Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/397

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 375 the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek empire crumbled into dust. The island of Cyprus, whose name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian prince ; and, by a strange [Cypms con- concatenation of events, the sword of our English Richard be- Richard, a.d. 11911 stowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich compen- sation for the loss of Jerusalem.--^ The honour of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were Revolt of the deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and W allachians. ad. use Since the victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above an hundred and seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzan- tine princes ; but no effectual measures had been adopted to im- pose the yoke of laws and manners on these savage tribes.-* By the command of Isaac, their sole means of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials ; and their fierce warriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race of the ancient kings,-'^ asserted their own rights and the national freedom ; their demoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd that their glorious patron, St. Demetrius, had for ever deserted the cause of the Greeks ; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the ^^ [For Cyprus under the Lusignans, the chief work is L. de Mas-Latrie's Histoire de I'ile de Chypre dans le regne des princes de la maison de I.usignan, 3 vols. 1855-61.] ^ [For the Bulgarians and Wallachians in the nth century, we have some in- teresting notices in the Strategicon of Cecaumenos (see vol. 5, Appendi.v, p. 505) ; especially the account of the revolt of the Wallachians of Thessaly (Great Vlachia) in A.D. 1066, c. 171 sgq.'l ^'Ducange, Familioe Dalmaticne, p. 318-320. The original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff is inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66-82, p. 513-525. [For the foundation of the .Second Bulgarian (or Vlacho- Bulgarian) kingdom, see Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren, c. 14 ; X6nopol, Histoire des Roumains, p. 172 sqc/., and L'empire valacho-bulgare in the Revue Historique, 47 (1897), p. 278 S(/i/. There is a Russian monograph, by T. Uspenski (1879). The two Asens claimed to be descenrled from the old tsars ; but wc cannot pay much regard to such a claim. The question is whether they were Bulgarians or Vlachs. The Roumanians would gladly believe that they were Vlachs ; and they appeal to an in- cident recorded by Nicetas (in Alex. Is. fil. i. c. 5, p. 617, ed. Bonn). A priest was taken prisoner, and he besought Asen in Vlach, " which was also his language" (Setrat toO 'Xaav athiOrivat^ St'o/xoc^wt'ta? tu? "Spt? TV? Tt'oi' BA.a'wi' c^wi't}?). The natural inference from this piece of evidence is confirmed by the fact that (i) Pope Innocent III. in his correspondence with John AsCn II. (Calo-John) speaks to him as a Vlach or Roman (see next note) ; and (2) western liistorians assert that he was a Vlach (e.g:, Villehardouin, Conquete de Constantinople, xliii. sect. 202, ce Johannis 6tait un Blaque).] i