nients, 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. l. 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 ñɛñayòs, as it is styled by the modern Greeks, from which transcends the measure of the largest of the European king doms. The same princes might assert, with dignity and truth, that of all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city,14 the most ample revenue, the most flourishirg and populous state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the cities of the West had decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome, or the mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts of Paris and London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches, and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her treasures might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could be discovered which had not been violated by some fierce Barbarian, impatient to despoil, because he was hopeless to possess. From the age of Justinian the Eastern empire was sinking below its former level; the powers of destruction were more active than those of improvement; and the calamities of war were imbittered by the more permanent evils of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of his sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the nind by prayer, and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most dexterous and diligent of nations; their country was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation ; the corrupt names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been transformed by geographers and seamen, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la Grece, p. 60.) The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos, (Observations de Belon, fol. 32, verso,) monte santo, might justify the epithet of holy, ayos, a slight alteration from the original alyatos, imposed by the Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of aiyes, or goats, to the bounding waves, (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 829.) 14 According to the Jewish traveller who had visited Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only oy Bagdad, the great city of the Ismaelites, (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par Bar.tier, tom. i e. v. p. 46.) and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their patien and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still ad hered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa retired to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their brethren: the movable wealth, which eludes the search of oppression, accompanied and alleviated their exile; and Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs of Armenia and Scythia, who fled from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably entertained: their followers were encouraged to build new cities and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe and Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had seated themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers. Did we possess sufficient materials to survey the twenty-nine themes of the Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might be satisfied with a chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the clearest light should be thrown on the most interesting province, and the name of PELOPONNESUS will awaken the attention of the classic reader. As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, 15 were overrun by some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops, had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what yet remained of their sickly and withered roots. In this irruption, * Εσθλαβώθη δὲ τάσα ἡ χώρα καὶ γέγονε βάρβαρος, says Constantine, Thematibus. 1. ii. c. vi. p. 25,) in a style as barbarous as the idea, ich he confirms, as usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Stral likewise observes, καὶ νῦν δὲ πᾶσαν "Ηπειρον, και ̔Ελλάδα σχεδόν καὶ Πεὶ πόννησον, καὶ Μακεδονίαν, Σκύθαι Σκλάβοι νέμονται, (l. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a passage which leads Dod. well a weary dance (Geograph. Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A D 980) of this petty geographer. the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the Grecian blood was contaminated; and the proudest nobles of Pelopon nesus were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the diligence of succeeding princes, the land was in soine measure purified from the Barbarians; and the humble rem nant was bound by an oath of obedience, tribute, and military service, which they often renewed and often violated. The siege of Patras was formed by a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the prætor of Corinth revived the courage of the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory, and the captive race was forever devoted to the service and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and Lacedæmon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately distinguished a domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in some degree, might derive their blood from the muchinjured Helots. The liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. 16 In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dis honor the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea. they accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine prætor and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their dependence 16 Strabon. Geograph. 1. viii. p. 562. Pausanius, Græc. Descriptio Lii. c. 21, p. 264, 265 Pliny, Hist. Natur. 1. iv. c. 8. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of Christ but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus,17 forty cities were still numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique splendor and their present desolation. The duty of military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousand pounds sterling,) and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacri legious profit was extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia 18 was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold.19 But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the revenue, were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufactures; and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponnesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the manufactures of linen, woollen, and more especially of silk: the two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of Homer; and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign of Justinian. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth, Thebes, and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous people: the men, women, and children were distributed according to their age and strength; 1 Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, 1. ii. c. 50, 51, 52. 19 The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's Leap, so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church. 19 Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere, similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suas, (Liutprand in Legat. p. 489.) |