Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/125

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 105 was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire, or captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the calipli of Bagdad. 1^* The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of confine- ment, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his Lihrnni, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two hundred and fourscore ^Titers, historians, orators, philosophers, theolo- gians, are reviewed without any regular method : he abridges their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a discreet free- dom, which often breaks through the superstition of the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his own edu- cation, entrusted to the care of Photius his son and successor Leo the Philosopher ; and the reign of that prince and of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the Imperial library ; by their pens, or those of their associates, they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the public. Besides the Basi/ics, or code of laws, the arts of husbandry and war, of feed- ing or destroying the human species, were propagated with equal diligence ; and the history of Greece and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate, the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the ancients, have deserved in some measure the remembrance and gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical common-place book of Stobaeus, the grammati- cal and historical lexicon of Suid;is, the Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of plenty, has poured the ^" E(5 "Ao-crvpious can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliph ; and the rela- tion of his embassy might have been curious and instructive. But how did he procure his books ? A library so numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with his baggage, nor presers-ed in his memory. Yet the last, however incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself, So-as ainmv ij iJ-yrj/xr) fiea-io^e. Camusat (Hist. Critique des Joumaux, p. 87-94) gives a good account of the Myriobiblon.