LXII.

CHAP. three years, rescued the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the Imperial city, a leafless and sapless trunk which must fall at the first stroke of the axe. But his interior and peaceful administration is still more deserving of notice and praise. The calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the Greeks: the motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and the most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants. A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by the command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minute diligence of a private farmer: the royal domain became the garden and granary of Asia; and without impoverishing the people, the sovereign acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. According to the nature of the soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines: the pas tures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs; and when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and pearls, he informed her with a smile that this precious ornament arose from the sale of the eggs of his innumerable poultry. The produce of his domain was applied to the maintenance of his palace and hospitals, the calls of dignity and benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the revenue: the plough was restored to its ancient security and honour; and the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue from their estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by the oppression of the people, or (what is almost the same) by the favours of the court. The superfluous stock of corn and cattle was eagerly purchased by the Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a strict and sincere alliance; but he discouraged the importation of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of the East, and the curious labours of the Italian looms. "The "demands of nature and necessity," was he accustomed to say, "are indispensable; but the influence of fashion may "rise and sink at the breath of a monarch;" and both his precept and example recommended simplicity of manners

3 Pachymer, 1. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. 1. ii. c. 6. The reader of the Byzantine, mest observe how rarely we are indulged with such precious details.

LXII.

and the use of domestic industry. The education of youth CHAP. and the revival of learning were the most serious objects of his care; and without deciding the precedency, he pronounced with truth, that a prince and a philosopher1 are the two most eminent characters of human society. His first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni, that flowed in her veins, and transmitted.the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was contracted to Anne or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor Frederic the second; but as the bride had not attained the years of puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her train; and his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honours, though not the title, of lawful empress. His frailty was censured as a flagitious and damnable sin by the monks; and their rude invectives exercised and displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic age may excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues; and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate passions of Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was softened by gratitude to the second founders of the empire. The slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy of convincing the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be enrolled in the number of his subjects.

LascarisII.

A. D,

A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Va- Theodore taces and his son Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight, and the heir who enjoyed the splendour, 1255, of the Imperial crown. Yet the character of Theodore was 30...

4 Μονοι γαρ άπαντων ανθρώπων ονομαςοτατοι βασιλευς και φιλοσο Pos (Greg. Acropol. c. 32). The emperor, in a familiar conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future logothete.

5 Compare Acropolita (c. 18. 52), and the two first books of Nicephorus Gregoras.

6 A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the father, and Darius the master, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son. But Pachymer (l.i. c. 23.) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but more contemptible, name of Kazλos, merchant or broker (Herodotus, iii. 89). 3 Е

VOL. VII.

October

LXII.

CHAP. not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war and hunting: ConstanA.D. tinople was yet spared; but in the three years of a short 1259, reign, he thrice led his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. August. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and suspicious temper:

the first of these may be ascribed to the ignorance of controul; and the second might naturally arise from a dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal ministers; and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed to offend him by the declaration of a free and honest opinion. The emperor half-unsheathed his scymetar; but his more deliberate rage reserved Acropolita for a baser punishment. One of the first officers of the empire was ordered to dismount, stripped of his robes, and extended on the ground in the presence of the prince and army. In this posture he was chastised with so many and such heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or executioners, that when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great logothete was scarcely able to arise and crawl away to his tent. After a seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate to his seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense of honour and shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer himself that we acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. The cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion; and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the family of the Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing to bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was recommended by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age, her body, as high as the neck, was enclosed in a sack, with several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate their fury against their unfortunate fellow-captive. In his last

7 Acropolita (c. 63.) seems to admire his own firmness in sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own services, from c. 53. to c. 74. of his history. See the third book of Nicephorus Gregoras.

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of John

Lascaris,

A. D.

1259,

hours, the emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiv- CHAP. en, a just anxiety for the fate of John his son and successor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers of a long minority. His last choice entrusted the office Minority of guardian to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the royal favour and the pub- August. lic hatred. Since their connection with the Latins, the names and privileges of hereditary rank had insinuated themselves into the Greek monarchy; and the noble families were provoked by the elevation of a worthless favourite, to whose influence they imputed the errors and calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after the emperor's death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a laboured apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by an unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterate enemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and saviour of the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of the conspiracy. On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch were solemnised in the cathedral of Magnesia,' an Asiatic city, where he expired, on the banks of the Hermus and at the foot of mount Sipylus. The holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards: Muzalon, his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, of the Greek nobles.10

and cha

racter of

Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater Family part must be content with local or domestic renown; and few there are who dare trust the memorials of their family Michael to the public annals of their country. As early as the middle

8 Pachymer (1. i. c. 21.) names and discriminates fifteen or twenty Greek families, και όσοι άλλοι, όις η μεγαλογενης σειρα και χρυση συγκεκροτητο. Does he mean, by this decoration, a figurative, or a real golden chain? Perhaps, both.

9 The old geographers, with Cellarius and d'Anville, and our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach us to distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Meander and of Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still flourishing for a Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues, to the north-east of Smyrna (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxii. p. 365...370. Chandler's Travels into Asia Minor, p. 267).

10 See Acropolita (c. 75, 76, &c.), who lived too near the times; Pachymer (l.i. c. 13...25), Gregoras (1. iii. c. 3, 4, 5).

Palæolo

gus.

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11

CHAP. of the eleventh century, the noble race of the Palæologi stands high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George Palæologus who placed the father of the Comneni on the throne; and his kinsmen or descendants continue, in each generation, to lead the armies and councils of the state. The purple was not dishonoured by their alliance; and had the law of succession, and female succession, been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris must have yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palæologus, who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person the splendour of birth was dignified by the merits of the soldier and statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office of constable or commander of the French mercenaries; the private expense of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but his ambition was rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were doubled by the graces of his conversation and manners. The love of the soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the court; and Michael thrice escaped from the dangers in which he was involved by his own imprudence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose 1 between two officers, one of whom accused the other of maintaining the hereditary right of the Palæologi. The cause was decided, according to the new jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat: the defendant was overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty: and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron. Yet a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable: he was still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the fiery proof of the ordeal.13 Three days before the trial, the patient's arm was inclosed in a bag,

12

11 The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange (Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.): the events of his private life are related by Pachymer (1. i. c. 7. 12.) and Gregoras (1. ii. 8. 1. iii. 2. 4. 1. iv. 1), with visible favour to the father of the reigning dynasty.

12 Acropolita (c. 50.) relates the circumstances of this curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more recent writers.

13 Pachymer (1. i. c. 12.) who speaks with proper contempt of this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in his youth many persons who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous: but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against their own superstition, or that of their tyrant.