Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/483

 OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 461 from the dangers in which he was involved by his own impru- dence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose ^^ between two officers, one of whom accused th>i other of maintaining the hereditary right of the Palaeologi. The cause was decided, according to the new juris- prudence of the Latins, by single combat : the defendant was overthrown ; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty ; and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron. Yet a cloud of sus})icion hung over the innocence of the con- stable ; he was still pursued by the whispers of malevolence ; and a subtile courtier, the archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the fiery proof of the ordeal. ^^ Three days before the trial, the patient's arm was in- closed in a bag and secured by the royal signet ; and it was in- cumbent on him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and with- out injury. Palaeologus eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. "I am a soldier," said he, "and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers ; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of miracles. Your piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence." The archbishop started ; the em- peror smiled ; and the absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and new services. II. In the suc- ceeding reign, as he held the government of Nice, he was secreth'^ informed that the mind of the absent prince was pois- oned with jealousy ; and that death or blindness would be his final reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of [ad. 1257] Theodore, the constable, with some followers, escaped from the city and the empire ; and, though he was plundered b}' the Turkmans of the desert, he found an hospitable refuge in the court of the sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael reconciled the duties of gratitude and loyalty ; drawing his sword against the Tartars ; admonishing the garrisons of the 1^ Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of this curious adventure, which seems to have escaped the more recent writers. 19 Pachymer (1. i. c. 12), who speaks with proper contempt of this barbarous trial, affirms that he had seen in his youth many persons who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against their own superstition or that of their tyrant.