Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/434

 412 THE DECLINE AND FALL most durable of monuments : from the marble form of Phidias and Praxiteles the Latins might turn aside with stupid con- tempt ; ^^^ but, unless they were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals.^^" The most enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their countrj'men, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the search and seizure of the relics of the saints.^^^ Immense was the supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by this revolution over the churches of Europe ; and such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the East.^^^ Of the writings of antiquity many that still existed in the twelfth century are now lost. But the pilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an unknown tongue ; the perish- able substance of paper or parchment can only be preserved by the multiplicity of copies ; the literature of the Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis ; and, without computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in the triple fire of Constantinople. ^-^ lis In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360. Fabric, p. 408), the L.T.tins are branded with the lively reproach of oi toO koAov ai'dpaa-Toi jSap.Sapoi, and their avarice of brass is clearly expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four bronze horses from Constantinople to the place of St. Mark (Sanuto, Vite de' Dogi, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, torn. xxii. p. 534)- 11" Winckelman, Hist, de I'Art, torn. iii. p. 269, 270. 11^ See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24). Yet in secreting this booty the saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps broke his oath. ii^Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 139-145. 120 I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a modern history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the Latins ; but which has fallen some- what late into my hands. Paolo Ramusio, the son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed by the senate of Venice to write the history of the conquest ; and this order, which he received in his youth, he executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et Venetos restitutis [Libri vi. ; older edition, 1604] (Venet. 1635, in folio). Ramusio [Rannusio], or Rhamnusus, transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a Ms. of Villehardouin, which he possessed ; but he enriches his narrative with Greek and Latin materials, and we are indebted to him for a correct state of the fleet, the names of the fifty Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the republic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice of the doge for emperor.