Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/404

 382 THE DECLINE AND FALL cany to Gibraltar^ were indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa ; but the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative share of the commerce of Greece and Egypt. Their riches in- creased with the increasing demand of Europe ; their manufac- tures of silk and glass, perhaps the institution of their bank, are of high antiquity ; and they enjoyed the fruits of their industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert her flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation, the republic could launch and man a fleet of an hundred galleys ; and the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans were encountered b}' her naval arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the reduction of the sea-coast ; but their zeal was neither blind nor disinterested ; and, in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the com- merce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a maritime power ; yet her ambition was prudent ; nor did she often forget that, if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant-vessels were the cause and supph^, of her greatness. In her religion she avoided the schism of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; and a fi-ee intercourse with the infidels of every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of super- stition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of de- mocracy and monarchy ; the doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly : as long as he was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a prince ; but in the frequent revolutions of the state he was deposed, or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude. The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous aris- tocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to a cypher.'*^ trade to England before the year 1323. The most flourishirfg state of their wealth and commerce in the beginning of the xvth century is agreeably described by the Abb6 Dubos (Hist, de la Ligue de Cambray, torn. ii. p. 443-480). ■*•' The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing their history. Their most ancient monuments are, i. The rude Chronicle (perhaps) of John Sagorninus (Venezia, 1765, in 8vo), which represents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. [Johannes was chaplain of the Doge Peter II., at the beginning of the nth century. The name Sagorninus is due to an error as to the authorship. The chronicle has been edited by Montricolo in the Fonti per la storia d'ltalia. Cronache Veneziane antich. i. p. 59 sqq. 1890.] 2. The larger history of the doge (1342 1354), Andrew Dandolo, published for the first time in the xiith torn, of Muratori, A.D. 1738. [H. Simonsfeld, Andreas Dandolo und seine Geschichtswerke, 1876.] The History of Venice, by the Abbe Laugier (Paris, 1728), is a work of some merit, which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. [Daru's Histoire de Venise is most convenient for general reference. Romanin's Storia documentata di Venezia is very highly spoken of.]