Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/511

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 489 my materials, since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios of Pachymer,"^ Cantacuzene/' and Nicephorus Gregoras/ who have composed the prolix and languid story of the times. The name and situation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might inspire the most lively curiosity. His memorials of forty years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication of the empire ; and it is observed that, like Moses and Caesar, he was the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But in this eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of an hero or a penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of the world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the life of an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels and char- acters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own praises and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure ; their ends always legitimate ; they conspire and rebel without any views of in- terest ; and the violence which they inflict or suffer is cele- brated as the spontaneous effect of reason and virtue. After the example of the first of the Palaeologi, the elder First dispntea Andronicus associated his son Michael to the honours of the ewer and purple ; and, from the age of eighteen to his premature death, drScv^. that prince was acknowledged, above twenty-five years, as the second emperor of the Greeks.** At the head of an army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy nor the jealousy of the court ; his modesty and patience were never tempted to com- pute the years of his father ; nor was that father compelled to repent of his liberality either by the virtues or vices of his 2 Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes the first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day (A.u. 1308). Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming the pen. '' After an interval of twelve years from the conclusion of Pachymer, Canta- cuzenus takes up the pen ; and his first book (c. 1-59, p. 9-150) relates the civil war and the eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious comparison of Moses and Casar is fancied by his French translator, the president Cousin. 5 Xicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire hfe and reign of An- dronicus the Elder (1. vi. c. i. ; 1. x. c. i, p. 96-291). This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and malicious representation of his conduct. i" He was crowned May 21, 1295, and died October 12, 1320 (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239). His brother, Theodore, by a second marriage, inherited the mar- quisate of Montferrat, apostatized to the religion and manners of the Latins (on icat yfiAi/jL-n Kill TriartL Kat orifj.a.Ti^ Kai ytrtttoi' Kovfja Kai iratriv eSeaLf Aa.TLi'0^ rtu afcpat(/>r>}f, Nic. Greg. 1. i.x. c. i), and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was ex- tinguished A.u. 1533 (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249-253).