The Destruction of the Eastern Empire

How could the Greek empire possibly subsist so long?

The Arabs invaded the empire and conquered several provinces. Their chiefs became competitors for the Khalisa, and the flame of their first zeal only burst out in civil dissensions.

The Arabs also conquered Persia and the Greeks were no longer obliged to keep the principal forces of the empire stationed on the banks of the Euphrates.

Callinicus, an architect, came from Syria to Constantinople. He invented an artificial flame which was easily ventilated into a point by means of a tube, and was of such a peculiar nature, that water and every other substance which extinguish common fire did but increase the violence of this.

The Greeks had it for several years and used it to fire at their enemies’ ships, particularly the Arabian fleet which invaded them in Constantinople.

This flame was a state secret. Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his treatise on the administration of the empire, and which he dedicated to his son Romanus, advises him to tell the Barbarians, when they should desire him to give them any of the Grecian fire, that he was not permitted to part with it, because an angel, who presented it the emperor Constantine, commanded to refuse it to all other nations, and that those who had disobeyed that injunction were consumed by a fire from heaven the moment they entered the church.

Constantinople was the greatest, and almost the only commercial city in the world. The Goths and the Arabs had ruined all traffic and industry in every other part.

The silk manufactures were brought to it from Persia, and were even neglected in that country since the Arabian invasion. The Greeks were masters at sea. This allowed riches into the state and was an inexhaustible source of relief in its emergencies.

The elder Andronicus Comnenus was the Nero of the Greeks. During the three years of his reign, he restored several provinces to their ancient splendor, despite his=

• vices
• suppression of injustice and vexations in the grandees

The barbarians who settled on the banks of the Danube were not as formidable as before. They even became useful by blocking the other barbarous nations.

Thus, while the empire was harassed by bad government, some incidents gave it relief.

Thus, Spain and Portugal were supported by the treasures of the Indies despite their inherent weakness.

the temporal dominions of the Pope owe their safety to the respect paid to their sovereign, and the rovers of Barbary derive their security from the obstructions they fasten upon the commerce of lesser * nations, and the very piracies of these people on inferior states, make them serviceable in their turn to the greater.

The Turkish empire is at present in the same state of decline as the Greeks of the past. Yet it will still subsist a long time.

If any prince endangers it by immoderate conquests, it will always be desended by the three trading powers of Europe, who are too sensible of their own interests ever to be unconcerned spectators of its fall.

It is happy for these trading powers, that God has permitted Turks and Spaniards to be in the world, for of all nations they are the most proper to enjoy a great empire with insignificance.

In the time of Basilius Porphyrogenitus, the Arabian power came to its period in Persia. Mohammed the son of Sambreal, who was then sovereign of that empire, invited 4,000 Turks from the North, in the quality of auxiliaries; but upon a sudden dissatisfaction conceived by this prince, he sent an army against them, which was soon put to flight by the Turks.

Mohammed, in the height of his indignation against his pusillanimous soldiers, gave orders, that they should pass before him habited like women; but they disappointed his anger and joined the Turks= upon which the united army immediately dislodged a garrison which was stationed to guard a bridge over the Araxes, and opened a free passage to a vast body of their countrymen.

When they had extended their conquests through Persia, they spread themselves from east to west over the territories of the empire.

Romanus Diogenes tried to oppose them but became their prisoner. Afterwards, they subdued all the Asiatic dominions of the Greeks down to the Bosphorus.

Some time after this, the Latins invaded the western regions in the reign of Alexis Commenus. An unhappy schism had for a long time infused an implacable hatred between the nations of two different communions, and would have produced fatal effects much sooner, had not the Italians been more attentive to check the German emperors whom they feared, than they were to distress the Greek emperors whom they only hated.

Affairs were in this situation, when all Europe imbibed a religious belief that the place where Jesus Christ was born, as well as that where he accomplished his passion, being profaned by the infidels, the surest atonement they could make for their own sins, would be to dispossess those Barbarians of their acquisitions by force of arms. Europe at that time swarmed with people who were fond of war, and had many crimes to expiate, and as it was proposed to them to obtain their remission by indulging their prevailing passion, every man armed himself for the crusade.

When this consecrated army arrived in the east, they besieged and made themselves masters of Nice, which they restored to the Greeks; and, whilst the infidels were seized with a general consternation, Alexis and John Commenus chaced the Turks to the banks of Euphrates.

But as advantageous as these crusades might be to the Greeks, the emperors trembled to see such a succession of fierce heroes and formidable armies marching through the heart of their dominions.

This induced them to leave nothing unattempted that might create a dissatisfaction in Europe at these expeditions; and the votaries to the cross were continually ensnared by every instance of treachery that could possibly be expected from a timorous enemy.

It must be acknowledged that the French, who promoted these expeditions, had not practised any conduct that could render their presence very supportable; and we may judge by the invectives of Anna Comnena against our nation, that we act without much precaution in foreign countries, and were at that time chargeable with the same exceptionable freedoms we are reproached for at this day.

A French nobleman was going to seat himself upon the emperor’s throne, but earl Baldwin caught him by the arm= “You should know, said he, that when we are in any country whatever, it is proper to comply with the customs that prevail there.” “What a clown is He, replied the other, to sit whilst so many captains are standing?”

The Germans, who came after the French, and were the most civil and undesigning people in the world, suffered very severely for our follies, and were continually embarassed with a set of dispositions that had been sufficiently irritated by our countrymen against all foreigners.

In fine, the aversion of those eastern people was worked up to the highest extreme; and this, with some incivilities offered to the Venetian merchants, operating upon the ambition, avarice, and false zeal of that nation as well as the French, determined them to form a crusade against the Greeks.

The united army of these two European nations found their enemies altogether as pusillanimous and unwarlike as the Chinese appeared to the Tartars in our time. The Frenchmen ridiculed their effeminate habit, and walked through the streets of Constantinople dressed in flowered mantles, and carrying pens and paper in their hands, in derision of that nation, who had degenerated from all military discipline; and when the war was over, they refused to admit any Greeks into their troops.

The Venetians and French soon after declared for the western empire, and transferred the imperial throne to the earl of Flanders, whose dominions being very distant, could not create any jealousy in the Italians. The Greeks still supported themselves in the east, being separated from the Turks by a chain of mountains, and divided from the Italians by the sea.

The Latins found no obstacles in their conquests. They met with many in their settlement. The Greeks returned from Asia into Europe, retook Constantinople, and seized the greatest part of the east.

This new empire, however, was but a fein shadow of the former, and had no solid power for its basis.

It comprehended few territories in Asia, besides the provinces on this side the Meander and Sangar, and most of those in Europe were parcelled out into small sovereignties.

During the 60 years the Latins had Constantinople=

• all commerce was transferred to the Italian cities, and
• Constantinople became divested of its riches.

The commerce even of the inland countries was carried on by the Latins. The Greeks, who were but newly re-established, and were likewise alarmed with innumerable apprehensions. They became desirous to ingratiate themselves with the Genoese, by granting them a permission to traffic without paying any duties. They were unwilling to irritate the Venetians who had not accepted of peace, but only consented to a truce, these were likewise discharged from the same payments.

Manuel Comnenus could have re-established the trade in Constantinople before it fell. But all maritime affairs became entirely neglected under the new empire. This led to its power to decline daily.

The state no longer had ships. Its people had to shelter themselves in the inland parts from pirates and in fortresses from the Turks.

These barbarous Turks were at war against the Greeks. They sometimes marched 200 leagues into a country to accomplish their depredations. They were under several sultans, so it was impossible to have all the Turks be at peace with itself. They had embraced Islam and their zeal for that religion strangely prompted them to ravage the Christian territories.

They were the most unamiable people on earth. They married to wives as disagreeable as themselves. The moment they met the Greek women, all the Greek men became insupportable to them. Those beautiful women were continually exposed to the brutal passion of these Barbarians. They had been always accustomed to invade the properties of other people, and were the same Huns who had formerly involved the Roman empire in so many calamities.

The Turks broke in, like a deluge, upon the shattered remains of the Greek empire in Asia. Some fled in advance to the Bosphorus. From there they sailed to other parts of Europe. This led to a population increase which was later reduced by civil wars when the locals invited Turkish sultans to enslave those refugees. In this way, those factions concurred in the destructions of their own country with a view of ruining their adversaries.

Bajazet conquered all the other sultans, the Turks would then have acted agreeably to their future Behaviour in the reign of Mahommed II. had not they been in danger of extermination by the Tartars.