plained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo.4 In the fourth, of the administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labors of the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honor of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics,5 the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics of Constantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three books, and every citizen might apply, to his contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe;

4 The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the aid of some new MSS. in the great edition of the works of Meursius, by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920, 1211-1417, Florent. 1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The Imperial library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.)

On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Romani, p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom i. p. 450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted: XLI. books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris, 1647,) in seven tomes in folio; Iv. other books have been since discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman's Novus Thesaurus Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole work, the sixty books, John Leunclavius has printed (Basil, 1575) an eclogue or synopsis. The cxш. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis.

"I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics, (by Nicolas Niclas. Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols. in octavo.) I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two books of Hippiatrica, or Horse-physic, were published at Paris, 1530, in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 493-500.)

Of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus, Antwerp, 1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, August. Vindel. 1603) and de Virtutibus et Vitiia 'by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634.)

and if his successors and subjects were regardless of his paterna. cares, we may inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy.

A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories of their authors will be oblit. erated by indifference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money, enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metaphrast. The merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which has been taugh. since the days of Xenophon, as the art of heroes and kings.

The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible of the original texture.

According to the first book of the Cyropædia, professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. A good edition of all the Bcriptores Tactici would be a task not unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new MSS., and his learning might illustrate the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and alas! Quintus Icilius is no more.*

• M. Guichardt, author of Mémoires Militaires sur les Grecs et sur les Romains. See Gibbon's Extraits Raisonnées de mes Lectures, Mise Works, vol. v p. 219. — M.

But the Tactics of Leo and Constantine are mir.gled with the baser alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute of original genuis; they implicitly transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study the talents of a commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tacties may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the other. A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and useful information, as the curiosity of government only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants.10 Such information the historian would have been pleased to record; nor should his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population of the capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard, have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son Constantine. His treatise of the public

10 After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus:

Καππαδόκην ποτ' ἔχιδνα κακὴ δάκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὴ

Κάτθανε, γευσαμένη αἷματος ἰοβόλου.

The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against Freron: Un serpent mordit Jean Freron-Eh bien? Le serpent en mourut. But as the Paris wits are seldom read in the Anthology, I should be curious to learn through what channel it was conveyed for their imitation, (Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Themat. c. ii. Brunck. Analect. Græc. tem. ii. p. 56. Brodæi Anthologia, 1. ii. p. 244.)

administration is stained with the same blemishes; yet it 10 discriminated by peculiar merit: the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the geography and manners of the Barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy Of these nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, hɛs painted the state of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius.11 From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil gov ernment and military force, the character and literature, of the Greeks in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of Heraclius to his successful invasion of the Franks or Latins.

After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany overspread the provinces and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion: her limits were inviolate, or at least entire; and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient and precarious; and almost a moiety of the Eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and, after the reduction of Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval powers; and it was from their extreme stations, the harbors of Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel emirs insulted the majesty of the throne and capital. The remaining provinces, under the obedience of the emperors, were cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the presidents, the consulars, and the counts were super. seded by the institution of the themes,12 or military govern

"The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephorum Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. 18 See Constantine, de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p. 1-30, whe

ments, which prevailed under the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and seventeen in Asia the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful or capricious. the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear, were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that were maintained a the expense, and for the guard, of the respective divisions. The vanity of the Greek princes most eager ly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of the Euphrates: the appellation and prætor of Sicily were transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a frag ment of the duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil the Second, revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries, of the Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the metropolis of Antioch, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance of Christ and Cæsar: one third of Italy was annexed to the throne of Constantinople the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed; and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighborhood of Rome. In the eleventh century, the prospect was again clouded by new enemies and new misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away by the Norman adventurers: and almost all the Asiatic branches were dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors. After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Ægean or Holy Sea; 18 and the remnant of their empire

:

owns that the world is οὐκ παλαιά. Θέμα is used by Maurice (Strata gem. 1. ii. c. 2) for a legion, from whence the name was easily transferred to its post or province, (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 487, 488.) Some etymologies are attempted for the Opiscian, Optimatian, Thracesian, themes.

18 'Ayus wɛλayds, as it is styled by the modern Greeks, from which