Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/179

 port of the cadets of noble families in luxury. Even private houses, with all their inmates, were turned into monasteries. We have seen how many emperors, generals, and rebels were sent to repent in monastic cloisters. The church ritual was very splendid; patriarchs, bishops, and clergy vied with each other in producing the most magnificent musical services.

Such, very briefly sketched, was the Constantinople of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. An emperor first, made sacred by every form of ceremony and state; the emperor's immediate connections, dignified by grand names, but possessing no power and having no control over affairs except that gained by personal influence; the chief officers of the state, mere private secretaries appointed at will; the strongest emperors baffled by their inability to compass the control over everything; no trained body of departmental servants; an army composed entirely of rustics and foreigners; generals suspected after every successful enterprize; a capital crowded with an unwarlike and cowardly mob, living on imperial doles, eager for the games of the circus, without interest or care for the state; and a splendid city, the most splendid city of the earth, abounding with treasures of every kind, and occupying the finest site that the world has to show.