Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/123

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 103 of the Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the names of Franks and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent ; and these haughty barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the aliens of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of Romans ; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent appellation of Greeks.^'^'^ But this contemptuous ap- The Greek pellation was indignantly rejected by the prince and people toandth"^ whom it is applied. Whatsoever changes had been introduced tain^^d*^*" by the lapse of ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken succes- name of * sion from Augustus and Constantine ; and, in the lowest period ™*'" of degeneracy and decay, the name of Romans adhered to the last fragments of the empire of Constantinople.^"^ While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, Penod of the Greek was the language of literature and philosophy ; nor ° could the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman disciples. After the fall of paganism, the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, the studies of the Greeks insensibly retired to some regular monasteries, and above all to the royal college of Con- stantinople, which was burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian.^^" In the pompous style of the age, the president of that foundation was named the Sun of Science : his twelve associates, the pro- fessors in the different arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac ; a library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to their inquiries ; and they could shew an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in length, the intestines, as it was fabled, of a '"'Quia lingimm, mores, vestcsque mutastis, putavit Sanctissimus Papa (an audacious irony), ita vos [vobis] displicere Romanoruni nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum Imperatorem Gra;coruni, ut cum Othone Imperatort; Romanorum amiciliam faceret (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486 [c. 47]). [The citation is verbally inaccurate.] 1" By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated (1. i. p. 3 [p. 6, ed. Bonn]) : Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city of Thrace : they adopted the language and manners of the natives, who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The kings of Constantinople, says the historian, tT^'i tw (tiW'; avrov'; o-rtxvvvea-dai 'Pw/nai'wi' |3n<riAet9 re xal auTOtpaTopoT a.vOKaeiv, 'EAAtjiwi' Se ^aaiAcis ouxeVt oiSajUJJ a^iovi'. i^'See Ducange(C. P. Christiana, 1. ii. p. 150, 151), who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at least of Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xv. p. 104 [c. 3]), Cedreniis (p. 454 [i. 795, ed. Bonn]), Michael Glycas (p. 281 [p. 522, ed. Bonn]), Constantine Manasses (p. 87 [1. 4257]). .After refuting the absurd charge ag.ninst the emperor, Spanheim (Hist. Iniaginum, p. qo-tit). like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or deny the reality of the lire, and almost of the library.