Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/410

 388 THE DECLINE AND FALL tion and his father's "^ deliverance. The royal youth was recom- mended by Philip^ king of Germany ; '^- his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp ; and his cause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat ^"^ and the doge of Venice. A double alliance and the dignity of Caesar had connected Avith the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface ; ""^ he expected to derive a kingdom from the impor- tant service ; and the more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to his country/'^ Their influence procured a favourable audience for the ambassadors of Alexius ; and, if the magnitude of his oflers excited some suspicion, the motives and rewards which he displayed might justify the delay and diversion of those forces which had been consecrated to the deliverance of Jerusalem. He promised, in his own and his father's name, that, as soon as they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves and their people to the lawful supremacy' of the Roman church. He engaged to re- compense the labours and merits of the crusaders by the im- mediate payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver ; to accompany them in person to Egypt ; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to maintain, during a year, ten thousand 61 The Emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, Sursac (No. 35, &c.), which may be derived from the French Sire, or the Greek ic-jp (xvpio?) melted into his proper name [from Sire ; for KiJp could not become Si/)-^ ; the farther corruptions of Tursac and Conserac will instruct us what licence may have been used in the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt. •^2 [Whose court he visited A.D. 1201.] "■'' [The conduct of the Marquis of Montferrat was not more ingenuous than that of Dandolo. He was, no more than Dandolo, a genuine crusader ; he used the crusaders for his own purpose, and that purpose was, from the beginning, to restore Alexius. The plan was arranged during the winter at the court of Philip of Swabia, to which Alexius had betaken himself after his escape froiji Constantinople ; Boni- face, as we have seen, was there too (above, p. 385, note 53) ; and there can be no doubt that there was a complete understanding between them. Cp. Gesta Inno- centii, 83. Philip nursed the dream of a union of the eastern and the western empires. Thus Boniface and Dandolo (for different reasons) agreed on the policy of diverting their expedition to Constantinople long before it started ; they hoodwinked the mass of the crusaders ; and the difficulties about payment were pressed only for the purpose of accomplishing the ultimate object.] •>• Reinier and Conrad : the former married Maria, daughter of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus ; the latter was the husband of Theodora Angela, sister of the Emperors Isaac and .-Vlexius. Conrad abandoned the Greek court and princess for the glory of defending Tyre against Saladin (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 1S7, 203). ^^ Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, 1. iii. c. 9) accuses the doge and Venetians as the first authors of the war against Constantinople, and considers only as a Kv^a vnip ye^. en-i] (cvfAari the arrival and shameful offers of the royal exile.