Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I

The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Elevation And Reign
Of Michael Palæologus.—His False Union With The Pope And The Latin
Church.—Hostile Designs Of Charles Of Anjou.—Revolt Of Sicily.—War
Of The Catalans In Asia And Greece.—Revolutions And Present State
Of Athens.

The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the
Greeks. From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven
into the field; and the fragments of the falling monarchy were
grasped by the hands of the most vigorous or the most skilful
candidates. In the long and barren pages of the Byzantine annals,
1 it would not be an easy task to equal the two characters of
Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, 2 who replanted and
upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The difference of
their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their
situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded
only three cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the
season of generous and active despair: in every military
operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies of the
Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and
subdued by his boldness. A victorious reign of eighteen years
expanded the principality of Nice to the magnitude of an empire.
The throne of his successor and son-in-law Vataces was founded on
a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more plentiful resources;
and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of Vataces to
calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the
success, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins,
I have briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent
and gradual advances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of
thirty-three years, rescued the provinces from national and
foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the Imperial city,
a leafless and sapless trunk, which must full at the first stroke
of the axe. But his interior and peaceful administration is still
more deserving of notice and praise. 3 The calamities of the
times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the Greeks; the
motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and the
most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants.
A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by
the command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand
and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful
management, the minute diligence of a private farmer: the royal
domain became the garden and granary of Asia; and without
impoverishing the people, the sovereign acquired a fund of
innocent and productive wealth. According to the nature of the
soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines; the
pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs;
and when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and
pearls, he informed her, with a smile, that this precious
ornament arose from the sale of the eggs of his innumerable
poultry. The produce of his domain was applied to the maintenance
of his palace and hospitals, the calls of dignity and
benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the revenue:
the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and
the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue
from their estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by
the oppression of the people, or (what is almost the same) by the
favors of the court. The superfluous stock of corn and cattle was
eagerly purchased by the Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a
strict and sincere alliance; but he discouraged the importation
of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of the East, and the
curious labors of the Italian looms. “The demands of nature and
necessity,” was he accustomed to say, “are indispensable; but the
influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a
monarch;” and both his precept and example recommended simplicity
of manners and the use of domestic industry. The education of
youth and the revival of learning were the most serious objects
of his care; and, without deciding the precedency, he pronounced
with truth, that a prince and a philosopher 4 are the two most
eminent characters of human society. His first wife was Irene,
the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more illustrious by
her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than by the
blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, and
transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the
emperor Frederic 499 the Second; but as the bride had not
attained the years of puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed
an Italian damsel of her train; and his amorous weakness bestowed
on the concubine the honors, though not the title, of a lawful
empress. His frailty was censured as a flagitious and damnable
sin by the monks; and their rude invectives exercised and
displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic age may
excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues;
and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate
passions of Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was
softened by gratitude to the second founders of the empire. 5 The
slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the
happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national
freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy of convincing
the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be
enrolled in the number of his subjects.

1 (return) [ For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more
especially of John Vataces and his son, their minister, George
Acropolita, is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer
returned to Constantinople with the Greeks at the age of
nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34, p. 564—578.
Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 448—460.) Yet the history of
Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a valuable
narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins.]

2 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes
between the oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces.
The two portraits are in a very good style.]

3 (return) [ Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6.
The reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are
indulged with such precious details.]

4 (return) [ Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV
kai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
logothete.]

499 (return) [ Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic.
Greg. p. 45.—M.]

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

A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and
his son Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight,
and the heir who enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. 6
Yet the character of Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had
been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war
and hunting; Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three
years of a short reign, he thrice led his armies into the heart
of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and
suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to the
ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from a
dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march
in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal
ministers; and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed
to offend him by the declaration of a free and honest opinion.
The emperor half unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate
rage reserved Acropolita for a baser punishment. One of the first
officers of the empire was ordered to dismount, stripped of his
robes, and extended on the ground in the presence of the prince
and army. In this posture he was chastised with so many and such
heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or executioners, that
when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great logothete was
scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate
to his seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense
of honor and shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer
himself that we acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. 7 The
cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness,
the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and
magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen
and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion; and before
he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at
least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the
family of the Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing to
bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was
recommended by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age,
her body, as high as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with
several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate their fury
against their unfortunate fellow-captive. In his last hours the
emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiven, a just
anxiety for the fate of John his son and successor, who, at the
age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers of a long
minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardian to the
sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George
Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the
royal favor and the public hatred. Since their connection with
the Latins, the names and privileges of hereditary rank had
insinuated themselves into the Greek monarchy; and the noble
families 8 were provoked by the elevation of a worthless
favorite, to whose influence they imputed the errors and
calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after the
emperor’s death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a
labored apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was
subdued by a unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his
most inveterate enemies were the loudest to salute him as the
guardian and savior of the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to
prepare the execution of the conspiracy. On the ninth, the
obsequies of the deceased monarch were solemnized in the
cathedral of Magnesia, 9 an Asiatic city, where he expired, on
the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus. The
holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon,
his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of
the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new
colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious, in
birth and merit, of the Greek nobles. 10

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

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

8 (return) [ Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates
fifteen or twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h
megalogenhV seira kai crush sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this
decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps, both.]

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

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

Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part
must be content with local or domestic renown; and few there are
who dare trust the memorials of their family to the public annals
of their country. As early as the middle of the eleventh century,
the noble race of the Palæologi 11 stands high and conspicuous in
the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George Palæologus who
placed the father of the Comneni on the throne; and his kinsmen
or descendants continue, in each generation, to lead the armies
and councils of the state. The purple was not dishonored by their
alliance, and had the law of succession, and female succession,
been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris must have
yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palæologus,
who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person,
the splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier
and statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office
of _constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the
private expense of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but
his ambition was rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were
doubled by the graces of his conversation and manners. The love
of the soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the court, and
Michael thrice escaped from the dangers in which he was involved
by his own imprudence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign
of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose 12 between two officers,
one of whom accused the other of maintaining the hereditary right
of the Palæologi The cause was decided, according to the new
jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant was
overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was
guilty; and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable
speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron. Yet
a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable; he
was still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle
courtier, the archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the
judgment of God in the fiery proof of the ordeal. 13 Three days
before the trial, the patient’s arm was enclosed in a bag, and
secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbent on him to bear
a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the rails of
the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palæologus
eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. “I am
a soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the lists with my
accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with
the gift of miracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may
deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from your hands I will
receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence.” The
archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and the absolution or
pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and new services.
II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of Nice,
he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince was
poisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be
his final reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of
Theodore, the constable, with some followers, escaped from the
city and the empire; and though he was plundered by the Turkmans
of the desert, he found a hospitable refuge in the court of the
sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael reconciled
the duties of gratitude and loyalty: drawing his sword against
the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of the Roman limit; and
promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace, in which
his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. While he
guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was again
suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty
or weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six
hundred miles from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger
alleviated his disgrace; the emperor’s sickness dispelled his
danger; and the last breath of Theodore, which recommended his
infant son, at once acknowledged the innocence and the power of
Palæologus.

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

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

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

But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power
was too strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair
field that was opened to his ambition. 14 In the council, after
the death of Theodore, he was the first to pronounce, and the
first to violate, the oath of allegiance to Muzalon; and so
dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped the benefit, without
incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent
massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the interests
and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred from
himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own,
that after his own claims, those of Palæologus were best entitled
to the preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or
assumed, during a long minority, the active powers of government;
the patriarch was a venerable name; and the factious nobles were
seduced, or oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits
of the economy of Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on
the banks of the Hermus, in the custody of the faithful
Varangians: the constable retained his command or influence over
the foreign troops; he employed the guards to possess the
treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and whatsoever
might be the abuse of the public money, his character was above
the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his
emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that
their own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the
establishment of his authority. The weight of taxes was
suspended, the perpetual theme of popular complaint; and he
prohibited the trials by the ordeal and judicial combat. These
Barbaric institutions were already abolished or undermined in
France 15 and England; 16 and the appeal to the sword offended
the sense of a civilized, 17 and the temper of an unwarlike,
people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children,
the veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers
applauded his ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and
learning; and his vague promise of rewarding merit was applied by
every candidate to his own hopes. Conscious of the influence of
the clergy, Michael successfully labored to secure the suffrage
of that powerful order. Their expensive journey from Nice to
Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the leading
prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;
and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of
his new colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town,
and removed to a respectful distance the importunity of the
crowd. Without renouncing his title by royal descent, Palæologus
encouraged a free discussion into the advantages of elective
monarchy; and his adherents asked, with the insolence of triumph,
what patient would trust his health, or what merchant would
abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill of a physician or a
pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impending dangers of a
minority, required the support of a mature and experienced
guardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals,
and invested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the
interest of the prince and people, without any selfish views for
himself or his family, the great duke consented to guard and
instruct the son of Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment
when he might restore to his firmer hands the administration of
his patrimony, and enjoy the blessings of a private station. He
was first invested with the title and prerogatives of _despot_,
which bestowed the purple ornaments and the second place in the
Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that John and Michael
should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on the
buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the
birthright of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged
between the royal partners; and in case of a rupture, the
subjects were bound, by their oath of allegiance, to declare
themselves against the aggressor; an ambiguous name, the seed of
discord and civil war. Palæologus was content; but, on the day of
the coronation, and in the cathedral of Nice, his zealous
adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of his age and
merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to a
more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and
he walked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who
alone received the Imperial crown from the hands of the
patriarch. It was not without extreme reluctance that Arsenius
abandoned the cause of his pupil; out the Varangians brandished
their battle-axes; a sign of assent was extorted from the
trembling youth; and some voices were heard, that the life of a
child should no longer impede the settlement of the nation. A
full harvest of honors and employments was distributed among his
friends by the grateful Palæologus. In his own family he created
a despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was
decorated with the title of Cæsar; and that veteran commander
soon repaid the obligation, by restoring Constantinople to the
Greek emperor.

14 (return) [ Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or
Tacitus, I will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13—32, l. ii. c.
1—9,) which pursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence,
perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious,
and Gregoras more concise.]

15 (return) [ The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in
his own territories; and his example and authority were at length
prevalent in France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]

16 (return) [ In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the
defendant: Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by
judicial combat is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by
battle has never been abrogated in the English law, and it was
ordered by the judges as late as the beginning of the last
century. * Note : And even demanded in the present.—M.]

17 (return) [ Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in
mitigation of this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from
barbarism, it moderates the license of private war and arbitrary
revenge. 2. _That_ it is less absurd than the trials by the
ordeal, or boiling water, or the cross, which it has contributed
to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at least as a test of personal
courage; a quality so seldom united with a base disposition, that
the danger of a trial might be some check to a malicious
prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported by
power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably
have escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat
against his accuser been overruled.]

It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the
palace and gardens of Nymphæum, 18 near Smyrna, that the first
messenger arrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous
intelligence was imparted to Michael, after he had been gently
waked by the tender precaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was
unknown or obscure; he produced no letters from the victorious
Cæsar; nor could it easily be credited, after the defeat of
Vataces and the recent failure of Palæologus himself, that the
capital had been surprised by a detachment of eight hundred
soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author was confined, with
the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and the court was
left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till the
messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence,
and displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and
sceptre, 19 the buskins and bonnet, 20 of the usurper Baldwin,
which he had dropped in his precipitate flight. A general
assembly of the bishops, senators, and nobles, was immediately
convened, and never perhaps was an event received with more
heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration, the new
sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the public
fortune. “There was a time,” said he, “a far distant time, when
the Roman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the
confines of Æthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our
capital itself, in these last and calamitous days, has been
wrested from our hands by the Barbarians of the West. From the
lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity has again returned in our
favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitives and exiles: and
when we were asked, which was the country of the Romans, we
indicated with a blush the climate of the globe, and the quarter
of the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our
arms the city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and
empire; and it will depend on our valor and conduct to render
this important acquisition the pledge and omen of future
victories.” So eager was the impatience of the prince and people,
that Michael made his triumphal entry into Constantinople only
twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins. The golden gate
was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror dismounted
from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the Conductress
was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of
St. Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride,
he sighed at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace
was defiled with smoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of
the Franks; whole streets had been consumed by fire, or were
decayed by the injuries of time; the sacred and profane edifices
were stripped of their ornaments: and, as if they were conscious
of their approaching exile, the industry of the Latins had been
confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Trade had
expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the
numbers of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the
city. It was the first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the
nobles in the palaces of their fathers; and the houses or the
ground which they occupied were restored to the families that
could exhibit a legal right of inheritance. But the far greater
part was extinct or lost; the vacant property had devolved to the
lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a liberal invitation to the
provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ were seated in the capital
which had been recovered by their arms. The French barons and the
principal families had retired with their emperor; but the
patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country,
and indifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing
the factories of the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent
conqueror accepted their oaths of allegiance, encouraged their
industry, confirmed their privileges, and allowed them to live
under the jurisdiction of their proper magistrates. Of these
nations, the Pisans and Venetians preserved their respective
quarters in the city; but the services and power of the Genoese
deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of the
Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport
town of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and
settled in the exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an
advantageous post, in which they revived the commerce, and
insulted the majesty, of the Byzantine empire. 21

18 (return) [ The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in
ancient or modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces,
(Acropolita, c. 52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his
favorite residence were in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphæum
might be loosely placed in Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]

19 (return) [ This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was
a long staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the
latter Greeks it was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre
was distinguished as usual by the red or purple color.]

20 (return) [ Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this “Onnet” was
after the French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or
summit, Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it
was the high-crowned hat of the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake
the dress of his own court?]

21 (return) [ See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28—33,) Acropolita, (c.
88,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of
the subject Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]

The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the æra of a new
empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword,
renewed his coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name
and honors of John Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were
insensibly abolished. But his claims still lived in the minds of
the people; and the royal youth must speedily attain the years of
manhood and ambition. By fear or conscience, Palæologus was
restrained from dipping his hands in innocent and royal blood;
but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to secure his
throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the modern
Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the
active business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of
tearing out his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the
intense glare of a red-hot basin, 22 and John Lascaris was
removed to a distant castle, where he spent many years in privacy
and oblivion. Such cool and deliberate guilt may seem
incompatible with remorse; but if Michael could trust the mercy
of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to the reproaches and
vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by cruelty and
treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties of
applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the
name of their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led
by a prelate, whose character was above the temptations of hope
or fear. After a short abdication of his dignity, Arsenius 23 had
consented to ascend the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople,
and to preside in the restoration of the church. His pious
simplicity was long deceived by the arts of Palæologus; and his
patience and submission might soothe the usurper, and protect the
safety of the young prince. On the news of his inhuman treatment,
the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; and superstition,
on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanity and
justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the
example of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of
excommunication; though his prudence still repeated the name of
Michael in the public prayers. The Eastern prelates had not
adopted the dangerous maxims of ancient Rome; nor did they
presume to enforce their censures, by deposing princes, or
absolving nations from their oaths of allegiance. But the
Christian, who had been separated from God and the church, became
an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a
sedition of the people. Palæologus felt his danger, confessed his
guilt, and deprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the
prize was obtained; and the most rigorous penance, which he
solicited, would have raised the sinner to the reputation of a
saint. The unrelenting patriarch refused to announce any means of
atonement or any hopes of mercy; and condescended only to
pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed must be the
satisfaction. “Do you require,” said Michael, “that I should
abdicate the empire?” and at these words, he offered, or seemed
to offer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this
pledge of sovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was
unwilling to purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he
indignantly escaped to his cell, and left the royal sinner
kneeling and weeping before the door. 24

22 (return) [ This milder invention for extinguishing the sight
was tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he
sought to withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish
story! The word _abacinare_, in Latin and Italian, has furnished
Ducange (Gloss. Lat.) with an opportunity to review the various
modes of blinding: the more violent were scooping, burning with
an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding the head with a strong cord
till the eyes burst from their sockets. Ingenious tyrants!]

23 (return) [ See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius,
in Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused
the ajeleia and raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the
vices of a minister, (l. xii. c. 2.)]

24 (return) [ The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly
told by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l.
iv. c. 4.) His confession and penance restored their freedom.]