48
THE BYZANTINES AND THEIR ENEMIES.
cavalier, when the traditions of old Roman organization gave place to mere centralization, then no amount of the inherited mechanical skill of past ages could save the Byzantine empire from its fall. The rude vigour of the Western knight accomplished the task Chosroes and Crumn, Moslemah and Sviatoslaf, had found too hard for them. But it was not the empire of Heraclius of John Zimisces, of Leo the Isaurian, or Leo the Armenian, that was subdued by the piratical Crusaders, it was only the dimished and disorganized realm of the miserable Alexius Angelus.
