Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/316

294 THE DECLINE AND FALL Tmnsactionx of the West- em and Eastern em- pires Imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany. From that memorable aera, two maxims of public jurisprudence were inti'oduced by force, and ratified by time : I. That the prince who was elected in the German diet acquired from that instant the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome ; II. But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff. 1-" The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the alteration of his style ; and, instead of saluting his fathers, the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation of brother.^^^ Perhaps in his connexion with Irene he aspired to the name of husband : his embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princess, who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The nature, the duration, the probable conse- quences of such an union between two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to conjecture ; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us to suspect that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to the strangers of the VVest.^-'-' The French ambassadors were the spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome : A proverb, " That the Franks were good friends and bad neighbours," was in every ones mouth ; but it was dangei'ous to provoke a neighbour who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found him in his camp, on the banks of the river Sala ; and 1^ The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians, Muratori for instance, are more -scrupulous and correct, and only reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome. •^ Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P. iniperaloribus super hoc indignan- tibus) m.agna tulit patientia, vicitque eoruni contumaciam . . . niittcndo ad eos crebras legationes, et in epistoiis fratres eos appelhindo. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128. Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he aitectt-d some reluctance to receive the empire. 129 Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of Charles, KapouAAot (Chronograph, p. 399 [a.m. 6289]), and of his treaty of marriage with Irene (p. 402 [a.m. 6294]), which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates his transactions with the Greek empire (tom. ii. p. 446-468).