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 328 THE DECLINE AND FALL walls. Experience or foresight might excuse this timid j ealousy ; but the common duties of humanity prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in the bread ; and, should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he is guilty of coin- ing base money for the purpose of trading with the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled : the governors had private orders to fortify the passes, and break down the bridges against them : the stragglers were pillaged and murdered ; the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand ; the sick were burnt in their beds ; and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience ; and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal con- flict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontiers, Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia,!^ rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any drops of Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on the first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool beside the throne of Manuel ; ^^ but no sooner had the French king transported his army beyond the Bosphorus than he refused the offer of a second conference, unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic the cere- monial was still nicer and more difficult : like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves Emperors of the Romans,^'* and firmly maintained the purity of their title and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagne would only con- verse with Manuel on horseback in the open field ; the second, by passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor who 18 The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen (culpa nostra). History would he pleasant, if we were embarrassed only by stuh contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of Frederic. 1^ XSa^aAJ) 'ihpa, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the word ScAAt'ov. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from such ignominy (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317-320). Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex aequo, not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of some Mss. 2" Ego Romanoruni imperator sum, ille Romaniorum (Anonym. Canis. p. 512). The public and historical style of the Greeks was 'Hiif . . . princcps. Yet Cinna- mus owns, that 'linireporwp is synonymous to Boo-iAeus.