The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 41: Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar,
Ordine pro rerum vocitatus Cura-Palati,

says the African Corippus, (de Laudibus Justini, l. i. 136,) and
in the same century (the vith) Cassiodorus represents him, who,
virga aurea decoratus, inter numerosa obsequia primus ante pedes
regis incederet (Variar. vii. 5.) But this great officer,
(unknown,) exercising no function, was cast down by the modern
Greeks to the xvth rank, (Codin. c. 5, p. 65.)]

[Footnote 42: Nicetas (in Manuel, l. vii. c. 1) defines him. Yet
the epithet was added by the elder Andronicus, (Ducange, tom. i.
p. 822, 823.)]

[Footnote 43: From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is
still visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion
and cinnabar, or purple. The emperor's guardians, who shared in
this prerogative, always marked in green ink the indiction and
the month. See the Dictionnaire Diplomatique, (tom. i. p. 511 -
513) a valuable abridgment.]

[Footnote 44: The sultan sent to Alexius, (Anna Comnena, l. vi.
p. 170. Ducange ad loc.;) and Pachymer often speaks, (l. vii. c.
1, l. xii. c. 30, l. xiii. c. 22.) The Chiaoush basha is now at
the head of 700 officers, (Rycaut's Ottoman Empire, p. 349,
octavo edition.)]

[Footnote 45: Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter,
(D'Herbelot, p. 854, 855;), says Codinus, (c. v. No. 70, p. 67.)
See Villehardouin, (No. 96,) Bus, (Epist. iv. p. 338,) and
Ducange, (Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Graec. et
Latin)]

[Footnote 46: A corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the
French Connetable. In a military sense, it was used by the
Greeks in the eleventh century, at least as early as in France.]

[Footnote 47: It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the
xiith century, Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the
great officers.]

[Footnote 48: This sketch of honors and offices is drawn from
George Cordinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work
(de Officiis Ecclesiae et Aulae C. P.) has been illustrated by
the notes of Goar, and the three books of Gretser, a learned
Jesuit.]

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.

Part III.

The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which
devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted
by flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with
ourselves. The mode of adoration, ^49 of falling prostrate on
the ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by
Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and
aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting
only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious
pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who
entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the
diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their
independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the
kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient
Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of
Cremona, ^50 asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity
of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the
abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne,
the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which
were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With
his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall
prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He
arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted
from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in
new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in
haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious
narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the
Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,
and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy
or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to
Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he
was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace
prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his
jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with
strangers or natives. At his first audience, he offered the
gifts of his master, slaves, and golden vases, and costly armor.
The ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed
before his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a
royal banquet, ^51 in which the ambassadors of the nations were
marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own
table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates
which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe
of honor. ^52 In the morning and evening of each day, his civil
and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their
labors were repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their
lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all
earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence.
In his regular or extraordinary processions through the capital,
he unveiled his person to the public view: the rites of policy
were connected with those of religion, and his visits to the
principal churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek
calendar. On the eve of these processions, the gracious or
devout intention of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds.
The streets were cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed
with flowers; the most precious furniture, the gold and silver
plate, and silken hangings, were displayed from the windows and
balconies, and a severe discipline restrained and silenced the
tumult of the populace. The march was opened by the military
officers at the head of their troops: they were followed in long
order by the magistrates and ministers of the civil government:
the person of the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and
domestics, and at the church door he was solemnly received by the
patriarch and his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned
to the rude and spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most
convenient stations were occupied by the bands of the blue and
green factions of the circus; and their furious conflicts, which
had shaken the capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of
servitude. From either side they echoed in responsive melody the
praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians directed the
choir, and long life ^53 and victory were the burden of every
song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the
banquet, and the church; and as an evidence of boundless sway,
they were repeated in the Latin, ^54 Gothic, Persian, French, and
even English language, ^55 by the mercenaries who sustained the
real or fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery
has been reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, ^56 which
the vanity of succeeding times might enrich with an ample
supplement. Yet the calmer reflection of a prince would surely
suggest that the same acclamations were applied to every
character and every reign: and if he had risen from a private
rank, he might remember, that his own voice had been the loudest
and most eager in applause, at the very moment when he envied the
fortune, or conspired against the life, of his predecessor. ^57

[Footnote 49: The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to
the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare.
See our learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143 - 145, 942,) in his
Titles of Honor. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be
of Persian origin.]

[Footnote 50: The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople,
all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly
described by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1 - 4, p. 469 - 471.
Legatio ad Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479 - 489.)]

[Footnote 51: Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced,
on his forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a
cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked,
though cinctured, (campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed,
stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum
mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At another repast a homily of
Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non
Latine, (p. 483.)]

[Footnote 52: Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or
Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p.
84.)]

[Footnote 53: It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss.
Graec. tom. i. p. 1199.)]

[Footnote 54: (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin 'V'
obliged the Greeks to employ their 'beta'; nor do they regard
quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange
sentences might puzzle a professor.]

[Footnote 55: (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words,
however corrupt, of their English acclamation.]

[Footnote 56: For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather
dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the
rank of standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the
adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240, not. 131; the
processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim
not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177 - 214, not. 9,
93, &c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not
109: much more information is scattered over the work.]

[Footnote 57: Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota
adulatio, (Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]

The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine,
without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood
with the blood of the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal
virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman
prince. ^58 The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son,
reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the
most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable
demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by
the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just
regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public
and private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the
fruitful source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the
opinion and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence
proscribed the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days
of freedom and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his
daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an
Egyptian wife: ^59 and the emperor Titus was compelled, by
popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant
Berenice. ^60 This perpetual interdict was ratified by the
fabulous sanction of the great Constantine. The ambassadors of
the nations, more especially of the unbelieving nations, were
solemnly admonished, that such strange alliances had been
condemned by the founder of the church and city. The irrevocable
law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the impious
prince who should stain the majesty of the purple was excluded
from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If
the ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the
Byzantine history, they might produce three memorable examples of
the violation of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or
rather of his father Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of
the king of the Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of
Romanus with a Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of
France or Italy with young Romanus, the son of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three answers were
prepared, which solved the difficulty and established the law. I.

The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were
acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal
font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed
embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he
accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the
just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could
not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian
usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of
the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was
the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject
and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were
sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with
the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this
preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from
the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and the people,
disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached, both
in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace.
III. For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo,
king of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise
Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the
fidelity and valor of the Franks; ^61 and his prophetic spirit
beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were
excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was
the lineal descendant of Charlemagne; ^62 and his daughter Bertha
inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice
of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the
Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from
the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it
was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had
usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of
Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her
female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was
polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was
the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the
second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had
provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as
she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of
the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and
Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of
threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous
servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence
was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite
concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of
Venus, Juno, and Semele. ^63 The daughter of Venus was granted to
the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was
changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather
betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the
East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by
the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years,
the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The
second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but
of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne,
were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest
was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the
great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and
embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was
entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple
was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the
empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and
husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised
the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the
remembrance of her country. ^64 In the nuptials of her sister
Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of
dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and
fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia,
aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was
enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and
the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim
of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from
the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a
hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the
neighborhood of the Polar circle. ^65 Yet the marriage of Anne
was fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson
Joroslaus was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king
of France, Henry I., sought a wife on the last borders of Europe
and Christendom. ^66

[Footnote 58: The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may
be explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of
Ducange.]

[Footnote 59: Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid,
viii. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long
line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter
to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in
August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to
inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his
marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

[Footnote 60: Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in
Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty
was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine
has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.]

[Footnote 61: Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with
whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French
writers (Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted
with these compliments.]

[Footnote 62: Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp.
c. 36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo.
A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the
Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D. 925 -
946.]

[Footnote 63: After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand
very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur,
earum nati ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv.
c. 6: ) for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v.
c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio
Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, l.
iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona
was a lover of scandal.]

[Footnote 64: Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset
satis utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical
writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and
principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc,
under the proper years.]

[Footnote 65: Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p.
221. Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud
Levesque, tom. ii. p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a
singular concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the
saints of the Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are
ignorant of her virtues.]

[Footnote 66: Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam,
filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into
Russia, and the father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit.
This event happened in the year 1051. See the passages of the
original chronicles in Bouquet's Historians of France, (tom. xi.
p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.) Voltaire might wonder at this
alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the
country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus - a name so conspicuous in
the Russian annals.]

In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of
the ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which
regulated each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and
violated the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and
fortunes of millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest
minds, superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be
seduced by the more active pleasure of commanding their equals.
The legislative and executive powers were centred in the person
of the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the
senate were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher. ^67 A
lethargy of servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in
the wildest tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea
of a free constitution; and the private character of the prince
was the only source and measure of their public happiness.
Superstition rivetted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia
he was solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the
altar, they pledged their passive and unconditional obedience to
his government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as
much as possible from the capital punishments of death and
mutilation; his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand,
and he promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the
canons of the holy church. ^68 But the assurance of mercy was
loose and indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an
invisible judge; and except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy,
the ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the
indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of
their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the
subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the
bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished
with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or
influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the
establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of
Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal
greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless
despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.
In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire
is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In
proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are
ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite,
who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of
the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute
monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of
slaves; and experience has proved, that whatever is gained in the
extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power.

[Footnote 67: A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne
senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked
despotism.]

[Footnote 68: Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives
an idea of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the
people.]

Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may
assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to
guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. From the age
of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook
the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the
three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and
the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a
comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their
obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals
in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to
the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike
qualifications.

The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the
service of the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for
the protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their
enemies. ^69 A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of
Constantinople for the blood of Sclavonians and Turks, the
Bulgarians and Russians: their valor contributed to the victories
of Nicephorus and Zimisces; and if a hostile people pressed too
closely on the frontier, they were recalled to the defence of
their country, and the desire of peace, by the well-managed
attack of a more distant tribe. ^70 The command of the
Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the columns of
Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the
successors of Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval
stores and dexterous artificers: the situation of Greece and
Asia, the long coasts, deep gulfs, and numerous islands,
accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation; and the
trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen to the
Imperial fleet. ^71 Since the time of the Peloponnesian and Punic
wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the science
of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art of
constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three, or
six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind,
each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople,
as well as to the mechanicians of modern days. ^72 The Dromones,
^73 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire, were content with
two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five-and-twenty
benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied
their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add
the captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect
with his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and
two officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other
to point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The
whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double
service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with
defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they
used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed
through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the
ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and
the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners.
But for the most part they were of the light and manageable size;
and as the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with
its ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles
over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. ^74 The principles of
maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of
Thucydides: a squadron of galleys still advanced in a crescent,
charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks
against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for
casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the
midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by
a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of
signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the
moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and
colors of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night, the
same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break,
to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By
land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to
another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five
hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of
the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. ^75 Some estimate
may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious
and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the
reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys,
and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in
the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the seaports of
Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand
mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven
hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of
Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed at
thirty-four centenaries of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six
thousand pounds sterling. Our fancy is bewildered by the endless
recapitulation of arms and engines, of clothes and linen, of
bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and
utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a
petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a
flourishing colony. ^76