LIII. the Ægean or Holy Sea;13 and the remnant of their empire CHAP. transcends the measure of the largest of the European kingdoms. populous The same princes might assert with dignity and truth, that of all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city,1 the most ample revenue, the most flourishing and General populous state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the wealth and cities of the West had decayed and fallen; nor could the ru- ness. ins of Rome, or the mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts, of Paris and London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches, and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her treasures might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could be disco-' vered which had not been violated by some fierce Barbarian, impatient to despoil, because he was hopeless to possess. From the age of Justinian the Eastern empire was sinking below its former level: the powers of destruction were more active than those of improvement; and the calamities of war were embittered by the more permanent evils of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of his sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer, and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most dextrous and diligent of nations; their country was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation; and, in 13 Ayios eλayos, as it is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the corrupt names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been transformed by geographers and seamen (d'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la Grece, p. 60). The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos (Observations de Belon, fol. 32. verso), monte santo might justify the epithet of holy, ag/10s, a slight alteration from the original aryatos, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of aryes, or goats, to the bounding waves (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 829). 14 According to the Jewish traveller who had visited Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the great city of the Ismaelites (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par Baratier, tom. i. c. 5. p. 46). LIII. CHAP. the support and restoration of the arts, their patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still adhered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa, retired to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their brethren: the moveable wealth which eludes the search of oppression, accompanied and alleviated their exile; and Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs of Armenia and Scythia, who fled from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably entertained: their followers were encouraged to build new cities and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe and Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had seated themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers. Did we possess sufficient materials to survey the twenty-nine themes of the Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might be satisfied with a chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the clearest light should be thrown on the most interesting province, and the name of PELOPONESUS will awaken the attention of the classic reader. vonians. State of As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the Peloponesus: Scla- Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponesus,15 were overrun by some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops, had planted in that fruitful soil, the seeds of policy and learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what yet remained of their sickly and withered roots. In this irruption, the country and the inhabitants 15 Εσθλαβω θη δε πασα η χωρα και γεγονε βαρβαρος,says Constantine (Thematibus, 1. ii. c. 6. p. 25), in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms as usual. by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise observes. και νυν δε πασαν Ηπειρον, και Ελλάδασχεδον και Μακεδονία», και Πελοπόνησον Σκύθαι Σκλαβοι νέμονται (1. vii. p. 98. edit. Hudson): 2 passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance (Geograph. Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170...191), to enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A. D. 980) of this petty geographer. were transformed; the Grecian blood was contaminated; CHAP. and the proudest nobles of Peloponesus were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the diligence of succeeding princes, the land was in some measure purified from the Barbarians; and the humble remnant was bound by an oath of obedience, tribute, and military service, which they often renewed and often violated. The siege of Patras was formed by a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponesus and the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the prætor of Corinth, revived the courage of the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost ranks under the character of St Andrew the Apostle. The shrine which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory, and the captive race was for ever devoted to the service and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes in the neighbourhood of Helos and Lacedæmon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to define the rights and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately distinguished a domestic and perhaps original race, who, in some degree, might derive their blood from the much injured Helots. The li- Freemen of berality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Eleuthero, or free-Laconians. 16 In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dishonour the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea: they accepted a 16 Strabon. Geograph, 1. viii. p. 562. Pausanias, Græc. Descriptio, l. iii. c. 21. p. 264, 265. Plin. Hist. Natur. l. iv. c. 8. Laconia. sus. LIII. CHAP. chief or prince from the Byzantine prætor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity rather than of their dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed Cities and in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponesus," forty revenue of Pelopone- cities were still numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique splendour and their present desolation. The duty of military service either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the lands or the benefices of the province: a sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponesians excused themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold (four thousand pounds sterling), and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honours, and the indigent bishop of Leucadia 18 was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold.19 Manufactures, es silk, But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the repecially of venue, were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufactures: and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the manufactures of linen, woollen, and more especially of silk: the two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of Homer; and the last 17 Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, 1. ii. c. 50, 51, 52. 18 The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's Leap, so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church. 19 Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centuin persolvere, similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suas (Liutprand in Legat. p. 489). LIII. was introduced perhaps as early as the reign of Justinian. CHAP. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth, Thebes, and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous people: the men, women, and children, were distributed according to their age and strength; and if many of these were domestic slaves, their masters, who directed the work and enjoyed the profit, were of a free and honourable condition. The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponesus presented to the emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacock's tail, of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah. She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, and adorned by the labours of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane.20 In his description of the Greek manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price, according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of the texture, the beauty of the colours, and the taste and materials of the embroidery. A single, or even a double or treble thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale; but the union of six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly workmanship. Among the colours, he celebrates, with affectation of eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold: the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers: the vestments that were fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of Oriental pearls.21 Till the twelfth century, 20 See Constantine (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76. p. 195. 197. in Script. post Theophanem), who allows himself to use many technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he, τη των πολλων αμαθία καλον γαρ επι τουτοις κοινο AEXTELY. Ducange labours on some; but he was not a weaver. 21 The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. p. 256), is a copy of those of Greece. Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage, the strange word exarentasmata is very properly changed for exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor. Falcandus lived about the year 1190. |