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 THE BYZANTINES. 83 and gave asylum to the last representatives of Greek learning. There are three writers especially who have done a great deal to promulgate error and injus- tice in regard to Byzantine history, namely, Montesquieu, Gibbon, and, to a limited extent, Fallmerayer. Since, however, historians like Zinkeisen, Finlay, Ross, Curtius, Hopf, and Mendelssohn-Bartholdi have made scientific re- searches, there are few, and there should be none, who will form a judgment upon the By- zantines, based upon no other, no better, no later source than the three first-named writers upon the history of mediaeval Greece. Still every day we meet people who have by tradition, without personal research into the facts, accepted the most absurd ideas about the Byzantines. It is on account of such people that it may appear proper to consider the writings of the two first- named historians, Montesquieu and Gibbon, and later on to speak of Fallmerayer. Montesquieu treats of the Roman period in a masterly manner; the subject of the Byzantine epoch, however, is beyond his depth ; here he is superficial and prejudiced. He informs us in a general way that from the period of Phokas onward the history of the Greek Empire is a