Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/430

 408 THE DECLINE AND FALL senator.^'^" At the first view, it should seem that the wealtli of Constantinople was only transferred from one nation to anotlier, and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable account of war the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to the pain ; the smiles of the Latins were transient and fallacious ; the Greeks for ever wept over the ruins of their country ; and their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery. What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which annihilated so vast a portion of the build- ings and riches of the city .'' What a stock of such things as could neither be used or transported was maliciously or wantonly destroyed ! How much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot ! And what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks ! These alone who had nothing to lose might derive some profit from the revolution ; but the misery of tlie upper ranks of society is strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself His stately palace had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration ; and the senator, with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another house which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded, in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a cold wintry season these fugi- tives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot ; his Avife was with child ; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders ; and their women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it Aith paint and jewels. Every step was exposed to insult and danger ; the threats of the strangers were less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now levelled ; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selym- bria, above forty miles from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance, and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of apostolical 1"'' The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367-369, and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375-384. His complaints even of sacrilege are justified by Innocent III. (Gesta, c. 92) ; but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or remorse. I