Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/251

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 229 penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety. Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal, abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the artless virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not borrowed from the schools. He despised and moderated the stately magnificence of the Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people, so contemptible to the eye of reason. Under such a prince, innocence had nothing to fear, and merit had everything to hope ; and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a censor, he introduced a gradual, though visible, reformation in the public and private manners of Con- stantinople. The only defect of this accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love of arms and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John the Handsome may be justified, at least in their principle, by the necessity of repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The sultan of Iconium was confined to his capital, the bar- barians were driven to the mountains, and the maritime provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient blessings of their de- liverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and Aleppo, he repeatedly mai'ched at the head of a victorious army, and, in the sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he began to indulge the ambitious hope of restoring the ancient limits of the empire, as he revolved in his mind the Euphrates and Tigris, the dominion of Syria, and the conquest of Jerusalem, the thread of his life and of the public felicity was broken by a singular accident. He hunted the wild boar in the valley of Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in the body of the furious animal ; but, in the struggle, a poisoned arrow dropped from his quiver, and a slight wound in his hand, which produced a mortification, was fatal to the best and greatest of the Com- nenian princes. A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of ^I^^a Tils'' John the Handsome ; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or affection preferred the younger ; and the choice of their dying prince was ratified by the soldiers who had applauded the valour of his favourite in the Turkish war. The faithful Axuch hastened to the capital, secured the person of Isaac in honourable confinement, and purchased, with a gift of two hun- dred pounds of silver, the leading ecclesiastics of St. Sophia,