Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/124

 104 THE DECLINE AND FALL prodigious serpent. ^^^ But the seventh and eighth centuries were a period of discord and darkness ; the library was burnt, the college was abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the foes of antiquity ; and a savage ignorance and contempt of letters has disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynas- ties.iii ^ Revival of In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the resto- ing " ration of science. ^^^ After the fanaticism of the Arabs had sub- sided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than the provinces, of the empire : their liberal curiosity rekindled the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the philosophers, whose labours had been hitherto repaid by the pleasure of study and the pm'suit of truth. The Caesar Bardas, the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and ex- cused his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly ; a school was opened in the palace of Magnaura ; and the presence of Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At their head, was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalo- nica ; his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was ad- mired by the strangers of the East ; and this occult science was magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the celebrated Photius,^^^ renounced the freedom of a secidar and studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was alter- nately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or science, except poetrj', was foreign to this universal scholar, who 11' According to Malchus (apud Zonar. 1. xiv. p. 53 /i-^. 52 ; c. 2]) this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be renewed — but on a ser- pent's skin ? Most strange and incredible ! Ill The iXoyCa of Zonaras, the ipyin. kiX iy.neia of Cedrenus, are strong words, perhaps not ill suited to these reigns. 11- See Zonaras (1. xvi. p. 160, 161 [c. 4]) and Cedrenus (p. 549, 550 [ii. 168-9, ^d. Bonn]). Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by ignorance into a conjurer ; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in Ms. are in the library of Vienna (Fabricius, Bibliot. Grrec. tom. vi. p. 366, tom. xii. p. 781). Quiescant I [On the mathematical studies of Leo see Heiberg, der byzant. Mathemaiiker Leon, in Bibliot. Mathematica, N. F. i. 33 s(/y. 1887.] 11^ The ecclesiastical and literary character of Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 269-396) and Fabricius. [Sec Appendix i.J