing round Peloponesus is described by his terrified fancy as a circumnavigation of a thousand miles.

75 The continuator of Theophanes (1. iv. p. 122, 123), names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus, mount Argæus, Isamus, Ægilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus, Mecilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the great palace. He affirms, that the news were transmitted v azapet, in an indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by saying too much, says nothing. How much more forcible and instructive would have been the definition of three, or six, or twelve hours.