CHAPTER IV.

CONDITION OF THE GREEKS FROM THE DEATH OF JUSTINIAN TO THE RESTORATION OF ROMAN POWER IN THE EAST BY HERACLIUS. A. D. 565-033.

 

 

SECT. I. TIIE REIGN OF JUSTIN II.

The history of the Roman empire assumes a new aspect during the period which elapsed between the deaths of Justinian and of Heraclius. The mighty nation, which the union of the Macedonians and Greeks had formed in the greater part of the East, was rapidly declining, and in many provinces hastening to extinction. Even the Hellenic race in Europe, which had for many centuries displayed the appearance of a people closely united by feelings, language, and religion, was in many districts driven from its ancient seats by an emigration of a rude Sclavonian population. Hellenic civilisation, and all the fruits of the policy of Alexander the Great, had at last succumbed to Roman oppression. The people of Hellas directed their exclusive attention to their own local and religious institutions. They expected no benefits from the imperial government; and the emperor and the administration of the empire could now give but little attention to any provincial J business, not directly connected with the all-absorbing topic of the fiscal exigencies of the State.

The inhabitants of the various provinces of the Roman empire were everywhere forming local and religious associations, independent of the general government, and striving to recur as rarely as possible to the central administration at Constantinople. National feelings daily exerted additional force in separating the subjects of the empire into communities, where language and religious opinions operated with more power on society than the political allegiance enforced by the emperor. This separation of the interests and feelings soon put an end to every prospect of regenerating the empire, and even presented momentary views of new political, religious, and national combinations, which seemed to threaten the immediate dissolution of the Eastern Empire. The history of the West offered the counterpart of the fate which threatened the East; and, according to all human calculations, Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Hellas, were on the point of becoming independent states. But the inexorable principle of Roman centralisation possessed an inherent, energy of existence very different from the unsettled republicanism of Greece, or the personality of the Macedonian monarchies. The Roman empire never relaxed its authority over its own subjects, nor did it if ever cease to dispense to them an equal administration of justice, in every case in which its own fiscal demands were not directly concerned, and even then it authorised injustice by positive law. It never permitted its subjects to bear arms, unless those arms were received from the State, and directed by the emperor’s officers; and when the imperial forces were defeated by the Avars and the Persians, its pride was unconquered. The emperors displayed the same spirit when the enemy was encamped before Constantinople as the senate had shown when Hannibal marched from the field of Cannae to the walls of Rome.

Events which no human sagacity could foresee, against which no political wisdom could contend, and which the philosopher can only explain by attributing them to the dispensation of that Providence who exhibits, in the history of the world, the progress of the education of the whole human species, at last put an end to the existence of the Roman domination in a large part of its dominions in the East. Yet the inhabitants of the countries freed from the Roman yoke, instead of finding a freer range for the improvement of their individual and national advantages, found that the religion of Mahomet, and the victories of his followers, strengthened the power of despotism and bigotry; and many of the nations which had been enslaved by the Macedonians, and oppressed by the Romans, were exterminated by the Saracens.

The Roman emperors of the East appear to have fancied that the strict administration of justice in civil and criminal affairs superseded the necessity of carefully watching the ordinary proceedings of the government officers in the administrative department, forgetting that the legal establishment could only take cognisance of the exceptional eases, and that the well­being of the people depended on the daily conduct of their civil governors. It soon became apparent that Justinian’s reforms in the legislation of the empire had produced no improvement in the civil administration.

That portion of the population of the capital, and of the empire, which arrogated to itself the title of Romans, turned the privileges conferred by their rank in the imperial service into a means of living at the expense of the people. But the emperor began to perceive that the central administration had lost some of its former control over the people; and Justin II seemed willing to make the concessions necessary to revive the feeling that civil order, and security of property, flowed, as a natural result, from the mere existence of the imperial government,—a feeling which had long contributed powerfully to support the throne of the emperors.

The want of a fixed order of succession in the Roman empire was an evil severely felt, and the enactment of precise rules for the hereditary transmission of the imperial dignity would have been a wise and useful addition to the lex regia, or constitution of the State. This constitution was supposed to have delegated the legislative power to the emperor; for the theory, that the Roman people was the legitimate source of all authority, still floated in public opinion. Justinian, however, was sufficiently versed both in the laws and constitutional forms of the empire, to dread any precise qualification of this vague and perhaps imaginary laws though the interests of the empire imperiously required that measures should be adopted to prevent the throne from becoming an object of civil war. A successor would have revived the power of the senate, and probably converted the government into an oligarchical aristocracy. Justinian, as he was childless, naturally felt unwilling to circumscribe his own power by any positive law, lest he should create a claim which the authority of the senate and people of Constantinople might have found the means of enforcing, and thus a legal control over the arbitrary exercise of the imperial power would have been established. A doubtful succession was also an event viewed with satisfaction by most of the leading men in the senate, the palace, and the army, as they might expect to advance their private fortunes, during the period of intrigue and uncertainty inseparable from such a contingency. The partisans of a fixed succession would only be found among the lawyers of the capital, the clergy, and the civil and financial administrators in the provinces; for the Roman citizens and nobility, forming a privileged class, were generally averse to the project, as tending to diminish their importance. The abolition of the ccremony attending the sanction of the emperor’s election by the senate and the people, would have been viewed as an arbitrary change in the constitution, and as an attempt to rob the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire of the boast “that they lived under a legal monarch, and not under a hereditary despot like the Persians”—a boast which they still uttered with pride.

The death of Justinian had so long threatened the empire with civil war, that all parties were anxious to avert the catastrophe; and Justin, one of his nephews, who held the office of master of the palacc, was peaceably installed as his uncle’s successor. The energy of his personal character enabled him to turn to his advantage the traces of ancient forms that still survived in the Roman state; and the momentary political importance thus given to these forms, serves to explain to us that the Roman government was even then very far from a pure despotism. The phrase, “the senate, and the .Roman people,” still exerted so much influence over public opinion, that Justin considered their formal election as constituting his legal title to the throne. The senate was instructed by his partisans to solicit him to accept the imperial dignity, though he had already secured both the troops and the treasury; and the people were assembled in the hippodrome, in order to enable the new emperor to deliver an oration, in which he assured them that their happiness, and not his own repose, should always be the chief object of his government. The character of Justin II. was honourable, but it is said to have been capricious; he was, however, neither destitute of personal abilities nor energy. Disease, and temporary fits of insanity, compelled him at last to resign the direction of public business to others, and in this critical conjuncture his choice displayed both judgment and patriotism. He passed over his own brothers and his son-in-law, in order to select the man who appeared alone capable of re-establishing the fortunes of the Roman empire by his talents. This man was Tiberius II.

The commencement of Justin’s reign was marked by vigour, perhaps even by rashness. He considered the annual subsidies paid by Justinian to the Persians and the Avars in the light of a disgraceful tribute, and, as he refused to make any farther payments, he was involved in war with both these powerful enemies at the same time. Yet, so inconsistent was the Roman administration, that the Lombards, by no means a powerful or numerous people, were allowed to conquer the greater part of Italy almost unopposed. As this conquest was the first military transaction that occurred during his reign, and as the Lombards occupy an important place in the history of European civilisation, the loss of Italy has been usually selected as a convincing proof of the weakness and incapacity of Justin.

The country occupied by the Lombards on the Danube was exhausted by their oppressive rule; and they found great difficulty in maintaining their position, in consequence of the neighbourhood of the Avars, the growing strength of the Slavonians, and the perpetual hostility of the Gepids. The diminished population and increasing poverty of the surrounding countries no longer supplied the means of supporting a numerous body of warriors in that contempt for every useful occupation which was essential to the preservation of the national superiority of the Gothic race. The Slavonic neighbours and subjects of the Gothic tribes were gradually becoming as well armed as their masters; and as many of those neighbours combined the pursuits of agriculture with their pastoral and predatory habits, they were slowly rising to a national equality. Pressed by these circumstances, Alboin, king of the Lombards, resolved to emigrate, and to effect a settlement in Italy, the richest and most populous country in his neighbourhood. To secure himself during the expedition, he proposed to the Avars to unite their forces and destroy the kingdom of the Gepids, agreeing to abandon all claims to the conquered country, and to remain satisfied with half the movable spoil.

This singular alliance was successful: the united forces of the Lombards and Avars overpowered the Gepids, and destroyed their kingdom in Pannonia, which had existed for one hundred and fifty years. The Lombards immediately commenced their emigration.

The Heruls had already quitted this desolated country, and thus the last remains of the Gothic race, which had lingered on the confines of the Eastern Empire, abandoned their possessions to the Hunnic tribes, which they had long successfully opposed, and to the Sclavonians, whom they had for ages ruled.

The historians of this period, on the authority of Paul the Deacon, a Lombard chronicler, have asserted that Narses invited the Lombards into Italy in order to avenge an insulting message with which the empress Sophia had accompanied an order of her husband Justin for the recall of the ancient eunuch to Constantinople. The court was dissatisfied with the expense of Narses in the administration of Italy, and required that the province should remit a larger sum to the imperial treasury than it had hitherto done. The Italians, on the other hand, complained of the military severity and fiscal oppression of his government. The last acts of the life of Narses are, however, quite incompatible with treasonable designs; and probably the knowledge which the emperor Justin and his cabinet must have possessed of the impossibility of deriving any surplus revenue from the agricultural districts of Italy, offers the simplest explanation of the indifference manifested at Constantinople to the Lombard invasion. It would be apparently nearer the truth to affirm that the Lombards entered Italy with the tacit sanction of the empire, than that Narses acted as a traitor.

As soon as Narses received the order of recall, he proceeded to Naples, on his way to Constantinople; but the advance of the Lombards alarmed the Italians to such a degree, that they despatched a deputation to beg him to resume the government. The Bishop of Rome repaired to Naples, to persuade Narses of the sincere repentance of the provincials, who now perceived the danger of losing a ruler of talent at such a crisis. No suspicion, therefore, could have then prevailed amongst the Italians of any communications between Narses and the Lombards, nor could they have suspected that an experienced courtier, a wise states­man, and an able general, would, in his extreme old age, allow revenge to get the better of his reason, else they would have trembled at his return to power, and dreaded his vengeance instead of confiding in his talents. And even in examining history at this distance of time, we ought certainly to weigh the conduct and character of a long public life against the dramatic tale of an empress sending to a viceroy a grossly insulting message, and the improbability that the viceroy should publicly proclaim his thirst for revenge. The story that the empress Sophia sent a distaff and spindle to the ablest soldier in the empire, and that the veteran should have declared in his passion that he would spin her a thread which she should not easily unravel, seems a fable, which bears a character of fancy and of simplicity of ideas, marking its origin in a ruder state of society than that which reigned at the court of Justin II. A Gothic or Lombard origin of the fable is farther supported by the fact, that it must have produced no ordinary sensation among the Germanic nations, to see a eunuch invested with the highest commands in the army and the State, and the sensation could not fail to give rise to many idle tales. The story of Narses’s treason may have arisen at the time of his death; but it is remarkable that no Greek author mentions it before the tenth century; and what is still more extraordinary, and countenances in some degree the inference of at least tacit consent on the part of the Roman emperor, is the fact, that no earlier account of the conquest of Italy by the Lombards occurs in any Greek writer.

Narses really accepted the invitation of the Italians to return to Rome, where he commenced the necessary preparations for resisting the Lombards, but his death occurred before their arrival in Italy.

The historians of Justin’s reign are full of complaints of the abuses which had infected the administration of justice, yet the facts which they record tend distinctly to exculpate the emperor from any fault, and prove incontestably that the corruption had its seat in the vices of the whole system of the civil government of the empire. The most remarkable anecdote selected to illustrate the corruption of the judicial department, indicates that the real cause of the disorder lay in the increasing power of the official aristocracy connected with the civil administration. A man of rank, on being cited before the prefect of the city for an act of injustice, ridiculed the summons, and excused himself from appearing to answer it, as he was engaged to attend an entertainment given by the emperor. In consideration of this circumstance, the prefect did not venture to arrest him; but he proceeded immediately to the palace, entered the state apartments, and addressing Justin, declared that, as a judge, he was ready to execute every law for the strict administration of justice, but since the emperor honoured criminals, by admitting them to the imperial table, where his authority was of no avail, he begged to be allowed to resign his office. Justin, without hesitation, asserted that he would never defend any act of injustice, and that even should he himself be the person accused, he would submit to be punished. The prefect, thus authorised, seized the accused, and carried him to his court for trial. The emperor applauded the conduct of his judge; but this act of energy is said to have so completely astonished the inhabitants of Constantinople, that, for thirty days, no accusation was brought before the prefect. This effect of the impartial administration of justice on the people seems strange, if the historians of the period are correct in their complaints of the general injustice. The anecdote is, however, valuable, as it reveals the real cause of the duration of the Eastern Empire, and shows that the crumbling political edifice was sustained by the judicial administration. Justin also paid every attention to relieve his subjects from the burden which the arrears of the public taxes were always causing to the people, without enriching the treasury.

If Justin engaged rashly in a quarrel with Persia, he certainly omitted no means of strengthening himself during the contest. He formed alliances with the Turks of central Asia, and with the Ethiopians who occupied a part of Arabia; but, in spite of his allies, the arms of the empire were unsuccessful in the East. A long series of predatory excursions were carried on by the Romans and the Persians, and many provinces of both empires were reduced to a state of desolation by this barbarous species of warfare. Chosroes succeeded in capturing Dara, the bulwark of Mesopotamia, and in ravishing Syria in the most terrible manner; half a million of the inhabitants of this flourishing province were carried away as slaves into Persia. In the mean time the Avars consolidated their empire on the Danube, by compelling the Huns, Bulgarians, Sclavonians, ancl the remains of the Goths, to submit to their authority. Justin vainly attempted to arrest their career, by encouraging the Franks of Austrasia to attack them.

The Avars continued their war with the empire, and defeated the Roman army under Tiberius the future emperor. The misfortunes which assailed the empire on every side, and the increasing difficulties of the internal administration, demanded exertions, of which the health of Justin rendered him incapable. Tiberius seemed the only man competent to guide the vessel of the State through the storm, and Justin had the magnanimity to name him as successor, with the dignity of Caesar, and the sense to commit to him the entire control over the public administration. The conduct of the Caesar soon changed the fortune of war in the East, though the European provinces were still abandoned to the ravages of the Slavonians.Chosroes was defeated at Melitene, though he commanded his armys in person, and the Romans, pursuing their success, penetrated into Babylonia, and plundered all the provinces of Persia to the very shores of the Caspian Sea.

It is surprising that we find no mention of the Greek people, nor of Greece itself, in the memorials of the reign of Justin. Justinian had plundered Greece of as large a portion of her revenues as he could; Justin and his successors utterly neglected her defence against the Sclavonian incursions, yet it appears that the Greeks contrived still to retain so much of their ancient spirit of independence and their exclusive nationality, as to awaken a feeling of jealousy amongst that more aristocratic portion of their nation which assumed the Roman name. That the imperial government overlooked no trace of nationality among any section of its subjects, is evident from a law which Justin passed to enforce the conversion of the Samaritans to Christianity, and which apparently was successful in exterminating that people, as, though they previously occupied almost as important a place in the history of the Eastern Empire as the Jews, they cease to be mentioned from the time of Justin’s law.

 

SECT. II.—DISORGANISATION OF ALL POLITICAL AND NATIONAL INFLUENCE DURING THE REIGNS OF TIBERIUS II AND MAURICE.

The reigns of Tiberius and Maurice present the remarkable spectacle of two princes, of no ordinary talents, devoting all their energies to improve the condition of their country, without being able to arrest its decline, though that decline evidently proceeded from internal causes. Great evils arose in the Roman empire from the discord existing between the government and almost every class of its subjects. A powerful army still kept the field, the administration was perfectly arranged, the finances were not in a state of disorder, and every exertion was made to enforce the strictest administration of justice; yet, with so many elements of good government, the government was bad, unpopular, and oppressive. No feeling of patriotism existed in any class; no bond of union united the monarch and his subjects; and no ties of common interest rendered their public conduct amenable to the same laws. No fundamental institution of a national character enforced the duties of a citizen by the bonds of morality and religion ; and thus the emperors could only apply administrative reforms as a cure for an universal political palsy. Great hopes of improvement were, however, entertained when Tiberius mounted the throne; for his prudence, justice, and talents, were the theme of general admiration. He opposed the enemies of the empire with vigour, but as he saw that the internal ills of the State were infinitely more dangerous than the Persians and the Avars, he made peace the great object of his exertions, in order that he might devote his exclusive attention and the whole power of the empire to the reform of the civil and military administration. But he solicited peace from Hormisdas, the son of Chosroes, in vain. When he found all reasonable terms of accommodation rejected by the Persian, he attempted, by a desperate effort, to terminate the war. The whole disposable military force of the empire was collected in Asia Minor, and an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men was, by this means, assembled. The Avars were allowed to seize Sirmium, and the emperor consented to conclude with them an inglorious and disadvantageous peace, so important did it appear to him to secure success in the struggle with Persia. The war commenced with some advantage, but the death of Tiberius interrupted all his plans. He died after a short reign of four years, with the reputation of being the best sovereign who had ever ruled the Eastern Empire, and he bequeathed to his son-in-law Maurice the difficult task of carrying into execution his extensive schemes of reform.

Maurice was personally acquainted with every branch of the public administration—he possessed all the qualities of an excellent minister—he was a humane and honourable man,—but he wanted the great sagacity necessary to rule the Roman empire in the difficult times in which he reigned. His private character merited all the eulogies of the Greek historians, for he was a good man and a true Christian. When the people of Constantinople and their bigoted patriarch determined to burn an unfortunate individual as a magician, he made every effort, though in vain, to save the persecuted man. He gave a feeling proof of the sincerity of his faith after his dethronement; for when the child of another was offered to the executioners instead of his own, he himself revealed the error, lest an innocent person should perish by his act. He was orthodox in his religion, and economical in his expenditure, virtues which his subjects were well qualified to appreciate, and much inclined to admire. The one ought to have endeared him to the people, and the other to the clergy; but unfortunately, his want of success in war was connected Avith his parsimony, and his humanity was regarded as less orthodox than Christian. The impression of his virtues was thus neutralised, and he could never secure to his government the great political advantages which he might have derived from popularity. As soon as his reign proved unfortunate he was called a miser and a Marcionite.

By supporting the Bishop of Constantinople in his assumption of the title of oecumenical patriarch, Maurice excited the violent animosity of Pope Gregory I.; and the great reputation of that sagacious pontiff has induced Western historians to examine all the actions of the Eastern emperor through a veil of ecclesiastical prejudice. Gregory, in his letters, accuses Maurice of supporting the venality of the public administration, and even of selling the high office of exarch. These accusations are doubtless correct enough when applied to the system of the Byzantine court; but no prince seems to have felt more deeply than Maurice the evil effects of that system, or made sincerer efforts to reform it. That personal avarice was not the cause of the financial errors of his administration, is attested by numerous instances of his liberality recorded in history, and from the fact that even durinf his turbulent reign he was intent on reducing the public burdens of his subjects; and actually succeeded in his plans to a considerable extent. The flatteries heaped by Gregory the Great on the worthless tyrant Phocas, show clearly enough , that policy, not justice, regulated the measure of the pope’s praise and censure.

Maurice had been selected by Tiberius as his confidential agent in the projects adopted for the reform of the army; and much of the new emperor’s misfortune originated from attempting to carry into execution plans which required the calm judgment, and the elevation of character, of their author, in order to create throughout the empire the feeling that their adoption was necessary for the salvation of the Roman power. The enormous expense of the army, and the independent existence, unaffected by any national feeling, which it maintained, now compromised the safety of the government, as much as it had done before the reforms of Constantine. Tiberius had begun cautiously to lay the foundation of a new system, by adding to his house­hold troops a corps of fifteen thousand heathen slaves, whom he purchased and disciplined. He placed this little army under the immediate command of Maurice, who had already displayed an attachment to military reforms, by attempting to restore the ancient mode of encamping Roman armies. This taste for improvements appears to have created a feeling of dissatisfaction in the army, and there seems every reason to ascribe the unsuccessful operations of Maurice on the Iberian frontier, in the year 580, to a feeling of discontent among the soldiers. That he was a military pedant, may be inferred from the fact that he found time to write a work on military tactics, without succeeding in acquiring a great military reputation; and it is certain that he was suspected by the soldiers of being an enemy to the privileges and pretensions of the army, and that by them all his actions were scanned with a jealous eye. During the Persian war, also, lie rashly attempted to diminish the pay and rations of the troops,

I and this ill-timed measure caused a sedition, which was suppressed with the greatest difficulty, but which left feelings of ill-will in the minds of the emperor and the army, and laid the foundation of the ruin of both. Fortune, however, proved eminently favourable to Maurice in his contest with Persia, and he obtained that peace which neither the prudence nor the military exertions of Tiberius had succeeded in concluding. A civil war rendered Chosroes, the son of Hormisdas, an exile, and compelled him to solicit the protection of the Romans. Maurice received him with humanity, and, acting according to the dictates of a just and generous policy, aided him to recover his paternal throne. When reinstated on the throne of Persia, Chosroes concluded a peace with the Roman empire, which promised to prove lasting; for Maurice wisely sought to secure its stability, by demanding no concession injurious to the honour or political interests of Persia. Dara and Nisibis were restored to the Romans, and a strong and defensible frontier formed by the cession, on the part of iChosroes, of a portion of Pers-Armenia.   

 

SECT. III.—MAURICE CAUSES A REVOLUTION, BY ATTEMPTING TO RE­ESTABLISH THE ANCIENT AUTHORITY OF THE IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION.   

As soon as Maurice had established tranquillity in the Asiatic provinces, he directed his whole force against the Avars, in order to restrain the ravages which they were annually committing in all the country between the Danube and the coast of the Mediterranean. The Avar kingdom now embraced all that portion of Europe which extends from the Carnian Alps to the Black Sea; and the Huns, Sclavonians, and Bulgarians, who had previously lived under independent governments, were either united with their conquerors, or submitted, if not as subjects, at least as vassals, to own the superiority of the Avar monarch. After the conclusion of peace with Persia, the sovereign of the Avars was the only dangerous enemy to the Roman power then in existence; but the Avars, in spite of their rapid and extensive conquests, were unable to assemble an army capable of encountering the regular forces of the empire in the open field. Maurice. confident in the superiority of Roman discipline, resolved to conduct a campaign against the barbarians inperson; and there appeared no doubt of its proving successful. His conduct, on this important occasion, it is marked by the most singular vacillation of purpose.

He quitted Constantinople apparently with the firmest determination to place himself at the head of the army, yet, when a deputation from the court and senate followed him, and entreated that he would take care of his sacred person, he made this solicitation a pretext for a change of resolution, and returned back to his capital. His courage was very naturally called in question, and both his friends and enemies attributed his alarm to sinister omens. It seems, however, not improbable, that his firmness was really shaken by more alarming proofs of his unpopularity, and by the conviction that he would have to encounter far greater difficulties than he had previously expected, in enforcing his projects of reform among the troops. As very often happens to weak and obstinate men, he became distrustful of the success of his measures when he had committed himself to attempt their execution; and he shrank from the effort to perform the task in person, though he must have doubted whether an undertaking requiring so rare a combination of military skill and political sagacity could ever succeed, unless conducted under the eye of its author, and supported by the personal influence and prompt authority of the emperor. His conduct excited the contempt of the soldiers ; and whether he trembled at omens, or shrank from re­sponsibility, he was laughed at in the army for his timidity: so that even had nothing occurred to awaken the suspicion or rouse the hatred of the troops em­ployed against the Avars, their scorn for their sovereign would have brought them to the very verge of rebellion.

Though the Roman army gained several battles, and (displayed considerable skill, and much of the ancient military superiority in the campaigns against the Avars, still the inhabitants of Alccsia, Illyria, Dardania, Thrace, Macedonia, and even Greece, were exposed to annual incursions of the hostile hordes, who crossed the Danube to plunder the proprietors and cultivators of the soil, so that, at last, whole provinces were left uncultivated, and remained almost entirely depopulated. The imperial armies were generally ill commanded, for the generals were usually selected, either from among the relations of the emperor, or from among the court aristocracy. The spirit of opposition which had arisen between the camp and the court, made it unsafe to intrust the chief command of large bodies of troops to soldiers of fortune, and the most experienced of the Roman officers, who had been bred to the profession of arms, were only employed in secondary posts.

Priscus, who was one of the ablest and most influential of the Roman generals, carried on the war with some success, and invaded the country of the Avars and Slavonians ; but his successes appear to have excited the jealousy of the emperor, who, fearing his army more than the forces of his enemies, removed Priscus from the command, in order to intrust it to his own brother. The first duty of the new general was to remodel the organisation of the army, to prepare for the reception of the emperor’s ulterior measures of reform. The commencement of a campaign was most unwisely selected as the time for carrying this plan into execution, and a new sedition among the soldiery was the consequence. The troops being now engaged in continual disputes with the emperor and the civil administration, selected from among their officers the leaders whom they considered most attached to their own views, and these leaders began to negotiate with the government, and consequently, to undermine the existing discipline. The mutinous army was soon defeated by the Avars, and Maurice was constrained to conclude a treaty of peace. The provisions of this treaty were the immediate cause of the ruin of Maurice. The Avars had taken prisoners about twelve thousand of the Roman soldiers, and offered to ransom their captives for twelve thousand pieces of gold. It is even said, that when Maurice refused to pay this sum they reduced their demand, and asked only four pieces of silver for each captive; but the emperor, though he consented to add twenty thousand pieces of gold to the former subsidy, refused to pay anything in order to ransom the Roman prisoners.

By this treaty, the Danube was declared the frontier of the empire, and the Roman officers were allowed to cross the river, in order to punish any ravages which the Sclavonians might commit within the Roman territory—a fact which seems to indicate the declining power of the Avar monarch, and the virtual independence of the Sclavonic tribes, to whom this provision applied. It may be inferred also from these terms, that Maurice could easily have delivered the captive Roman soldiers had he wished to do so ; and it is natural to conclude that he left them in captivity to punish them for their mutinous behaviour and neglect of discipline, to which he attributed both their captivity and the misfortunes of the empire. It was commonly reported, however, at the time, that the emperor’s avarice induced him to refuse to ransom the soldiers, though it is impossible to suppose that Maurice would have committed an act of inhumanity for the paltry saving which thereby accrued to the imperial treasury. The Avars, with singular, and probably unexpected barbarity, put all their prisoners to death. Maurice certainly never contemplated the possibility of their acting with such cruelty, or he would have felt all the impolicy of his conduct, even if it be supposed that passion had, for a time, extinguished the usual humanity of his disposition. The murder of these soldiers was universally ascribed to the avarice of the emperor; and the aversion which the army had long entertained to his government was changed into a deep-rooted hatred of his person; while the people participated in the feeling from a natural dislike to an economical and unsuccessful reformer.

The peace with the Avars was of short duration. Prisons was again intrusted with the command of the army, and again restored the honour of the Roman arms, lie carried hostilities beyond the Danube; and affairs were proceeding prosperously, when Maurice, with that perseverance in an unpopular course which weak princes j generally consider a proof of strength of character, renewed his attempts to enforce all his schemes for j restoring the severest system of discipline. His brother \ was despatched to the army as commander-in-chief, with orders to place the troops in winter quarters in the J enemy’s country, and compel them to forage for their j subsistence. A sedition was the consequence : and the soldiers, already supplied with leaders, broke out into rebellion, threw off their allegiance, and raised Phocas, one of the officers who had risen to distinction in the previous seditions, to the chief command. Phocas led the army directly to Constantinople, where, having found a powerful party dissatisfied with Maurice, lie lost no time in securing the throne. The injudicious system of reform pursued by Maurice had rendered him not only hateful to the army, whose abuses he had resolved to eradicate, but also unpopular among the people, whose burdens he wished to alleviate. Yet the emperor’s confidence in the rectitude of his intentions supported his character in the most desperate circum­stances ; and when abandoned by all his subjects, and convinced by a succession of misfortunes that the termination both of his reign and his life was approach­ing, he showed no signs of cowardice. As his plan of reform had been directed to the increase of his own power as the centre of the whole administration, and as he had shown too clearly to all men that his in­creased authority, when attained, was to be directed against more than one section of the government agents, he lost all influence from the moment he lost his power ; and when he found it necessary to abandon Constan­tinople, lie was deserted by every follower. He was soon captured with his family by the agents of Phocas, who ordered them to be immediately executed. The conduct of Maurice at his death affords proof that his private virtues could not be too highly eulogised. He ! died with fortitude and resignation, after witnessing : the execution of his children ; and when an attempt, which has been already alluded to, was made to substi­tute the infant of a nurse instead of his youngest child, he himself revealed the deceit, in order to prevent the death of an innocent person.

  The sedition which put an end to the reign of Maurice, though it originated in the camp, became, as the army , advanced towards the capital, a popular as well as a military movement. Many causes had long threatened I a conflict between official power and popular feeling, for the people hated the administration, and the discor­dant elements of society in the East had latterly been gaining strength. The central government had found great difficulty in repressing religious disputes and ' ecclesiastical party feuds. The factions of the amphi­theatre, and the national hatred of various classes in the , empire, frequently broke out into acts of violence which caused bloodshed. Monks, charioteers, and usurers, could all raise themselves above the law ; and the ' interests of particular bodies of men proved often more ; powerful to produce disorder and disorganisation than the provincial and local government to enforce tran- ' quillity. The administrative institutions were every­where too weak to replace the declining strength of the central authority. A persuasion of the absolute necessity of reinvigorating the Roman government had gone abroad ; but the power of a rapacious aristocracy, and ; the corruption of an idle populace in the capital, fed by the State, presented insuperable obstacles to the tranquil adoption of any reasonable plan of political reformation. The provincials were too poor and ignorant to originate any scheme of amelioration, and it was dangerous even for an emperor to attempt the task, as no national institutions enabled the sovereign to unite ' any powerful body of his subjects in a systematic opposition to the venality of the aristocracy, the corruption of the capital, and the license of the army. Those* j national feelings which began to acquire force in some provinces, and in a few municipalities where the attacks of Justinian had proved ineffectual, tended more to awaken a desire for independence than a wish to support the emperor, or a hope of improvement in the Roman administration.

The arbitrary and illegal conduct of the imperial officers, while it rendered sedition venial, very often insured its partial success and complete impunity.¹ The measures of reform proposed by Maurice appear to have been directed, like the reforms of most ab­solute monarchs, rather to increase his own authority than to establish a system of administration so firmly established on a legal basis, as to prove even more powerful than the despotic will of the emperor him­self. To confine the absolute power of the emperor to the executive administration, to make the law supreme, and to vest the legislative authority in some respon­sible body or senate, were not projects suitable to the age of Maurice, and perhaps hardly possible in the state of society. Maurice resolved that his first step in the career of improvement should be to render the army, long a licentious and turbulent cheek 011 the im­perial power, a well-disciplined and efficient instrument of his will; and he hoped in this manner to repress the tyranny of the official aristocracy, restrain the license of the military chiefs, prevent the sects of Nestorians and Eutychians from forming separate states, and render the authority of the central government supreme in all the distant provinces and isolated cities of the empire. In his struggle to obtain this result he was compelled to make use of the existing administration ; and, con­sequently, he appears in the history of the empire as the supporter and protector of a detested aristocracy, equally unpopular with the army and the people; while his ulterior plans for the improvement of the civil con­dition of his subjects were never fully made known, and perhaps never clearly framed even by himself, . though it is evident that many of them ought to have , preceded his military changes. This view of the poli­tical position of Maurice, as it could not escape the ob­servation of his contemporaries, is alluded to in the quaint expression of Evagrius, that Maurice expelled from his mind the democracy of the passions, and established the aristocracy of reason, though the ecclesiastical historian, a cautious courtier, either could not ' or would not express himself with a more general application, or in a clearer manner.

 

SECT. IV.      PHOCAS WAS TIIE REPRESENTATIVE OF A REVOLUTION, ! NOT OF A NATIONAL PARTY.   

Though Phocas ascended the throne in virtue of his j position as leader of the rebellious army, he was uni­versally regarded as the representative of the popular i hostility to the existing order of administration, to the ruling aristocracy, and to the government party in the church. A great portion of the Roman world expected , improvement as a consequence of any change, but that , produced by the election of Phocas to the Roman purple was followed by a series of misfortunes almost unpar­alleled in the history of revolutions. The ties which connected the social and political institutions of the Eastern Empire were severed, and circumstances which - must have appeared to contemporaries only as the pre- < lude of a passing storm tending to purify the moral j, horizon, soon created a whirlwind which tore up the , very roots of the Roman power, and prepared the minds of men to receive new impressions.

The government of Phocas convinced the majority

¹ Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, xiv. note 31. Evagrius, vi. 1. Proof that the fabric of the imperial administration was felt to be in danger before the acces­sion of Maurice is given by Theophylactus Simocatta, p. 11, edit. Par. An angel appeared to Tiberius 11. in a dream, and informed him that days of anarchy should not commence during his reign.                                    ,

I

PH0CA8.

of his subjects that the rebellion of a licentious army, and the sedition of a pampered populace, were not tiie proper instruments for ameliorating the condition of the empire. In spite of the hopes of his followers, of the eulogium on the column which still exists in the Roman forum, and of the praises of Pope Gregory the Great, it was quickly discovered that Pliocas was a worse sovereign than his predecessor. Even as a soldier he was inferior to Maurice, and the glory of the Roman arms was stained by his cowardice or in­capacity. Chosroes, the king of Persia, moved, as he asserted, by gratitude, and the respect due to the memory of his benefactor Maurice, declared war against the murderer. A war commenced between the Persian and Roman empires, which proved the last and bloodiest of their numerous struggles ; and its

Ou                     '

violence and strange vicissitudes contributed in a great degree to the dissolution of both these ancient monarchies. The success of Chosroes compelled Pliocas to conclude an immediate peace with the Avars, in order to secure himself from being attacked in Con­stantinople.¹ The treaty which he concluded is of great importance in the history of the Greek popula­tion in Europe, but, unfortunately, we can only trace it in its effects at a later period. The whole of the agricultural districts of the Roman empire in Europe were virtually abandoned to the ravages of the northern nations, and, from the Danube to the Peloponnesus, the Sclavonian tribes ravaged the country with impunity, or settled in the depopulated provinces. Pliocas availed himself of the treaty to transport into Asia the whole ₍ military force which he could collect, but the Roman armies, having lost their discipline, were everywhere | defeated. Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Phojnicia,

, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Paphlagonia, were laid waste;

,     ¹ Tlicophaiies, Chron. 245, 251.

a. r>. .05-633.

37G

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. and nothing appears to have saved the Roman empire

       from complete conquest by the Persians, but the wars

carried on at the time by Chosroes with the Armenians and the Turks, which prevented his concentrating his whole force against Constantinople. The tyranny and incapacity of Phocas rapidly increased the disorders in the civil and military administration ; seditions broke out in the army, and rebellions in the provinces. The emperor, either because he partook of the bigotry of his age, or because he desired by his measures to secure the support of the clergy and the applause of the populace, determined to prove his orthodoxy by ordering all the Jews in the empire to be baptised. The Jews, who formed a wealthy and powerful class in many of the cities of the East, resisted this act of oppression, and caused a bloody sedition, which contributed much to aid the progress of the Persian arms.

Various districts and provinces in the distant parts of the empire, observing the confusion which reigned in the central administration, and the increasing weak­ness of the imperial power, availed themselves of the opportunity to extend the authority of their municipal institutions. The dawn of the temporal authority of the Popes, and of the liberty of the Italian cities, may be traced to this period, though they were still hardly perceptible. Pope Gregory the Great only cavilled at the conduct of Maurice, who allowed the Bishop of Constantinople to assume the title of oecumenical patriarch, and he eulogised the virtues of Phocas, who compelled the patriarch to lay aside the irritating epithet.¹ Phocas at last exhausted the patience even of the timid aristocracy of Constantinople, and all classes directed their attention to seek a successor to

¹ On the subject of the supposed concession of the title of universal bishop to pope Boniface III., see Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ayes, i. 520; and Supp. Notes, 1S9.

PIIOCAS.

the tyrant. Heraclius, the exarch of Africa, had com­manded with success in the former war with Persia, and had long governed Africa, in which his family possessed great influence, almost as an independent sovereign.¹ To him the leading men at Constantinople addressed their complaints, and prayed him to deliver the empire from ruin, and dethrone the reigning tyrant.

The exarch of Africa soon collected a considerable army, and fitted out a numerous fleet. The command of this expedition was given to his son Heraclius; and as the possession of Egypt, which supplied Constan­tinople with provisions for its idle populace, was necessary to secure tranquillity after conquest, Nicetas, the nephew of the exarch, was sent with an army to support his cousin, and secure both Egypt and Syria. Heraclius proceeded directly to Constantinople, and the fate of Pliocas was decided in a single naval engage-

o                           o o

ment, fought within sight of his palace. The disorder which reigned in every branch of the administration, in consequence of the folly and incapacity of the | ignorant soldier who ruled the empire, was so great,

I that no measures had been concerted for offering a I vigorous resistance to the African expedition. Pliocas was taken prisoner, stripped of the imperial robes, ' covered with a black cloak, and, with his hands tied | behind him, was carried on board the ship of llera- clius. The young conqueror indignantly addressed him : ■“Wretch! in what manner have you governed the '.empire'?” The dethroned tyrant, roused by the tone ■which seemed to proclaim that his successor would prove as cruel as he had been himself, and perhaps feeling the difficulties of the task to be insurmountable, answered with a sneer, “You will govern it better!” iHeraclius lost his temper at the advantage wlik-h his predecessor had gained in this verbal con test; and

¹ Ducnnge, llhfar'ui Ihjzatitinn, 117.

A. D.

505-633.

378

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. showed that it was very questionable whether he him­self would prove either a wiser sovereign or a better man than Phocas, by ordering the dethroned emperor to be immediately decapitated, and his mutilated members to be exhibited to the populace of Constanti­nople. All the leading partisans of Phocas were executed, as if to afford evidence that the cruelty of that tyrant had been as much a national as a personal vice. Since his death, he has been fortunate enough to find defenders, who consider that his alliance with Pope Gregory, and his leaning towards the Latin party in the church, are to be regarded as signs of virtue, and proofs of a capacity for government,¹

SECT. V.—THE EMPIRE UNDER HERACLIUS.

The young Heraclius became Emperor of the East, and his father continued to rule Africa, which the family appear to have regarded as a hereditary domain. For several years the government of the new emperor was quite as unsuccessful as that of his predecessor, though, doubtless, it was more popular and less tyran­nical. There are reasons, however, for believing that this period of apparent misgovernment and general

¹     Several works have been published concerning the emperor Phocas, but in 1843 I found them wanting in the Bibliotheque du Roi, and in the library of the British Museum : A. de Stoppelaar, 0 ratio pro Phoca hn per a tore; and Simon Vander Brink, Oratio in Phocam Imperatorem, Amstel. 1732. Vertheid- ■iduny des K. Phocas, in Eiiangischeu gelelirten Anzeigcn anf das Jahr 1749, pp. 321, 328, 409, 414. This last work defends him against the accusation of having founded the power of the Popes—a virtue, and not a crime, in the eyes of some. D. Cyprian. Vom Ursprung des Papsthums, c. xvii. 812.

See Bibliotheca Ilist.orica instructa a Struvio, aucta a Budero, nunc vero a Muselio digesta. Lipsire, Weidmann, 1790, 11 vols.

Both Phocas and Maurice were Cappadocians, and the verses in the An­thology probably were not very advantageous to the tranquillity of these em­perors,

I\a.-X'TroLb'ay.a.i QauXoi p.\v ccu- l^avns ?£ rv%ovr(;,

tpuuXorigor Kirovs S’ I'ltixcc (pa.uXora.Toi. K. t. X.

Antholog. iii. 54 edit. Taueh. Joannes Lydus, J>c hi agist. P. Ii. p. 250, edit. Bonn.

HERACLIUS.

37!)

misfortune was not one of complete neglect. Though a. d. defeats and disgraces followed one another with °^G5'⁶³'^J' rapidity, the causes of these disasters had grown up during the preceding reigns ; and Heraclius was com­pelled to labour silently in clearing away many petty abuses, and in forming a new corps of civil and mili­tary officers, before he could venture on any important act. His chief attention was of necessity devoted to prepare for the great struggle of restoring the Roman empire to some portion of its ancient strength and power ; and he had enough of the Roman spirit to re­solve, that, if he could not succeed, lie would risk his own life and fortune in the attempt, and perish in the ruins of civilised society. History has preserved few records of the measures adopted by Heraclius during the early years of his reign ; but their effect in restor­ing the strength of the empire, and in reviving the energy of the imperial administration, is testified by the great changes which mark the subsequent period.

The reign of Heraclius is one of the most remarkable epochs, both in the history of the empire and in the annals of mankind. It warded off the almost inevitable destruction of the Roman government for another century ; it laid the foundation of that policy which prolonged the existence of the imperial power at Con­stantinople under a new modification, as the Byzantine monarchy ; and it was contemporary with the com­mencement of the great moral change in the condition of the people which transformed the language and man­ners of the ancient world into those of modern nations.

The Eastern Empire was indebted to the talents of Heraclius for its escape from those ages of barbarism which, for many centuries, prevailed in all western Europe. No period of society could offer a field for instructive study more likely to present practical re­sults to the highly-civilised political communities of

380 JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. modern Europe ; yet there is no time of which the existing memorials of the constitution and frame of society are so imperfect and unsatisfactory. A few important historical facts and single events can alone be gleaned, from which an outline of the administration of Heraclius may be drawn, and an attempt made to describe the situation of his Greek subjects.

The loss of many extensive provinces, and the de­struction of numerous large armies since the death of Justinian, had given rise to a persuasion that the end of the Boman empire was approaching; and the events of the earlier part of the reign of Heraclius were not calculated to remove this impression. Fanaticism and avidity were the prominent social features of the time. The civil government became more oppressive in the capital as the revenues of the provinces conquered by the Persians were lost. ,The military power of the empire declined to such a degree, from the poverty of the imperial government, and the aversion of the people to military service, that the Roman armies were no­where able to keep the field. Heraclius found the treasury empty, the civil administration demoralised, the agricultural classes ruined, the army disorganised, the soldiers deserting their standards to become monks, and the richest provinces occupied by his enemies. A review of the position of the empire at his accession attests the extraordinary talents of the man who could emerge from the accumulated disadvantages of this situation, and achieve a career of glory and conquest almost unrivalled. It proves also the wonderful per­fection of the system of administration which admitted of reconstructing the fabric of the civil government, when the very organisation of civil society had been completely shattered. The ancient supremacy of the Roman empire could not be restored by human genius; the progress of mankind down the stream of time had

HERACLIUS.

381

rendered a return to tiie past condition of the world a. n. impracticable ; but yet the speed of the vessel of the ⁵⁽³⁵'^ba3‘ State in descending the torrent was moderated, and it was saved from being dashed to pieces on the rocks. Heraclius delivered the empire and the imperial city of Constantinople from almost certain destruction by the Persians and the Avars ; and though his fortune sank before the first fury of Mahomet’s enthusiastic votaries, his sagacious administration had prepared those powerful means of resistance which enabled the Greeks to check the Saracen armies almost at the threshold of their dominions ; and the caliphs, while extending their successful conquests to the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, were for centuries compelled to warn a doubtful war 011 the northern frontiers of

O

Syria.

It was perhaps a misfortune for mankind that Hera­clius was by birth a Roman rather than a Greek, as his views were from that accident directed to the mainte­nance of the imperial dominion, without any reference to the national organisation of his people. His civilisation, like that of a large portion of the ruling class in the Eastern Empire, was too far removed from the state of ignorance into which the mass of the population had fallen, for the one to be influenced by the feelings of the other, or for both to act together with the energy conferred by unity of purpose in a variety of ranks. Heraclius, being by birth and family connections an African noble, must have regarded himself as of pure Ro­man blood, superior to all national prejudices, and bound by duty and policy to repress the domineering spirit of the Greek aristocracy in the State, and of the Greek hierarchy in the Church.¹ Language and manners be­gan to give to national feelings almost as much power in forming men into distinct societies as political arrangc-

¹ Ducange, Historict      117.

382

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

oiiap. iv. ments. The influence of the clergy followed the divi­sions established by language, rather than the political organisation adopted by the government : and as the clergy now formed the most popular and the ablest j \ portion of society, the church exerted more influence over the minds of the people than the civil adminis- ,• tration and the imperial power, even though the emperor was the acknowledged sovereign and master of the patriarchs and the pope. It is necessary to observe here, that the established church of the empire had ceased to be the universal Christian church. The Greeks had rendered themselves the depositaries of its power ;i and influence ; they had already corrupted Christianity . into the Greek church ; and other nations were rapidly forming separate ecclesiastical societies to supply their * own spiritual wants. The Armenians, Syrians, and , Egyptians, were induced by national aversion to the J ecclesiastical tyranny of the Greeks, as well as by spirit- ' ual preference of the doctrines of Nestorius and Euty- ches, to oppose the established church. At the time Heraclius ascended the throne, these national and reli­gious feelings already exercised their power of modi­fying the operations of the Roman government, and of r enabling mankind to advance one step towards the ¹ establishment of individual liberty and intellectual in- | dependence. Circumstances, which will be subsequently noticed, prevented society from making any progress j in this career of improvement, and effectually arrested I its advance for many centuries. In western Europe, f this struggle never entirely lost its important charac- j¹ teristic of a moral contest for the enjoyment of personal ^r>i rights, and the exercise of individual opinion; and as , < no central government succeeded in maintaining itself k I* permanently independent of all national feelings, a check ¹ on the formation of absolute authority always existed, ! both in the Church and State. Heraclius, in his desire j

II

HERACLIUS.

383

to restore tiie power of the empire, strove to destroy a. d.

^ these sentiments of religious liberty. He persecuted ⁰⁰°~^b33‘ all who opposed his political power in ecclesiastical matters; he drove the Nestorians from the great church of Edessa, and gave it to the orthodox. He banished the Jews from Jerusalem, and forbade them to approach ‘ within three thousand paces of the Holy City. His plans of coercion or conciliation would evidently have ) failed as completely with the Nestorians, Eutychians, _t and Jacobites, as they did with the Jews; but the contest with Mohammedanism closed the stru£re:le, and concentrated the whole strength of the unconquered population of the empire in support of the Greek church, and Constantinopolitan government.

In order fully to comprehend the lamentable state of weakness to which the empire was reduced, it will be necessary to take a cursory view of the condition of ' the different provinces. The continual ravages of the i barbarians who occupied the country beyond the Danube had extended as far as the southern shores of the Pelo- | ponnesus. The agricultural population was almost cx­l terminated, except where it was protected by the im­mediate vicinity of fortified towns, or secured by the fastnesses of the mountains. The inhabitants of all I the countries between the Archipelago and the Adria­tic had been greatly diminished, and fertile provinces remained everywhere desolate, ready to receive new occupants. As great part of these countries yielded _r i very little revenue to the government, they were con­sidered by the court of Constantinople as of hardly any value, except in so far as they covered the capital from hostile attacks, or commanded the commercial routes , i to the west of Europe. At this time the Indian and

■    Chinese trade had in part been forccd round the north of the Caspian Sea, in consequence of the Persian con­quests in Syria and Egypt, and the disturbed state of

384------ .JUSTIN II.      HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. the country immediately to the east of Persia. The rich produce transported by the caravans, which reached the northern shores of the Black Sea, was then transported to Constantinople, and from thence distributed through western Europe. Under these circumstances, Thessalonica and Dyrrachium became points of great consequence to the empire, and were successfully defended by the emperor amidst all his calamities. These two cities commanded the extre­mities of the usual road between Constantinople and Ravenna, and connected the towns 011 the Archipelago with the Adriatic and with Rome.¹ The open country was abandoned to the Avars and Sclavonians, who were allowed to effect permanent settlements even to the south of the Via Eo-natia : but none of these settle­ments were suffered to interfere with the lines of com­munication, without which the imperial influence in Italy would have been soon annihilated, and the trade of the West lost to the Greeks. The ambition of the barbarians was inclined to dare any attempt to encroach on the wealth of the Eastern Empire, and they tried to establish a system of maritime depredations in the Archipelago ; but Heraclius was able to frustrate their ii* schemes, though it is probable that he owed his success J| more to the exertions of the mercantile population of the Greek cities, than to the exploits of his own troops.² , When disorder reigned in the territory nearest to the | seat of government, it cannot be supposed that the ad­ministration of the distant provinces was conducted f with greater prudence or success. The Gothic kingdom j of Spain was, as this time, ruled by Sisebut,³ an able '| and enlightened monarch, whose policy was directed to gain over the Roman provincials by peaceful measures, j ₄        . |<

¹                                           lafel, T)e Ihessalonica, proleg. cviii. p. 221. Hullman, Gcsckichte des . V' Byzantin. JIandels, 76.               ^

²  Paul. Diaconus, iv. 21.       ^s a. d. 610-610.       I 5t

HERACLIUS.

385

and whose amis were employed to conquer the remain­ing territories of the empire in the Peninsula. He soon reduced the imperial possessions to a small extent of coast on the ocean, embracing the modern province of Algarve, and a few towns 011 the shores of the Mediter­ranean. He likewise interrupted the communications between the Roman troops and Spain and Africa, by building a fleet, and conquering Tangiers and the neighbouring country. Heraclius concluded a treaty with Sisebut, in the year G14, and the Romans were thus enabled to retain their Spanish territories until the reign of Suintilla, who, while Heraclius was engaged in his Persian campaigns, finally expelled the Romans (or the Greeks, as they were generally termed in the West) from the Spanish continent.¹ Seventy-nine years had elapsed since the Roman authority had been re­established in the south of Spain by the conquests of Justinian. Even under the disadvantages to which the imperial power was exposed; the commercial superi- 1 ority of the Greeks still enabled them to retain posses- I sion of the Balearic Islands until a later period.²

National distinctions and religious interests tended to divide the population, and to balance political power, much more in Italy than in the other countries of I Europe. The influence of the church in protecting the ; people, the weakness of the Lombard sovereigns, from 1; the small numerical strength of the Lombard popula- j, tion, and the oppressive fiscal government of the Roman . exarchs, gave the Italians the means of creating a § \ • •

' j national existence, amidst the conflicts of their masters.

" ’Yet so imperfect was the unity of interests, 01* so great were the difficulties of communication between the

¹     a. d. 623.

²     Koman ami Greek interests, and party feelings, continued to maintain some influence in the Peninsula for many years. In 673, the Duke Klavius I’aulus, a

_t | provincial in the service of the Goths, almost succeeded in seizing the crown <>t

*     Spain      /liston/of tSpnin ami Puilmjal, i. 137. Cabinet Cyclvj>. Asehbaeli >

Gcschidtie dcr Wcshjot/iat,

386 JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

f-HAp. iv. people of various parts of Italy, that tlie imperial authority not only defended its own dominions with success against foreign enemies, but also repressed with ease the ambitious or patriotic attempts of the popes to acquire political power, and punished equally the seditions of the people and the rebellions of the chiefs, who, like John Compsa of Naples, and the exarch Eleutherinus, aspired at independence.

Africa alone, of all the provinces of the empire, con­tinued to use the Latin language in ordinary life; and its inhabitants regarded themselves, with some reason, as the purest descendants of the Romans. After the victories of John the Patriciau, it had enjoyed a long period of tranquillity, and its prosperity was undis­turbed by any spirit of nationality adverse to the supremacy of the empire, or by schismatic opinions hostile to the church. The barbarous tribes to the south were feeble enemies, and no foreign State pos­sessed a naval force capable of troubling its repose or interrupting its commerce. Under the able and fortu­nate administration of Heraclius and Gregoras, the father and uncle of the emperor, Africa formed the most flourishing portion of the empire. Its prosperous condition, and the wars raging in other countries, threw great part of the commerce of the Mediterranean into the hands of the Africans. Wealth and population increased to such a degree, that the naval expedition | of the emperor Heraclius, and the army of his cousin |j Nicetas, were fitted out from the resources of Africa alone. Another strong proof of the prosperity of the province, of its importance to the empire, and of its attachment to the interests of the Heraclian family, is afforded by the resolution which the emperor adopted, in the ninth year of his reign, of transferring the impe­rial residence from Constantinople to Carthage.

The immense population of Constantinople gave great

BANKRUPTCY OF HERACLIUS.

887

inquietude to the government. Constantine the Great, in order to favour the increase of his new capital, had granted daily allowances of bread to the possessors of houses. Succeeding emperors, for the purpose of caress­ing the populace, had largely increased the numbers of those entitled to this gratuity. In G18, the Persians overran Egypt, and by their conquest stopped the annual supplies of grain destined for the public distributions in the capital. Heraclius, ruined in his finances, but fear­) ing to announce the discontinuance of these allowances, j so necessary to keep the population of Constantinople | in good humour, engaged to continue the supply, 011 receiving a payment of three pieces of gold from each claimant. His necessities, however, very soon became I so great, that he ceased to continue the distributions, and thus defrauded those citizens of their money whom | the fortune of war had deprived of their bread.¹ The

₁     danger of his position must have been greatly increased by this bankruptcy, and the dishonour must have ren­dered his residence among the people whom he had . deceived galling to his mind. Shame, therefore, may

>    'possibly have suggested to Heraclius the idea of quitting ^.Constantinople; but his selection of Carthage, as the _? city to which he wished to transfer the seat of govern-

o     ment, must have been determined by the wealth, popu­lation, and security of the African province. Carthage u offered military resources for recovering possession of in 'Egypt ^aild Syria, of which we can only now estimate ₍₁ ;blie extent by taking into consideration the expedition 1)₍ j;hat placed Heraclius himself 011 the throne. Many jti ’easons connected with the constitution of the civil

i' . ....

¹ Chronicon Fasrhn/r, 389. The abolition of these public distributions of

g! provisions appears to have infused new life into the administration. This ebb |ti the fortunes of the empire changed when liberty of commerce and the [if bolition of ancient privileges gave labour additional value. The condition of liations is oftener changed by an addition to the wages of labour than by (hr olitical theories of philosophers, yet history often records the idle speculation .jj) jtid overlooks the practical improvement.

38S

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

\ government of the empire, might likewise be adduced as tending to influence the preference.

In Constantinople, an immense body of idle inhabi­tants had been collected, a mass that had long formed a burden 011 the State, and acquired a right to a portion of its resources. A numerous nobility, and a perma­nent imperial household, conceived that they formed a portion of the Roman government, from the prominent part which they acted in the ceremonial that connected the emperor with the people. Thus, the great natural advantages of the geographical position of the capital j were neutralised by moral and political causes; while the desolate state of the European provinces, and the ' vicinity of the northern frontier, began to expose it to frequent sieges. As a fortress and place of arms, it might have still formed the bulwark of the empire in Europe; but while it remained the capital, its immense unpro­ductive population required that too large a part of the resources of the State should be devoted to supplying it j with provisions, to guarding against the factions andr the seditions of its populace, and to maintaining in it a powerful garrison. The luxury of the Roman court had,| during ages of unbounded wealth and unlimited power,! assembled round the emperor an infinity of courtly| offices, and caused an enormous expenditure, which it’ was extremely dangerous to suppress and impossible to. continue.                            1

No national feelings or particular line of policy eon-j, nected Heraclius with Constantinople, and his frequent; absence during the active years of his life indicates that,^j as long as his personal energy and health allowed him to direct the public administration, he considered the_; ^ constant residence of the emperor in that city injurious I. to the general interests of the State. On the other hand jjj Carthage was, at this time, peculiarly a Roman city j ^ and in actual wealth, in the numbers of its independent j

HERACLTUS.

citizens, and in tiie activity of its whole population, was probably inferior to 110 city 111 the empire. It is not surprising, therefore, that Heraclius, when compelled to suppress the public distributions of bread in the capital, to retrench the expenditure of his court and make many reforms in his civil government, should have wished to place the imperial treasury and his own resources in a place of greater security, before he engaged in his des­perate struggle with Persia. The wish, therefore, to , make Carthage the capital of the Roman empire may, 1 with for greater probability, be connected with the gallant project of his Eastern campaigns, than with the

■    cowardly or selfish motives attributed to him by the Byzantine writers.

When the project of Heraclius to remove to Carthage was generally known, the Greek patriarch, the Greco- Roman aristocracy, and the Byzantine people, became 1 alarmed at the loss of power, wealth, public shows, and largesses consequent 011 the departure of the court, and

I     were eager to change his resolution. As far as Heraclius | was personally concerned, the anxiety displayed by

every class to retain him, may have relieved his mind from the shame caused by his financial fraud; and as i want of personal courage was certainly not one of his defects, he may have abandoned a wise resolution with­out much regret, if he had thought the enthusiasm which he witnessed likely to aid his military plans. The Patriarch and the people, hearing that he had

^II     shipped his treasures, and was prepared to follow with ¹ all the imperial family, assembled tumultuously, and in- 'duced the emperor to swear in the church of St Sophia, that he would defend the empire to his death, and [regard the people of Constantinople as peculiarly the 'children of his throne.

' Egypt, from its wonderful natural resources, and its 'numerous and industrious population, had long been

I

390 JUSTIN II.      HERACLIUS.

^T. the most valuable province of the empire. It poured a very great portion of its gross produce into the imperial treasury; for its agricultural population, being destitute of all political power and influence, were compelled to pay, not only taxes, but a tribute, which was viewed as ' a rent for the soil, to the Roman government. At this , time, however, the wealth of Egypt was on the decline. , The circumstances which had driven the trade of India to the north, had caused a great decrease in the demand for the grain of Egypt on the shores of the Red Sea, . and for its manufactures in Arabia and Ethiopia. The canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, whose exist-¹ ence is intimately connected with the prosperity of these countries, had been neglected during the government of Pliocas. A large portion of the Greek population of Alexandria had been ruined, because an end had been I put to the public distributions of grain, and poverty i had invaded the fertile land of Egypt. John the Alms- giver, who was patriarch and imperial prefect in the reign of Heraclius, did everything in his power to! alleviate this misery. He established hospitals, and devoted the revenues of his See to charity; but he was[ an enemy to heresy, and consequently he was hardly) looked on as a friend by the native population. Na-^ tional feelings, religious opinions, and local interests,' had always nourished, in the minds of the native ₍ Egyptians, a deep-rooted hatred of the Roman admin-j istration and of the Greek church; and this feeling of hostility only became more concentrated after the) union of the offices of prefect and patriarch by Justin­ian. A complete line of separation existed between the Greek colony of Alexandria and the native popula­tion, who during the decline of the Greeks and Jews of Alexandria intruded themselves into political busi­ness, and gained some degree of official importance.; The cause of the emperor was now connected with tlioi

HER ACLTUS.

commercial interests of the Greek and Melchite parties, a. _n. but these ruling classes were regarded by the agricul­tural population of the rest of the province as inter­lopers on their sacred Jacobite soil.¹ John the Alms- giver, though a Greek patriarch, and an imperial pre­fect, was not perfectly free from the charge of heresy, nor, perhaps, of employing the revenues under his con­trol with more attention to charity than to public utility. The exigencies of Heraclius were so great that he sent his cousin, the patrician Nicetas, to Egypt, in order to seize the immense wealth which the patri­arch John was said to possess. In the following year the Persians invaded the province; and the patrician and patriarch, unable to defend even the city of Alex­andria, tied to Cyprus, while the enemy was allowed to subdue the valley of the Nile to the borders of Libya and Ethiopia, without meeting any opposition from the imperial forces, and apparently with the good wishes of the Egyptians. The plunder obtained from public pro­perty and slaves was immense; and as the power of the Greeks was annihilated, the native Egyptians availed themselves of the opportunity to acquire a dominant | influence in the administration of their country.

. For ten years the province owned allegiance to Persia, though it enjoyed a certain degree of doubtful independence under the immediate government of a native intendant-general of the land revenues, named Mokaukas, who subsequently, at the time of the Sara- k cen conquest, acted a conspicuous part in the history \ of his country. During the Persian supremacy, he

^ ¹ The Melchites were those Christians in Syria and Kgypt who, though n<>1 I (Jreeks, followed the doctrine,s of the Creek church. They were called Melchites (royalists, from Jleleha, Syriac, a king) by their adversaries, on account of their j implicit obedience to the edict of Marcian in favour of the Council of Chalee- I don. Jacob Uaraihcus, or Zanzalus, bishop of Kdessa, the groat heterodox apostle of the Kast, blended the various sects of Eutychians and Monophysites

¹     into a powerful church, whose followers were generally called, after his death,

> Jacobites. He died a. n. 57tf.—Mosheim's hlrrhsiastiriil HUtoru, Soame.s' edit, ii. 5(3.

392

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. became so influential in the administration, that he is styled by several writers the Prince of Egypt.¹ Mo- kaukas, under the Roman government, had conformed to the established church, in order to hold an official situation, but he was, like most of his countrymen, at heart a Monophysite, and consequently inclined to oppose the imperial administration, both from religious and political motives. Yet, it appears that a portion of the Monophysite clergy steadily refused to submit to the Persian government ; and Benjamin, their patri- j arch, retired from his residence at Alexandria when that city fell into the hands of the Persians, and did not return until Heraclius had recovered possession of Egypt.² Mokaukas established himself in the city of i Babylon, or Misr, which had grown up, on the decline of Memphis, to be the native capital of the province, - and the chief city in the interior.³ The moment appears to have been extremely favourable for the establishment of an independent state by the Mono- pliysite Egyptians, since, amidst the conflicts of the Persian and Roman empires, the immense revenues ;; and supplies of grain formerly paid to the emperor might have been devoted to the defence of the country. ' But the native population appears, from the conduct • of the patriarch Benjamin, not to have been united

¹                                          P. Rahebi Chronicon Orientate, h J. S. Assemano, 85; edit. Venet. The f mission of the Patrician Nicetas to seize the wealth of John the Charitable I must have taken place before the year 616, as in that year he died on his way ' to Constantinople. Le Beau and Gibbon, on the authority of Baronius in his ,, Annales -Ecclesiasticce, place this event in the year 620; but Petau, in his J Notes to Nieephorus the Patriarch, had observed the anachronism of five years, j Nicephori Pat. Hist. Notaz, 64. See also Le Beau, llistoire du Has-Empire, xi. , r>3. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, c. xlvii. note 147. Assemani Bibliotli. Orient, i iv. 1. Chronicon Orientate, 126, edit. Venet.                                        '

²                                          Chronicon Orientals, .127. “ Abfuit autem sede sua profugus per annos 13, J decem scilicet sub imperio Heraelii quibus Perste, Egyptum et Alexandriam possederant, et tres sub imperio Mohametanorum,” &c. Yet Benjamin is said ^ ¹ to have been banished by lleraclius for ten years.—Renaudot, JJistoria Patri- \ archonim Alexandrinorum Jucobitorum.                             _i

³                                          Strabo (lib. xvii. c. 1. tom. iii. p. 447, edit. Taueli) mentions Babylon as a j fortified town, and one of the stations of the Roman garrison in Egypt. It I occupied the site of Old Cairo, and is famous in the histoiy and poetry of the middle ages                                          Le Beau, xi. 277, notes de S. M.                                    ¹

•TEWS AND SYRIANS.

in its views ; and probably the agricultural classes, _A. _D. though numerous, living in abundance, and firm in ^,)05~^c,v>' their Monophysite tenets, had not the knowledge necessary to aspire at national independence, the strength of character required to achieve it, or the command of the precious metals necessary to purchase the service of mercenary troops and provide the mate­rials of war. They had been so long deprived of arms and of all political rights, that they had probably adopted the opinion prevalent among the subjects of all despotic governments, that public functionaries are invariably knaves, and that the oppression of the native is more grievous than the yoke of a stranger.

The moral defects of the people could certainly, at this favourable conjuncture, alone have prevented the establishment of an independent Egyptian and Jaco­bite state.

^: In Syria and Palestine, the different races who I peopled the country were then, as in our own day, i extremely divided ; and their separation, by language, i manners, interests, and religion, rendered it impos- 1 sible for them to unite for the purpose of gaining any \ object opposed by the imperial government. The Persians had penetrated into Palestine, plundered -Ieru- | Salem, burned the church of the holy sepulchre, and carried off the holy cross with the patriarch Zaclmrias into Persia in the year 61.4.¹ The native Syrians,

I; though they retained their language and literature, and showed the strength of their national character j, by their opposition to the Greek church, seemed not to 'I have constituted the majority of the inhabitants of the |tl province. They were farther divided by their rcli- gious opinions ; for, though generally Monophysites,

I a part was attached to the Nestorian church. Thu t Greeks appeal¹ to have formed the most numerous

¹ Chronicoii J'ltsch. 3S.j.

394

JUSTIN IT.    HERACLIUS.

I

'• class of the population, though they were almost en­tirely confined within the walls of the cities. Many « of them were, doubtless, the direct descendants of the \ colonies which had prospered and increased under the | domination of the Seleucidte. The protection and patronage of the civil and ecclesiastical administra- | tion of the Eastern Empire had preserved these Greek colonies separate from the natives, and supported them by a continual influx of Greeks engaged in the service of the Church and State. But though the Greeks pro- « bably formed the most numerous body of the popula- j tion, yet the circumstances of their composing the ¹ ruling class in the land, united all the other classes in ^? opposition to their authority. Being, consequently, deprived of the support of the agricultural population, and unable to recruit their numbers by an influx from . their rural neighbours, they became more and more aliens in the country, and were alone incapable of offering a long and steady resistance to any foreign enemy, without the constant support of the imperial treasury and armies.           i

The Jews, whose religion and nationality have always supported one another, had, for more than a . century, been increasing very remarkably, both in numbers and wealth, in every part of the civilised world. The wars and rivalry of the various nations ] of conquerors, and of conquered people, in the south ^ J of Europe, had opened to the Jews a freedom of com- t mercial intercourse with all parties, which each nation, moved by national jealousy, refused to its own neigh­bours, and only conceded to a foreign people, of whom 110 political jealousy could be entertained. This cir­cumstance explains the extraordinary increase in the number of the Jews, which becomes apparent, in the seventh century, in Greece, Africa, Spain, and Arabia, by referring it to the ordinary laws of the multiplica- i

•TEWS AND SYRIANS.

tion of the human species, when facilities are found for acquiring augmented supplies of the means of sub­sistence, without inducing us to suppose that the Jews succeeded, during this period, in making more prose­lytes than they had done at other times. This increase of their numbers and wealth soon roused the bigotry and jealousy of the Christians ; while the deplorable condition of the Roman empire, and of the Christian population in the East, inspired the Jews with some expectations of soon re-establishing their national inde­pendence under the expected Messiah. It must be confessed that the desire of availing themselves of the misfortunes of the Roman empire, and of the dissen­sions of the Christian church, was the natural conse­quence of the oppression to which they had long been subjected, but it not unnaturally tended to increase the hatred with which they were viewed, and added to their persecutions.

It is said that about this time a prophecy was cur­rent, which declared that the Roman empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite their own ardour, and assist their projects of rebellion ; but the prophecy was saved from oblivion by the subse­quent conquests of the Saracens, which could never have been foreseen by its authors. The conduct of the Jews excited the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the imperial government, and both Rhocas and Heraclius attempted to exterminate the Jewish religion, and if possible to put an end to the national existence.¹ Heraclius not only practised every species

¹     l'iiitychii Annnlcs Ecclesiast. Alc.rand. ii. 21<>, 2:S<i. The number of I ho Jews at Tyro was 40,000. Their riches appear to have caused their oppres­sion, and the tyranny of their rulers drove them to rebellion. The policy of llenielius contrasts vei-y unfavourably with that of the Gothic kin", Theodoric the Great,, who, about a century before, addressed the .Jews of Genoa in these words, ‘‘ We cannot, command religion, for no one can be compelled to believe if lie be unwilling."—Cassiodorus, \\ty. lib. xii. e. ii. cp 27.

39G

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. of cruelty himself to effect this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made tho forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a pro­minent feature in his diplomacy. He consoled himself for the loss of most of the Roman possessions in Spain, by inducing Sisebut to insert an article in the treaty of peace concluded in G14, engaging the Gothic mon­arch to force baptism on the Jews; and he considered, that even though he failed in persuading the Franks to co-operate with him against the Avars, in the year 020, he had rendered the empire and Christianity some service by inducing Dagobert to join in the project of exterminating the unfortunate Jews.¹

The other portions of the Syrian population aspired at independence, though they did not openly venture to assert it; and during the Persian conquest, the coast of Phoenicia successfully defended itself under the command of its native chiefs.² At a later period, when the Mohammedans invaded the province, many chiefs existed who had attained a considerable degree of local power, and exercised an almost independent authority in their districts.³

As the Roman administration grew weaker in Syria, and the Persian invasions became more frequent, the Arabs gradually acquired many permanent settlements amidst the rest of the inhabitants ; and from the com­mencement of the seventh century, they must be reckoned as an important class of the population. Their power within the Roman provinces was increased by the existence of the two independent Arab king-

¹     There were still Christians who disapproved of the forced conversion of the Jews. Saint Isidore says, “ Sisebutus Judseos adfidem Christianam pennovens fomulationem quidem Dei habuit, sed non scientiain.”—Isidor. Hisp. Ch. Goth. See Aschbach’s Geschichte der Westyotlien, 240.

²     Assemani Bib. Orient, iii. 421 ; and his Bibliotheca Juris Oriented is, vol. vi. e. 20, p. 393.

³     Ockley’s History of the Saraecns, i. 233 ; for Edessa, Theophanes, Ch. 283, and Abou’lfaradj, Ch. Syr. 119.

JEWS AND SYRIANS.

397

doms of Gliassan and Hira, which had been formed in part from territories gained from the Roman and Persian empires. Of these kingdoms, Gliassan was the constant ally or vassal of the Romans ; and Hira was equally attached to, or dependent on Persia. Both were Christian states, though the conversion of Hira took place not very long before the reign of Heraclius, and the greater part of the inhabitants were Jacobites, mixed with some Nestorians.¹ It may be remarked that the Arabs had been gradually advancing in moral and political civilisation during the sixth century, and that their religious ideas had undergone a very great change. The decline of their powerful neighbours had allowed them to increase the importance of the commerce which they retained in their own hands, and its extension cave them more enlarged views of their

•            o       o

own importance, and suggested ideas of national unity which they had not previously entertained. These causes had produced powerful effects 011 the whole of the Arab population during the century which pre­ceded the accession of Heraclius ; and it must not be overlooked that Mahomet himself was born during the reign of Justin II., and that he was educated under the influence of this national excitement.

The country between Syria and Armenia, or that part of ancient Chaldea which was subject to the Romans, had been so repeatedly laid waste during the Persian wars, that the agricultural population was nearly exterminated, or had retired into the Persian provinces. The inhabitants of 110 portion of the em­pire were so eager to throw off their allegiance as the Chaldaic Christians, called by the Greeks Nestorians, who formed the majority of the population of this country.² They had clung firmly to the doctrine of the

¹     Sale's !’>'•;/imittary J>iscour$c U> /he l\or<iu.

*     The Cluvldaic Christians considered, and still onimider, their.' the real

a. n.

o(J5-(Jo3.

30 S

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

ciiai’. iv. two natures of Christ, after its condemnation by the council of Ephesus (a.d. 449), and when they found themselves unable to contend against the temporal power and spiritual influence of the Greeks, they had established an independent church, which directed its attention, with great zeal, to the spiritual guidance of those Christians who dwelt beyond the limits of the Roman empire. The history of their missions, by which churches were established in India and China, is an extremely interesting portion of the annals of Chris­tianity.¹ Their zealous exertions, and their connection with the Christian inhabitants of Persia, induced the Roman emperors to persecute them with great cruelty, from political as well as religious motives ; and this persecution often insured them the favour of the Persian monarehs. Though they did not always escape the bigotry and jealousy of the Persians, still they usually enjoyed equitable protection, and became active enemies both of the Greek church and the Roman empire, though the geographical position and physical configuration of their country afforded them little hope of being able to gain political indepen­dence.²

Armenia was favourably situated for maintaining its independence, as soon as the Persian and Roman empires began to decline. Though the country was divided by these rival governments, the people had

apostolic elmreli, though, like all other Christian churches, it partook largely of a national character. They used the Syriae language in public worship. Their patriarch resided at Seleucia, in Persia. He now resides at a monastery near Mossul. They had many bishops in Syria and Armenia, as well as in Mesopotamia. They were charged with eonfounding the divine and human natures of Christ, and they wished the Virgin Mary to be called the mother of Christ, not, as was then usual, the mother of God. They worshipped no images, and they venerated Nestorius.

¹     Blumliardh. Versuch cincrallgem cincn Missions yescldcltlc tier ICirche, vol. iii.

²     The Jacobites appear not to have been so cruelly persecuted as the Nes­torians, for they were very numerous in Mesopotamia. When the Persians took Edessa they gave up all the churches to the Jacobites.—Elmacin. Hist. Fame. 14.

< 'IIALDAK' CHRIST LANS.

309

preserved their national character, manners, language, .a.p. and literature, in as great a degree of purity as the ^ol),>> Greeks themselves ; and as their higher classes had retained more of wealth, military enterprise, and poli­tical independence, than the nobility of the other nations of the East, their services were very highly estimated by their neighbours. Their reputation for fidelity and military skill induced the Roman em­perors, from the time of Justinian, to raise them to the highest offices in the empire. The Armenians were unable to defend their political independence against its two powerful enemies ; but even after the Romans and Persians had divided their kingdom, they main­tained their national existence unaltered ; and, amidst all the convulsions which have swept over the face of Asia, they have continued to exist as a distinct people, and succeeded in preserving their language and litera­ture. Their national spirit placed them iu opposition to the Greek church, and they adopted the opinions of the Monophysites, though under modifications which gave to their church a national character, and sepa­rated it from that of the Jacobites. Their history is worthy of a more attentive examination than it has yet met with in English literature. Armenia was the first country in which Christianity became the established religion of the land; and the people, under the greatest difficulties, long maintained their independence with the most determined courage ; and after the loss of their political power, they have defended their manners, language, religion, and national character with success, against Persians, Greeks, Saracens, and Turks.¹

¹ I/into)’)/ of Armenia by Father Michael (’Iiamich, translated fmm the | Armenian by J, Avdall : Calcutta, 1S27, 2 vols. flvo. M. do Saint Martin,

1 MGinoires 11 iztnriqucs et GGographiqncs sur tArmcnie, 2 vols. Paris, 1 111 N ; and numerous additions to the edition of Le Beau, /lislm're du Hits- Empire, Paris,

1821, &c., 21 tomes, by the same author. Neumann, Verxueh cim r f.V,

. fler Armeuischcn Litcmtur nnch ilrn werken der Meehilnri^lcn.

iOO

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

ciiAr. iv. Asia Minor had become the chief seat of the Roman power in the time of Heraclius, and the only portion in which the majority of the population was attached to the imperial government and to the Greek church. Before the reign of Phocas, it had escaped any ex­tensive devastation, so that it still retained much of its ancient wealth and splendour; and the social life of the people was still modelled on the institutions and usages of preceding ages. A considerable internal trade was carried on ; and the great roads, being kept in a tolerable state of repair, served as arteries for the circulation of commerce and civilisation. That it had, nevertheless, suffered very severely in the general decline caused by over-taxation, and by reduced commerce, neglected agriculture, and diminished population, is attested by the magnificent ruins of cities which had already fallen to decay, and which never again re­covered their ancient prosperity.

The power of the central administration over its im­mediate officers was almost as completely destroyed in Asia Minor as in the more distant provinces of the em­pire. A remarkable proof of this general disorganisa­tion of the government is found in the history of the early years of the reign of Heraclius ; and one deserv­ing particular attention from its illustrating both his personal character and the state of the empire. Crispus, the son-in-law of Phocas, had materially assisted Hera­clius in obtaining the throne ; and as a recompense, he was charged with the administration of Cappadocia, one of the richest provinces of the empire, along with the chief command of the troops in his government.¹ Crispus, a man of influence, and of a daring, heedless character, soon ventured to act, not only with indepen­dence, but even with insolence, towards the emperor.²

¹ Justinian attests the wealth and importance of Cappadocia.—Novell, xxx.

- llis character warrants Gibbon’s conjecture, that he may have been the

HERACLIUS.

401

He neglected the defence of his province; and when a. r i Heraclius visited Cesarea to examine into its state I and prepare the means of carrying on the war against i Persia in person, he displayed a spirit of insubordina­tion and an assumption of importance which amount­ed to treason. Heraclius, who possessed the means of restraining his fiery temperament, visited the too powerful officer in his bed, which he kept under a slight or affected illness, and persuaded him to visit Constantinople. On his appearance in the senate, he was arrested, and compelled to become a monk. His authority and position rendered it absolutely necessary for Heraclius to punish his presumption, before he could advance with safety against the Persians. Many less important personages, in various parts of the em­pire, acted with equal independence, without the em­peror’s considering that it was either necessary to observe, or prudent to punish, their ambition. The decline of the power of the central government, the increasing ignorance of the people, the augmented difficulties in the way of communication, and the ¹ general insecurity of property and life, effected ex­tensive changes in the state of society, and threw political influence into the hands of the local governors, the municipal and provincial chiefs, and the whole body of the clergy.

Prisons who figured in Ilia reign of Maurice. — J>rr,linr and Fall, xlvi, note 52. Niccphorna l’ut. (1), and Codrenus (i. *100, edit. l’;u\) call the .son-in-law of Phocas, Crispus. Theoplianes (2K3, 218) and Zoiiaras (ii. 81) call him Prisons ; but Zonaras (p. 82, 83) distinguishes the governor of Cappadocia, whom he calls Crispus.

i

402

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

SECT. VI. — CHANGE IN THE POSITION OF THE GREEK POPULATION, WHICH WAS PRODUCED BY THE SCLAVONIC ESTABLISHMENTS IN DALMATIA.

Heraclius appears to have formed the plan of esta­blishing a permanent barrier in Europe against the en­croachments of the Avars and Selavonians. For the furtherance of this project, it was evident that he could derive no assistance from the inhabitants of the provinces to the south of the Danube. The imperial armies, too, which, in the time of Maurice, had waged an active war in Illyria and Thrace, and frequently invaded the terri­tories of the Avars, had melted away during the dis­orders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable : for, in Europe, 110 agricultural population remained to supply the recruits required to form a new army.¹ The only feasible plan for circumscribing the ravages of the northern enemies of the empire which presented itself, was the establishment of powerful colonies of tribes hostile to the Avars and their eastern Sclavonian allies, in the deserted provinces of Dalmatia and Illyria. To accomplish this object, Heraclius induced the Serbs, or western Selavonians, who occupied the country about the Carpathian Mountains, and who had successfully opposed the extension of the Avar empire in that direc­tion, to abandon their ancient seats, and move down to the South into the provinces between the Adriatic and the Danube. The Roman and Greek population of these provinces had been driven towards the sea coast by the continual incursions of the northern tribes, and the desolate plains of the interior had been occupied by a few Sclavonian subjects and vassals of the Avars.

¹ The Dalmatian cities sent every year 1000 cavalry to assist in guarding the passage of the Danube.—Constantinus Porphyr. Dc AJm. Imp. c. 30, p. 141, edit. Bonn.

SERVIAN COLONIES.

The most important of the western Sclavonian tribes iiov, _r who moved southward at the invitation of Heraclius s ix f were the Servians and Croatians, who settled in the countries still peopled by their descendants. Their original settlements were formed in consequence of ^?ta‘ friendly arrangements, and, doubtless, under the sanc­tion of an express treaty ; for the Sclavonian people ^{1            anc}^ Dalmatia long regarded themselves as

i bound to pay a certain degree of territorial allegiance ^lCes to the Eastern Empire.¹

^;0°^! The measures of Heraclius were carried into execution ^rar I with skill and vigour. From the borders of Istria to ⁿ' j the territory of Dyrrachium, the whole country was ¹⁵' occupied by a variety of tribes of Servian or western ^e: , Sclavonic origin, hostile to the Avars. These colonies, j unlike the earlier invaders of the empire, were composed j*^e , of agricultural communities ; and to the facility which this circumstance afforded them of adopting into their ' political system any remnant of the old Sclavonic popu­lation of their conquests, it seems just to attribute the permanency and prosperity of their settlements. Un- ■°< like the military races of Goths, Huns, and Avars, who ^ had preceded them, the Servian nations increased and ^ | flourished in the lands which they had colonised ; and 1)’ ■ by the absorption of every relic of the ancient popu-

>    j lation, they formed political communities and indepen-

o     dent states, which offered a firm barrier to the Avars d and other hostile nations.

It may here be observed, that if the original population of the countries colonised by the Servian nations had at an earlier period been relieved from the weight of the imperial taxes, which encroached on their capital, and from the jealous oppression of the Homan government, which prevented their bearing arms ; in short, if they had been allowed to enjoy all the advantages which

¹ Const. Porphyr. Jjc Adminislrando Ini/'crio, c. 31-30.

401

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. Heraclius was compelled to concede to the Servians, j < we may reasonably suppose that they could have sue- \ i¹ cessfully defended their country. But after the most , | < destructive ravages of the Goths, Huns, and Avars, the ‘ 1¹ imperial tax-gatherers had never failed to enforce pay- j > ment of the tribute as long as anything remained un- ' destroyed, though, according to the rules of justice, the * Roman government had really forfeited its right to levy » the taxes, as soon as it failed to perform its duty in de­fending the population.

The modern history of the eastern shores of the Adriatic commences with the establishment of the Scla- » vonian colonies in Dalmatia. Though, in a territorial ) point of view, vassals of the court of Constantinople, * these colonies always preserved the most complete na- J tional independence, and formed their own political i governments, according to the exigencies of their situ-1 ation. The states which they constituted were of con- | siderable weight in the history of Europe ; and the kingdoms or bannats of Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Rascia, | and Dalmatia, occupied for some centuries a political \ position very similar to that now held by the secondaiy ? monarchical states of the present day. The people of f Narenta, who enjoyed a republican form of government, * once disputed the sway of the Adriatic with the Yene- ju tians ; and, for some time, it appeared probable that i these Servian colonies established by Heraclius were |¹! likely to take a jDrominent part in advancing the pro- 'IK gress of European civilisation.       ¹

But, although the ancient provinces of Dalmatia, \' Illyricum, and Moesia, received a new race of inhabi­tants, and new geographical divisions and names, still several fortified towns on the Adriatic continued to maintain their immediate connection with the impe­rial government, and preserved their original joopula- ^ tion, augmented by numbers of Roman citizens whose j

SERVIANS.

405

wealth enabled them to escape from the Avar invasions and gain the coast. These towns long supported their municipal independence by means of the commerce which they carried 011 with Italy, and defended them­selves against their Servian neighbours by the advan­tages which they derived from the vicinity of the numerous islands 011 the Dalmatian coast. For two centuries and a half they continued, though surrounded by Servian tribes, to preserve their direct allegiance to the throne of Constantinople, until at length, in the reign of the Emperor Basil I., they were compelled to become tributary to their Sclavonic neighbours.¹ Ea- gusa alone ultimately obtained and secured its inde­pendence, which it preserved amidst all the vicissi­tudes of the surrounding countries, until its liberty was finally destroyed by the French, when the con­quests of Napoleon annihilated the existence of most of the smaller European republics.

It seems hardly possible that the western Sclavonians, who entered Dalmatia under the various names of Ser­vians, Croatians, Narentins, Zachloumians, Terbounians, Diocleans, and Decatrians, constituted the whole stock of the population. Their numbers could hardly be sufficient to form more than the dominant race at the time of their arrival; and, depopulated as the country was, they probably found some remains of a primitive Sclavonian people who had inhabited the same coun­tries from the earliest periods of history. The remnant of these ancient inhabitants, even if they had been re­duced to the condition of agricultural serfs or slaves,

¹ a. r>. S67-886. Const. Forphyr. De Adm. Imp. c. 30 (vol. iii. 147, edit. Bonn.) The small annual tribute paid by these towns to the Eastern Empe­rors, and afterwards to the Sclavonian princes, may be considered as a proof of their poverty on the one hand, and of their virtual independence 011 the other. In either case it is deserving of particular attention, as an illustration of the state of society. Aspalathus (Spalatro) paid 200 pieces of gold ; 'iVLranguriuin (Trau), Opsara, Arbe, Vekla, each 100 ; Jadera, which is represented by the modern Zara, 110 ; and Uagusa, for tl le rural district possessed bv its citizens, 72.

40G

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

(.hap. iv. would survive tiie miseries which exterminated their

       masters ; and they had doubtless mingled with the

invaders of a kindred race from the northern banks of the Danube, who, ever since the reign of Justinian, had pushed their incursions into the empire. With these people the ruling class of Servian Sclavonians would easily unite without violating any national pre­judice. The consequence was natural; the various branches of the population were soon confounded, and their numbers rapidly increased as they melted into one people. The Romans, who at one period had formed a large portion of the inhabitants of these countries, gradually died out, while the Illyrians, who were the neighbours of these colonies to the south, were ultimately pushed down on that part of the con­tinent occupied by the Greeks.

From the settlement of the Servian Sclavonians with- ¹ in the bounds of the empire, we may therefore venture to date the earliest encroachments of the Illyrian or i Albanian race on the Hellenic population. The Alba-' nians or Arnauts, who are now called by themselves ' Skiptars, are supposed to be remains of the great Thra­cian race which, under various names, and more parti­cularly as Paionians, Epirots, and Macedonians, take an important part in early Grecian history.¹ No dis­tinct trace of the period at which they began to be co-proprietors of Greece with the Hellenic race can be . found in history; but it is evident that, at whatever ' time it occurred, the earliest Illyrian or Albanian colo­nists who settled among the Greeks did so as members of the same political state, and of the same church ; that they were influenced by precisely the same feel­ings and interests, and, what is even more remarkable,

¹ Tbe numbers of the Albanian race are at present estimated by Schafarik not to exceed one million and a half. The Wallachians, Moldavians, and Transylvanians, are composed of a mixture of the true Thracians with Romans and Sclavonians.—Schafarik, >Sl arim'Ite Allerthtimer, vol. i. p. 31.          ¹

ILLYRIANS OR ALBANIANS.

407

that their intrusion occurred under such circumstances that no national prejudices or local jealousies were excited in the susceptible minds of the Greeks. A common calamity of no ordinary magnitude must have produced these wonderful effects ; and it seems very difficult to trace back the history of the Greek nation, without suspecting that the germs of their modern condition, like those of their neighbours, are to be sought in the singular events which occurred in the reign of Heraclius.¹

The power of the Avar monarchy had already de­clined, but the prince or great khakan was still ac­knowledged as suzerain, from the frontiers of Bavaria to the Dacian Alps, which bound Transylvania and the Bannat, and as far as the shores of the Black Sea, about the mouth of the Danube. The Sclavonian, Bulgarian, and Hunnish tribes, which occupied the country between the Danube and the Wolga, and who had been the earliest subjects of the Avars in Europe, had re-asserted their independence. The actual numeri­cal strength of the Avar nation had never been very great, and their barbarous government everywhere thinned the original population of the lands which they con­quered. The remnant of the old inhabitants, driven by poverty and desperation to abandon all industrious pursuits, soon formed bands of robbers, and quickl}' became as warlike and as numerous as the Avar troops stationed to awe their districts. In a succes­sion of skirmishes and desultoiy engagements, the Avars soon ceased to maintain their superiority, and

¹ The great social distinction which has always existed in the East between the population of the city and of the country, has facilitated the changes and translocations of the rural population.

Sonic valuable works have been lately published on the history and language of Albania. AIbancsische Studien, by Dr Von Hahn, who resided in the country as Austrian Consul, is a valuable volume on this almost unknown subject. Bopp has published a Memoir on the Albanian language in tin- Mfim irs o/’ihe Academy of Berlin.

a. n. 5(1.5 (i:5;3.

408

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. the Avar monarchy fell to pieces with nearly as great rapidity as it had arisen. Yet, in the reign of Hera­clius, the khakan could still assemble a variety of tribes under his standard whenever he proposed to make a plundering expedition into the provinces of the em­pire.¹

It seems impossible to decide, from any historical evidence, whether the measures adopted hy Heraclius to circumscribe the Avar power, by the settlement of the Servian Selavonians in Illyria, preceded or follow­ed a remarkable act of treachery attempted by the Avar monarch against the emperor. If Heraclius had then succeeded in terminating his arrangements with the Servians, the dread of having their power reduced may have appeared to the Avars some apology for an attempt at treachery, too base even for the ordinary latitude of savage revenge and avidity, but which we find repeated by a Byzantine emperor against a king of Bulgaria two centuries later.² In the year 619, the Avars made a terrible incursion into the heart of the empire. They advanced so far into Thrace, that when Heraclius proposed a personal meeting with their sove­reign, in order to arrange the terms of peace, Heraclea (Perinthus), on the Sea of Marmora, was selected as a convenient spot for the interview. The emperor ad­vanced as far as Selymbria, accompanied by a brilliant train of attendants ; and preparations were made to amuse the barbarians with a theatrical festival. The avarice of the Avars was excited, and their sove­reign, thinking that any act by which so dangerous an enemy as Heraclius could be removed was pardonable, determined to seize the person of the emperor, while his troops plundered the imperial escort. The great wall was so carelessly guarded, that large bodies of

¹     Georgii Fisicljr TJcIlnni si rrtricnw, v. 197. a. D. 813. llyznntinc Empire, vol. i. 135.

n

AVARS.

409

Avar soldiers passed it unnoticed or unheeded ; but s their movements at last awakened the suspicion of the

I     court, and Heraclius was compelled to fly in disguise to Constantinople, leaving his tents, his theatre, and | his household establishment, to be pillaged by his treacherous enemies. The followers of the emperor were pursued to the very walls of the capital, and the crowd assembled to grace the festival, became the slaves of the Avars, who carried off an immense booty, and two hundred and seventy thousand prisoners.¹ The weakness of the empire was such, that Heraclius considered it politic to overlook even this .insult, and instead of attempting to efface the stain on his reputa­tion, which his ridiculous flight could not fail to pro­duce, he allowed the affair to pass unnoticed. He con­tinued his preparations for attacking Persia, as it was evident that the fate of the Roman empire depended 011 the success of the Avar in Asia. To secure himself as much as possible from any diversion in Europe, he condescended to renew his negotiations with the Avars, and by making many sacrifices, he succeeded in con­cluding a peace on what he vainly hoped might be a lasting basis.

Several years later, however, when Heraclius was ₍ absent on the frontiers of Persia, the Avars considered * the moment favourable for renewing hostilities, and formed the project of attempting the conquest of Con­* stantinople, in conjunction with a Persian army, which advanced to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus.² The khakan of the Avars, with a powerful army of his own subjects, aided by bands of Sclavonians, Bulgarians, and Huns, attacked the capital by land, while the Persian army endeavoured to afford him every possible

' ¹ Nicephorus, Dp. Reims }>osf Mauricium <jrsttx, p. 10. It is difficult to read tliis account of the numbers of the prisoners without :i suspicion that, some ‘ important fact is concealed.

410

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. assistance by investing the Asiatic suburb ancl cutting off all supplies on that side. Their combined attacks were defeated by the garrison of Constantinople, with­out Heraclius considering it necessary to retrace his steps, or turn back from his career of conquest in the East. The naval superiority of the Roman govern­ment prevented the junction of its enemies, and the Avars were at last compelled to effect a precipitate retreat. This siege of Constantinople is the last memorable exploit of the Avar nation recorded by the Byzantine historians ; their power rapidly declined, and the people soon became so completely lost amidst the Sclavonian and Bulgarian inhabitants of their dominions, that an impenetrable veil is noAV cast over the history of their race and language. The Bulgarians, who had already acquired some degree of power, began to render themselves the ruling people among the Hunnish nations between the Danube and the Don ; and, from this time, they appear in history as the most danger­ous enemies of the Roman empire on its northern frontier.

Before Heraclius commenced the arrangements by w^Thich he induced the western Sclavonians to settle in Illyria, numerous bodies of the Avars and their Sclavonic subjects had already penetrated into Greece, and established themselves even as far south as the Peloponnesus.¹ No precise evidence of the extent to Avliich the Avars succeeded in pushing their conquests in Greece can now be obtained ; but there are testi­monies which establish with certainty that their Sclavonic subjects retained possession of these con­quests for many centuries. The political and social condition of these Sclavonic colonies on the Hellenic soil, utterly escapes the research of the historian ; but

¹     Leake's Researches in Greece, 376. Tafc!, De Thessalonica Vroleg. lxxviii. lxxxvii. 70. Theoplianes, Ch. 385.

L

SCLAVONIANS IN GREECE.

411

their power and influence in Greece was, for a long time, very great. The passages of the Greek writers which refer to these conquests are so scanty, and so vague in expression, that it becomes the duty of the modern historian to pass them in review, particularly since they have been employed with much ability by a German writer, to prove that “ the Hellenic race in Europe has been exterminated,” and that the modern Greeks are a mixed race composed of the descendants of Roman slaves and Sclavonian colonists.¹ This opinion, it is true, lias been combated with great learning by one of his countrymen, who asserts that the ingenious dissertation of his predecessor is nothing more than a plausible theory.² We must therefore examine for ourselves the scanty records of historical truth during this dark period.

The earliest mention of the Avar conquests in Greece occurs in the Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius of Epiphania, in Coele-Syria, who wrote at the end of the sixth century.³ He mentions that, while the forces of the Emperor Maurice were engaged in the East, the Avars advanced to the great wall before Constanti­nople, captured Singidon, Anchiahis, and all Greece, and laid waste everything with fire and sword.⁴ These incursions took place in the years 588 and 589, but no inference could be drawn from this vague and incidental

¹     Geschichte dcr halbinsd Morea wcihrend dcs Mittelalters, von Prof. Fall merayer, preface, and pp. 170—199.

²     Geschichte Griechenlands, von J. W. Zinkeisen, p. 837.

llis history ends with the year 593, and he is supposed to have died not long afterwards.

⁴     Evagrii Ilist. Eccles. vi. 10, cum adnotat. Valesii. Tafel, Thesscilonica Proleg. Ixx. Zinkeisen, 699. Fallmerayer, i. 1S5. Evagrius appears to men­tion Singidon, on the extreme western frontier of the empire, and Anehialus, on the Mack Sea, in conjunction with all Greece, because his rhetoric and his courtly tone prevented him from telling his readers plainly that the Avars laid waste every province in Europe. A proof that some considerable change took place in the condition of the Greek population of the Peloponnesus during the reign of Mauriec, exists 111 the fact that Monemvasia was then raised to the rank of a Metropolitan see.—Phrantzes, 39;), edit, lionn. l.oquien, Orkns Christ I anus, ii. 216.

A. D.

56o-633.

412

.TUSTIN ir.—HERACLIUS.

chap, tv. notice of an Avar plundering incursion so casually

       mentioned in favour of the permanent settlement of

Sclavonian colonies in Greece, had this passage not re­ceived considerable importance from later authorities. The testimony of Evagrius is confirmed in a very re­markable manner by a letter of the patriarch of Con­stantinople, Nicolaus, to the emperor Alexius Comnenus in the year 1081.¹ The patriarch mentions that the emperor Nicephorus (a. d. 802-811) had granted vari­ous concessions to the episcopal see of Patras, in con­sequence of the miraculous aid which Saint Andrew had afforded that city in destroying the Avars, who had held possession of the greater part of the Pelopon­nesus for two hundred and eighteen years, and had so completely separated their conquests from the Roman empire that no Roman (that is to say Greek connected with the imperial administration) dared to enter the country. Now this siege of Patras is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and its date is fixed in the year 807; consequently, these Avars, who had conquer­ed the Peloponnesus two hundred and eighteen years before that event, must have arrived precisely in the year 589, at the very period indicated by Evagrius.² The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus repeatedly mentions the Sclavonian colonies in the Peloponnesus, though he never affords any accurate information con­cerning the period at which they entered the country. In his work on the provinces of the empire, he informs us that the whole country was subdued and rendered barbarous after the great plague in the reign of Con­stantine Copronymus, an observation which implies that the complete extermination of the rural popula­tion of Hellenic race, and the establishment of the political power of the Sclavonic colonies, and their

¹     Leunclavius, Jus Grceco-Romanian, i. 278.

²     Constantinus Porpliyr. J>e Adm. Imp. c. 49, iii. 217; edit. Bonn.

SCLAVONIANS IN GREECE.

413

assumption of total independence in Greece, dated „ a. from that period.¹ It is evident that they acquired * great power, and became an object of alarm to the em­perors, a few years later. In the reign of Constan­tine VI., an expedition was sent against them at a time when they possessed great part of the country from the frontiers of Macedonia to the southern limits of the Peloponnesus.² Indeed the fortified towns alone appear to have remained in the possession of the Greeks.³

It seems surprising that no detailed account of the important change in the condition and fortunes of the Greek race, which these facts imply, is contained in the Byzantine historians. Yet, when we reflect that these Sclavonic colonies never united into one state, nor pursued any fixed line of policy in their attacks on the empire; and when we recall to mind also that the Byzantine historians occupied themselves so little with the real history of mankind as to pass over the Lom­bard invasion of Italy without notice, our wonder must cease. All the Greek writers who mention this period of history were men connected either with the Constantinopolitan government, or with the orthodox church; and they were consequently destitute of every feeling of Greek nationality, and viewed the agricultu­ral population of ancient Hellas as a rude and degene­rate race of semi-barbarians, little superior to the Scla- vonians, with whom they were carrying on a desultory warfare. As comparatively little revenue could, in the time of Heraclius, be drawn from Greece, that emperor never seems to have occupied himself about its fate ; and the Greeks escaped the extermination with which they were threatened by their Avar and Sclavonian

¹     a. n. 710. Const. Porphyr. I)e Thcmatibus, ii. e. (>.

²     a. d. 783. Theopliaues, C'h. 385. See also the Epitome to Strabo, in the edition of Alnieloveen. Amst. 1707, pp. 1251, 121)1.

³     Joannina maintained itself always as a Greek city.—Leake'.- I'nirtls in Aortlurn Gnccc, iv. 202.

I

JUSTIN I].'—HERACLIUS.

cn.u*. iv. invaders, through the neglect, and not in consequence of the assistance, of the imperial government. The Avars made considerable exertions to complete the conquest of Greece by carrying their predatory ex­peditions into the Archipelago. They attacked the eastern coast, which had hitherto been secure from their invasions, and, to execute this design, they ob­tained shipbuilders from the Lombards, and launched a fleet of plundering barks in the iEgean Sea. The general danger of the islands and commercial cities of Greece roused the spirit of the inhabitants, who united for the defence of their property, and the plans of the Avars proved unsuccessful.¹ The Greeks, however, were long exposed to the plundering Sclavonians on one side, and to the rapacity of the imperial govern­ment on the other; and their success in preserving- some portion of their commercial wealth and political influence, is to be attributed to the efficacy of their municipal organisation, and to the weakness of the central government, which could 110 longer prevent their bearing arms for their own defence.

SECT. VII.—INFLUENCE OF TIIE CAMPAIGNS OF HERACLIUS IN THE EAST.

The personal character of Heraclius must have exer­cised great influence on the events of his reign. Un­fortunately, the historians of his age have not conveyed to posterity any very accurate picture of the peculiar traits of his mind. His conduct shows that he possessed judgment, activity, and courage ; and, though he was sometimes imprudent and rash, at others he displayed an equanimity and force of character in repressing his passion, which mark him to have been really a great

¹ Paulas Diaconus, L>c Gestis Lamjob. iv. 21. Tafel, Thessalunica Prolcy. lxxiii. lxxix.

CHARACTER OF HERACLIUS.

415

man.¹ In the opinion of his contemporaries, his fame was sullied by two indelible stains. His marriage with his niece Martina was regarded as incestuous, and his religious edicts, by which he proposed to regulate the faith of his subjects, were branded as heretical. Both were serious errors of policy in a prince who was so dependent 011 public opinion for support in his great scheme of restoring the lost power of the Boman em­pire ; yet the constancy of his affection for his wife, and the immense importance of reconciling all the ad­verse sects of Christians within the empire in common measures of defence against external enemies, may form some apology for these errors. The patriarch of Constantinople remonstrated against his marriage with his niece ; but the power of the emperor was still ab­solute over the persons of the ecclesiastical function­aries of the empire ; and Heraclius, though he allowed the bishop to satisfy his conscience by stating his ob­jections, commanded him to practise his civil duties, and celebrate the marriage of his sovereign. The pre­tensions of papal Bome had not yet arisen in the Christian church.² The Patriarch Sergius does not appear to have been deficient in zeal or courage, and Heraclius was not free from the religious bigotry of his age. Both knew that the established church was a part of the State, and that though in matters of doctrine the general councils put limits to the impe-

¹     Ilis cruelty to I’hoeas only proves that he partook of the barbarous feelings of his age. A religious strain runs through his letters, which are preserved in the Paschal Chronicle, and in the speeches reported by Theoplianes, which have an air of authenticity. It is true that this style may have been the oflicial language of an emperor, who felt himself so peculiarly the head of the Chris­tian church, and the champion of the orthodox faith. Persia was his ecclesi­astical as well as his political enemy.

^a The power of Gregory the Great was so small that he durst not consecrate a bishop without the eonscnt of his enemy the emperor Maurice ; and he was forced to obey the edict forbidding all persons to quit public employments in order to become monks, and prohibiting soldiers during the period of their service from being received into monasteries.—Floury, Hist. l£cclcsiust.\. ;55, 50; 36, 43.

a. r>. 5(j5-(i33.

416

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

Cl IA P. IV. rial authority, yet, in the executive direction of the l| is

       clergy, the emperor was nearly absolute, and possessed f

full power to remove the patriarch had he ventured to ir disobey his orders. As the marriage of Heraclius with Martina was within the prohibited degrees, it was an a ' act of unlawful compliance on the part of Sergius to jj celebrate the nuptials, for the duty of the patriarch as j o| a Christian priest was surely, in such a case, of more : importance than his obedience as a Roman subject.                                              n

The early part of the reign of Heraclius was devoted ij to reforming the administration and recruiting the army. 3 He tried every means of obtaining peace with Persia i in vain, and even allowed the senate to make an inde- _3! pendent attempt to enter into negotiations with Chos- p roes.¹ For twelve years, the Persian armies ravaged 1 the empire almost without encountering any opposition, « from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Bosphorus, j ₀ It is impossible to explain in what manner Heraclius p employed his time during this interval, but it is evident 5 that he was engaged by many cares besides those of ¹ _? preparing for his war with Persia. The independent [ negotiation which the senate attempted with Persia, seems to indicate that the Roman aristocracy had suc­ceeded in encroaching on the emperor’s authority during the general confusion which reigned in the administra- 8 j tion after the fall of Maurice, and that he may have J¹ been occupied with a political contest at home, before ; he could attend to the exigencies of the Persian war.

As no civil hostilities appear to have broken out, the { circumstance is not recorded in the meagre chronicles _t of his reign. This may perhaps seem a random con- J jecturc, which ought not to find a place in a historical work; but when the state of the Roman administration y' at the close of the reign of Heraclius is compared with ,[

the confusion in which he found it at his accession, it J

i

¹ Chronicon Pasclude, 387.    I

;l

I

ft

CAMPAIGNS OF HERACLIUS.    417

is evident, that he had succeeded in effecting a great political change, and in infusing new vigour into the j weakened fabric of the government.

When Heraclius had settled the internal affairs of his empire, filled his military chest, and re-established the discipline of the Koman armies, he commenced a series of campaigns, which entitle him to rank as one of the greatest military commanders whose deeds are recorded in history.¹ The great object which he proposed to himself in his first campaign, was to render himself master of a line of communications extending from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the Mediterranean,

' and resting on positions in Pontus and Cilicia.² The

I     Persian armies, which had advanced into Asia Minor [' and occupied Ancyra, would, by this manoeuvre, be i,( separated from supplies and reinforcements on their s.)'; own frontiers, and Heraclius would have it in his is| power to attack their troops in detail. The rapidity of his itmovements rendered his plan successful; the Persians id | were compelled to fight in the positions chosen by it Heraclius, and were completely defeated. In the second iajj campaign, the emperor pushed forward into the heart 10 of Persia from his camp in Pontus.³ Ganzaca was ii!!* captured; Thebarmes, the birthplace of Zoroaster, with ra-. its temple and fire-altars, was destroyed; and after ive. laying waste the northern part of Media, Heraclius oit f retired to Albania, where he placed his army in winter s^[ quarters. This campaign proved to the world that the tlii Persian empire was in the same state of internal weak- cles ness as the Roman, and equally incapable of offering

^ , ’ ¹ The industry of Le Dean, the learning of Gibbon, and the sagacity of ilCJi i D’Anville, have been employed in illustrating the chronology and geography of

•    the campaigns of Heraclius; but something still requires to be done to enable W* j us to follow his steps with certainty, and the labour of a scholar might lie. Jjl _t advantageously bestowed on this interesting period. D’Anville and Gibbon , place Ganzaca at Tabreez, but Colonel Kawlinson has given reasons for placing flj it at Takht-i-Soleiman.—Journal 11. Geo<jraj>h. Hoc. vol. x. The site of Tln*- barnies is generally placed at Urimiyeh.

² a. ix (jii’J.    *      ³ a. D.

2       D

A. D.

418

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

iv. any popular or national resistance to an active and ~ enterprising enemy.¹ The third and fourth campaigns were occupied in laborious marches and severe battles, in which Heraclius proved himself both a brave soldier and an able general. Under his miidance, the Roman

<D          O       ⁷

troops recovered all their ancient superiority in war. At the end of the third campaign, he established their winter quarters in the Persian dominions, and at the conclusion of the fourth he led his army back into Asia Minor, to winter behind the Halys, that he might be able to watch the movements concerted between the Persians and the Avars, for the attack of Constan­tinople. The fifth campaign was at first suspended by the presence of the Persian army on the shores of the Bosphorus, in order to assist the Avars in the siege of Constantinople. Heraclius, having divided his forces into three armies, sent one to the relief of Constanti­nople ; the second, which he placed under the command of his brother Theodore, defeated the Persians in a great battle ; and with the third he took up a position in Iberia, where he waited to hear that the Khazars had invaded Persia. As soon as he was informed that his Turkish allies had passed the Caspian gates, and was assured that the attempt on his capital had failed, he hastened to advance into the very heart of the Persian empire, and to seek his rival in his palace. The sixth campaign opened with the Roman army in the plains of Assyria; and, after laying waste some of the richest provinces of the Persian empire, Heraclius marched through the country to the east of the Tigris,

¹ Gibbon countenances the opinion that Heraclius penetrated as far as Ispahan, but this rests on a very doubtful conjecture.— Chap. xlvi. vol. v. 403. In order to gain allies against I’ersia, Heraclius promised his daughter in mar­riage to the son of the king, or chief, of the Khazars, a Turkish tribe who were, for some centuries, powerful in the countries between the Black Sea and the Caspian.—Le Beau, xi. 115,—Notes de S. M.

“ A senator of Rome, while Rome survived,

Would not have match’d his daughter with a king.”

CAMPAIGNS OF HERACLIUS.

410

and captured the palace of Dastargerd, where the Persian monarchs had accumulated the greatest part of their enormous treasures, in a position always regarded as secure from any foreign enemy. Chosroes fled at the approach of the Roman army, and his flight became a signal for the rebellion of his generals. Heraclius pushed forward to within a few miles of Ctesiphon, and then found that his success would be more certain by watching the civil dissensions of the Persians, than by risking an attack on the populous capital of their empire with his diminished army. The emperor led his army back to Ganzaca in the month of March, and the seventh spring terminated the war. Chosroes was seized and murdered by his rebellious son Siroes, and a treaty of peace was concluded with the Roman emperor. The ancient frontiers of the two empires were re-estab­lished, and the holy cross, which the Persians had carried off from Jerusalem, was restored to Heraclius, with the seals of the case which contained it unbroken.¹

Heraclius had repeatedly declared that he did not desire to make any conquest of Persian territory.² His conduct when success had crowned his exertions, and when his enemy was ready to purchase his retreat at any price, proves the sincerity and justice of his policy. His empire required not only a lasting peace to recover from the miseries of the late war, but also many reforms in the civil and religious administration, which could only be completed during such a peace, in order to restore the vigour of the government. Twenty-four years of a war, which had proved, in turns, unsuccessful to every nation engaged in it, had impoverished and diminished

¹     See tlic chronology of the campaigns of Heraclius in the table at the com­mencement of this volume.

If the site now shown as that of the Holy Sepulchre lie supposititious, no period was better adapted to the fraud than the reign of Heraclius, yet even then it appears impossible.—See “Observations on the Site of the lloly Sepulchre.” Appendix, No. III.

^a Chronicun I'asdiale, 101.

420

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. the population of a great part of Europe and Asia. Public institutions and buildings, roads, ports, and commerce, had fallen into decay; the physical power of governments had declined; and the utility of a cen­tral political authority became less and less apparent to mankind. Even the religious opinions of the subjects of the Roman and Persian empires had been shaken by the misfortunes which had happened to what each sect regarded as the talisman of its faith. The ignorant Christians viewed the capture of Jerusalem, and the loss of the holy cross, as indicating the wrath of heaven and the downfall of religion; and the fire-worshippers considered the destruction of Thebarmes, and the ex­tinction of the sacred fire, as an irreparable evil, and ominous of the annihilation of every good principle on earth. Both the Persians and the Christians had so long regarded their faith as a portion of the State, and reckoned political and military power as the inseparable allies of their ecclesiastical establishments, that they considered their religious misfortune as a proof of the divine reprobation. Both the orthodox magians and the orthodox Christians believed that they saw the abomination of desolation in their holy places, and their traditions and their prophets told them that this was the sign which was to herald the approach of the last great and terrible day.

The fame of Heraclius would have rivalled that of Alexander, Hannibal, or Caesar, had he expired at Jerusalem, after the successful termination of the Persian war. He had established peace throughout the empire, restored the strength of the Roman govern­ment, revived the power of Christianity in the East, and replanted the holy cross on Mount Calvary. His glory admitted of 110 addition. Unfortunately, the succeeding years of his reign have, in the general opinion, tarnished his fame. Yet these years were de-

REFORMS OF HERACLIUS.

421

voted to many arduous labours ; and it is to the wisdom with which he restored the strength of his govern­ment during this time of peace that we must attribute the energy of the Asiatic Greeks who arrested the great tide of Mohammedan conquest at the foot of Mount Taurus. Though the military glory of Hera­clius was obscured by the brilliant victories of the Sara­cens, still his civil administration ought to receive its meed of praise, when we compare the resistance made by the empire which he reorganised with the facility which the followers of Mahomet found in extending their conquests over every other land from India to Spain.

The policy of Heraclius was directed to the establish­ment of a bond of union, which should connect all the provinces of his empire into one body, and he hoped to replace the want of national unity by identity of religious belief. The church was far more closely con­nected with the people than any other institution, and the emperor, as political head of the church, hoped to direct a well-organised body of churchmen. But Hera­clius engaged in the impracticable task of imposing a rule of faith on his subjects, without assuming the office, or claiming the authority of a prophet or a saint. Ilis measures, consequently, like all ecclesiastical and religious reforms, which are adopted solely from poli­tical motives, only produced additional discussions and difficulties. In the year G30, he propounded the doc­trine “that in Christ, after the union of the two natures, there was but one will and one operation.” Without gaining over any great body of the schismatics whom he wished to restore to the communion of the establish­ed church, by his new rule of faith, he was himself generally stigmatised as a heretic. The epithet mono- thelite was applied to him and to his doctrine, to show that neither was orthodox. In the hope of putting an

422

JVRTTN TT.  HERACLIUS.

cttap. iv. encl to the disputes which he had rashly awakened, he again, in G39, attempted to legislate for the church, and published his celebrated Ecthesis, which, though it attempts to remedy the effects of his prior proceedings, by forbidding all controversy on the question of the single or double operation of the will in Christ, never­theless includes a declaration in favour of unity.¹ The bishop of Bome, already aspiring after an increase of his spiritual authority, though perhaps not yet contem­plating the possibility of perfect independence, entered actively into the opposition excited by the publication of the Ecthesis, and was supported by a considerable party in the Eastern church, while he directed the pro­ceedings of the whole of the Western clergy.

On a careful consideration of the religious position of the empire, it cannot appear surprising that Ilera- clius should have endeavoured to reunite the Nes- torians, Eutychians, and Jacobites, to the established church, particularly when we remember how closely the influence of the church was connected with the administration of the State, and how completely reli­gious passions replaced national feelings in these secondary ages of Christianity. The union was an in­dispensable step to the re-establishment of the imperial power in the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia ; and it must not be overlooked that the theological speculations and ecclesiastical reforms of Heraclius were approved of by the wisest councillors whom he had been able to select to aid him in the government of the empire. The state of society re­quired some strong remedy, and Heraclius only erred in adopting the plan which had always been pursued by absolute monarclis, namely, that of making the sovereign’s opinion the rule of conduct for his subjects. We can hardly suppose that Heraclius would have

¹ The Ecthesis is contained in Plardouin’s Concilia, tom. ii. 791.

RELIGIOUS REFORMS.

423

succeeded better, had he assumed the character or de- ^i».^

served the veneration due to a saint. The marked ____________________________

difference which existed between the higher and educated classes in the East, and the ignorant and superstitious populace, rendered it next to impossible that any line of conduct could secure the judgment of the learned, and awaken the fanaticism of the people.

As a farther apology for Heraclius, it may be noticed that his acknowledged power over the orthodox clergy was much greater than that which was possessed by the Byzantine emperors at a later period, or that which was admitted by the Latin church after its separation.

Tn spite of all the advantages which he possessed, his attempt ended in a most signal failure ; yet no ex­perience could ever induce his successors to avoid his error. His effort to strengthen his power, by establish­ing a principle of unity, aggravated all the evils which he intended to cure ; fur while the Monophysites and the Greeks were as little disposed to unite as ever, the authority of the Eastern church, as a body, was weak­ened by the creation of a new schism, and the incipient divisions between the Greeks and the Latins, assuming a national character, began to prepare the way for the separation of the two churches.

While Heraclius was endeavouring to restore the strength of the empire in the East, and enforce unity of religious views, the pursuit of which has ever been one of the greatest errors of the human mind,— Mahomet, by a juster application of the aspiration of mankind after unity, had succeeded in uniting Arabia into one state, and in persuading it to adopt one reli­gion. The force of this new empire of the Saracens was directed against those provinces of the Hon inn empire which Heraclius had been anxiously endeavour­ing to reunite in spirit to his government. The diffi­culties of their administration had compelled the em-

424

JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap iv. peror to fix liis residence for some years in Syria, and he was well aware of the uncertainty of their allegiance, before the Saracens commenced their invasion.¹ The successes of the Mohammedan arms, and the retreat of the emperor, carrying off with him the holy cross from Jerusalem, have induced historians to suppose that his latter years were spent in sloth, and marked by weakness.² His health, however, was in so pre­carious a state, that he could no longer direct the operations of his army in person ; at times, indeed, he was incapable of all bodily exertion.³ Yet the resist­ance which the Saracens encountered in Syria was very different from the ease with which it had yielded to the Persians at the commencement of the emperor s reign, and attests that his administration had not been

O ⁷

without fruit. Many of his reforms could only have been effected after the conclusion of the Persian war, when he recovered possession of Syria and Egypt. He seems, indeed, never to have omitted an opportunity of strengthening his position ; and when a chief of the Huns or Bulgarians threw off his allegiance to the Avars, Heraclius is recorded to have immediately availed himself of the opportunity to form an alliance, in order to circumscribe the power of his dangerous northern enemy. Unfortunately, few traces can be gleaned from the Byzantine writers of the precise acts by which he effected his reforms; and the most remarkable facts, illustrating the political history of the time, must be collected from incidental notices, preserved in the treatise of the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, concerning the administration of the empire, written

¹     Heraclius resided almost entirely in the East, from a. d. 629 to 635.

*’ Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ix. 418. Le Beau, IJistuii'e du Bas-Empire, xi. 173. ,

³ Niceph. Cap. 17. Ockley's History of the Saracens, i. 271. The story of the Arabian historian, mentioned by Ockley, confirms tlio account of the patri­arch Nicephorus, and shows that the health of Heraclius had declined before lie quitted Syria.

LOSS OF SYEIA.

425

for the instruction of his son Romanus, in the middle _ a. p. of the tenth century.^{1           ,)U)}~^b3,

Though Heraclius failed in gaining over the Syrians

■ and Egyptians, yet he succeeded completely in re­uniting the Greeks of Asia Minor to his government, and in attaching them to the empire. His success may be estimated from the failure of the Saracens in their attacks 011 the population of this province. The moment the Mohammedan armies were compelled to rely 011 their military skill and religious enthusiasm, and were unable to derive any profit from the hostile feeling of the inhabitants to the imperial government, their career of conquest was checked ; and almost a century before Charles Martel stopped their progress in the west of Europe, the Greeks had arrested their conquests in the East, by the steady resistance which they offer­ed in Asia Minor.

The difficulties of Heraclius were very great. The Roman armies were still composed of a rebellious soldiery collected from many discordant nations ; and the only leaders whom the emperor could venture to trust with important military commands, were his immediate relations, like his brother Theodore, and his son Heraclius Constantine, or soldiers of fortune who

I   ^?

! could not aspire at the imperial dignity.² The apostasy and treachery of a considerable number of the Roman officers in Syria, warranted Heraclius in regarding the defence of that province as utterly hopeless ; but the meagre historians of his reign can hardly be received as conclusive authorities, to prove that 011 his retreat he displayed an unseemly despair, or a criminal indiffer­ence. The fact that he carried the holy cross, which he had restored to Jerusalem, along with him to Con-

¹     Published in Ihnuluri Imperiinn Orientate, fol. Piiris, 1711, tom. i , :md in the third volume; of the l’onn edition of the works uf (JonnUiuf ine Porpli.

²     Theojihanes, ('In-on. 280. Hutychius, ii. 273. Elmaciu, Hist. Same. ‘2><.

42 G

JUSTTN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. stantinople, attests that he had lost all expectation of defending the Holy City ; but his exclamation of “ Farewell, Syria !” was doubtless uttered in the bitter­ness of his heart, 011 seeing a great part of the labours ; of his life for the restoration of the Roman empire ut- ' terly vain. The disease which had long undermined his j constitution, put an end to his life about five years after j his return to Constantinople. He died in March G41, after one of the most remarkable reigns recorded in * history, chequered by the greatest successes and re- j verses, during which the social condition of mankind underwent a considerable change, and the germs of .

& ¹ & ' modern society began to sprout; yet there is, un-1 fortunately, no period of man’s annals covered with ■( greater obscurity.                  ¹

SECT. VIII.    CONDITION OF TIIE NATIVE POPULATION OF GREECE. '

The history of the European Greeks becomes ex- 1 tremely obscure after the reign of Justinian. Yet this period is one of great interest in the history of tlieHel- h lenic race, which was reduced, like most of the others, I to struggle hard to escape extermination from invaders I far inferior in power and civilisation. It has been al- I ready mentioned that the Avar and Sclavonian tribes had penetrated into Greece in considerable numbers, _b and effected settlements in many districts, from which I they waged a perpetual war with the Greeks. Unable ¹ to live in the state of misery and destitution to which the agricultural classes were now reduced in Europe, I the Greek race confined itself to the towns where it could carry on trade, or to those districts which were defended by permanent garrisons.

The Thracian race had always effectually resisted the j iniluence of Greek civilisation ; and even when the

EUROPEAN GREEKS.

427

population of Greece was increasing with the greatest a. n. rapidity, and while its colonies were multiplied in every land, from Sicily to the Tauric Chersonese, the Greeks were unable to press back towards the north the popu­lation of the border regions of Epirus and Macedonia, much less of the great Thracian plains between the iEgean Sea and the Danube. Yet these lands have from the earliest times lain open to constant invasion and emigration.¹ In the time of Maurice, the lanmiao’e of

-                        O O

the Thracians had a much stronger resemblance to

_#           O

Latin than to Greek, and indeed Latin appears to have mixed more easily than Greek with the native dialects of all the nations 011 the northern limits of the Hellenic race.²      .

It is impossible to trace with accuracy the effects of the depopulation of Greece, and of the poverty of the inhabitants. No description could exaggerate the sufferings of a country in a similar situation.² Tho slaves who had formerly laboured for the wealthy had now disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by armed bands of Sclavonians, who gradually settled in great numbers in Macedonia and the Peloponnesus.

The cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies

¹ From the time of the Celts to that of theTurks.—Niebuhr’s Klehtr Schri/1'Vi,

%7i>.

* Eng/i;  / T-jj nrciTjiuri ropvu. (p^urgi.—Theophailes, Ch. 21!!.—TllCn-

phylact. Sim. ii. 15. This was the language of the Muleteers. Tho prevalent opinion at present seems to be tliat the Vallachian language represents tin; an­cient Thraeian, and that the Albanian is a dialect of the language of Macedonia and Epirus.

³ Niebuhr thus describes the cflects of the wars of Napoleon in Germany ■

‘ Whole villages have entirely disappeared ; and in many, which are not alto­gether gone, the population is entirely, or almostcntircly, destroyed by plunder,

} famine, and disease. The towns, part of which are in ashes, are equally desolate : r and every inhabitant is sunk nearly to the same state of poverty. Almost all the landowners are bankrupt, and there has been a total change in the property of the soil—a great misfortune, for the rich who spring up out of war and want ! are sure to be the very worst of their class.” - Lt beits niirhrlrhlcn »bi r 15. G.

Niebuhr, 424. In order to form some idea of the state of Greece, add to thi-; picture the difference between a declining ami advancing state of society, and between the French of the nineteenth century and the Avars and Selavtmian- of the seventh.        ‘

I¹

428 JUSTIN II.—HERACLIUS.

chap. iv. of agricultural produce from the country, and even Thessaloniea with its fertile territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importations of grain for relief from famine.¹ The smaller cities, destitute of the same advantages of situation, would naturally be j more exposed to depopulation, and sink more rapidly to ]₍ decay. Roads,bridges, aqueducts, and quays were every­where allowed to fall to ruin after the confiscation of ' the municipal revenues of the Greek cities by Justinian, and the transport of provisions by land, in a country (• like Greece, became difficult. This neglect of the roads j had always been a cause of poverty and barbarism in m the mountainous districts of the Roman empire, even it| during the period of its greatest prosperity, for the een- ; tral government paid no attention to any roads but J those connected with the great military lines of com- I munication.

A complete opposition of feelings and interests now began to separate the inhabitants of Greece from the Greek population connected with the imperial adminis­tration. This circumstance warrants us in fixing on the ^!l reign of Heraclius as the period at which the ancient existence of the Hellenic race terminates. It is vain to attempt to fix with accuracy the precise time at _f which the ancient usages were allowed, one by one, to i expire, for 110 change in social life which is long in pro- ! gress, can be considered as really accomplished, until I the existence of a new order of things can be distinctly | pointed out. National transitions can rarely be effected , in one generation, and are often not completed in a century. But when the B}^Tzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,find it neeessarytomention the Greeks of Hellas and Peloponnesus, they do so with feelings of [ contempt. This display of ill will induces us to con­jecture that the fate of the Greek cities engaged in re- j

¹                       Tafel, be Thessalvniai ejitsque Agru. pvoleg. lxviii.          '

EUROPEAN GREEKS.

429

sisting the Solavonian invaders had not been very dif- ^ a. D._n ferent from that of the imperial cities on the Adriatic, and that they had been compelled to develop a spirit of independence, which had caused a return of prosperity sufficient to awaken the envy of the Byzantine Greeks.

The inhabitants of Greece are called Helladikoi, to distingush them alike from the ancient Hellenes and from the Romans of the empire. This expression seems almost to imply envy as well as contempt.¹ The term Hellenes was now either used to indicate the votaries of paganism, or was too closely associated with reminiscences of the glory of ancient Hellas, to be con­ferred on the rude Christian population of the Pelopon­nesus, by the courtiers of Constantinople, the prototypes of the hated Phanariots.

In the midst of the darkness which conceals the political and social condition of the Greeks from our view during this period, a curious record of a later time informs us that a portion of the Hellenic race, in the mountains of Laconia still continued to preserve its ancient habits, and even clung to the pagan religion."

This circumstance supplies the strongest testimony of the neglected and secluded condition of the people, among whom the ideas of the enlightened portion of mankind had not succeeded in penetrating. These heathens were, of course, only iminstructed peasantry,

_; who had preserved some of the superstitious usages of their ancestors, and who, probably, were not more ignorant of the ideas and feelings of ancient paganism than they were of Christian doctrines.

The barbarism of the Greeks at this period was the consequence of their poverty, which prevented their procuring the means of education, and restricted the

¹     Thconluuics, Clt. 33r». Ccdrenu.s, i. 151. Till'd, l)c Thcssiilon'u'n, prdcg. lxx.

221, 51:3.

²     Constantin. Porpliyr. Dc Adm. Jmp. c. 50, iii. ^21 ; edit, llonti.

430

JUSTIN II.    HERACLIUS.

^r. uses of the knowledge which they might possess. In the circumstances to which they were reduced, it is not I surprising that the Greeks lost all veneration both for literature and art, and that Greece, for some centimes, 'j hardly furnishes a single name in the long list of Greek ^1-l writers whose works have been considered worthy of ii, mention. In this state of depopulation and ignorance, j the relics of ancient art began to fall unnoticed to the I ground : another age covered them with the ruins of the buildings which they had once adorned ; and thus | many remained concealed and preserved, until increas­ing population, and reviving prosperity, caused the re- i construction of new cities.                                           -

It was not in their native seats alone that the Greeks : declined in numbers and civilisation at this period ; even their distant colonies were rapidly sinking to ruin, i During the reign of Justin, the city of Bosporus, in Tauris, had been captured by the Turks, who then j occupied a considerable portion of the Tauric Cherso- nesus.¹ The city of Cherson alone continued to main­tain its independence in the northern regions of the Black Sea, resembling, in its political relation to the empire, the cities of Dalmatia, and by its share of the northern trade, balancing the power and influence of the barbarian princes in the neighbourhood.

J

¹ Exccrpta e Jleuaudri Ilistoria, 404, edit. Bonn.   I