Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/207

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 185 Imperial reward would have kindled every energy of the mind, and produced a crowd of competitors as deserving as they were desirous to reign. Even in the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the elevation of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He would probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science ; and in the pursuit of fortune he might absolve himself from the obligations of benevolence and justice ; but to his character we may ascribe the useful virtues of prudence and fortitude, the knowledge of mankind, and the important art of gaining their confidence and direct- ing their passions. It is agreed that Leo was a native of Isauria,!"^ and that Conon was his primitive name. The writers, whose awkward satire is praise, describe him as an itinerant pedlar, who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise to the country fairs ; and foolishly relate that he met on the road some Jewish fortune-tellers, who promised him the Roman empire on condition that he should abolish the worship of idols. A more probable account relates the migration of his father from Asia Minor to Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a grazier ; and he must have acquired con- siderable wealth, since the first introduction of his son was procured by a supply of five hundred sheep to the Imperial camp. His first service was in the guards of Justinian, where he soon attracted the notice, and by degrees the jealousy, of the tyrant. His valour and dexterity were conspicuous in the Colchian war ; ^^ from Anastasius he received the command of the Anatolian legions ; and by the suffrage of the soldiers he was raised to the empire, with the general applause of the Roman world. — II. In this dangerous elevation, Leo the Third i"[The authority is Theophanes, who calls him " the Isaurian," but makes the strange statementt hat he came from Germanicia tiJ aA.jj9eia Si- ck t^s 'lo-avpt'a?, " but really from Isauria," which Anastasius, in his Latin translation, corrects into genere Syriis. It is clear that there is a mistake here, as K. Schenk has shown (Byz. Zeitsch., v., p. 296-8, 1896); as Leo's family belonged to Germanicia he was a Syrian of Commagene, not an Isaurian; and in the 2vi'o-yu)-yr) x oi'wr (in de Boor's ed. of Nicephorus, p. 225) he is called o :ivpo9. Schenk thinks that Theo- phanes confounded Germanicia with Germanicopolis in Isauria (West Cilicia) ; but the position of Germanicia in "Syria" was well known to Theophanes (cp. p. 422, 445, 451). Possibly Theophanes wrote et ttjs 2uptc?, and Anastasius trans- lated the genuine reading. There is nothing improbable in an accidental corrup- tion of Tir)s 2upias to tt;? to-Kupia? (and o'lcraupos two lines before would follow). This explanation is supported by the fact that in another passage (which Schenk omits to notice) Theophanes does call Leo " the Syrian " (p. 412, 2).] i*[For an account of Leo's adventures in Alania and Abasgia, see Bury, Later Roman Empire, ii. , 374-7.]