Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/449

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 427 approach ; they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intel- ligence that his rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armour, he leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies before him ; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal wound ; and the head of the king of poii] °'^°' Thessalonica was presented to Calo-John, who enjoyed the hon- ours, without the merit, of victory. It is here, at this melan- choly event, that the pen or the voice of Jeffrey of Villehardouin seems to drop or to expire ; ^"^ and, if he still exercised his military office of marshal of Romania, his subsequent exploits are buried in oblivion."^ The character of Henry was not unequal to his arduous situation : in the siege of Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he had deserved the fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander ; and his courage was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown to his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of Asia and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on shipboard or on hoi-se- back ; and, though he cautiously provided for the success of his arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by his example to save and to second their fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some supplies of men and money from fVance, were of less avail than the errors, the cruelty, and the death of their most formid- able adversarJ^ When the despair of the Greek subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped that he would protect their liberty and adopt their laws ; they were soon taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate the savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his intention of dis- peopling Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitants beyond the Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were already evacuated; an heap of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity was expected at Demotica and Hadrianople by the first authors of the revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne of Henry ; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and 2^ Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original history, and the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages may derive some light from Henry's two epistles to Innocent III. (Gesta, c. 106, 107). [Villehardouin's story is poorly continued by Henry of Valen- ciennes, whose chronicle is printed along with Villehardouin in Wailly's edition (ed. 3, 1882).] returning to France (Ducange, Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 238). His fief of Messinople, the gift of Boniface, was the ancient Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, among the cities of Thrace (No. 141). [Messinopolis is the Mosynopolis of Greek historians.]
 * The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soon afterwards, without