Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/522

 500 THE DECLINE AND FALL different nature of foreign and civil war. "The former/' said he, " is the external warmth of summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial ; the latter is the deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the vitals of the constitution." "^^' Victory of The introduction of barbarians and savages into the con- Cantacozene ..^•••tij.- • -ii i tests of Civilised nations is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief; which the interest of the moment may compel, but which is reprobated by the best principles of humanity and reason. It is the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the guilt of the first alliances ; and those who fail in their negotiations are loudest in their censure of the example which they envy and would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were less barbarous, perhaps, than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia ; ^^ but their religion rendered them the implacable foes of Rome and Christianity. To acquire the fi-iendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with each other in baseness and profusion ; the dexterity of Cantacuzene obtained the preference ; 3" Nic. Gregoras, 1. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his own writings. 31 [The author does not seem to realise, he certainly has not brought out, the dominant position of Servia at this time under its king Stephen Dushan, a name which deserves a place in the history of the Fall of the Roman Empire. Servia was the strongest power in the peninsula under Stephen (1331-1355), and its boundaries extended from the Danube to the gulf of Arta. " He was a man of great ambition and was celebrated for his gigantic stature and personal courage. His subjects boasted of his liberality and success in war; his enemies reproached him with faithlessness and cruelty. He had driven his father Stephen VII. [Urosh III.] from the throne, and the old man had been murdered in prison by the rebellious nobles of Servia, who feared lest a reconciliation should take place with his son. Stephen Dushan passed seven years of his youth at Constantinople, where he became acquainted with all the defects of the Byzantine government and with all the vices of Greek society. The circumstances in which the rival Emperors were placed dui'ing the year 1345 were extremely favourable to his ambitious projects, and he seized the opportunity to extend his conquests in every direction. To the east he rendered himself master of the whole valley of the Strymon, took the large and flourishing city of Serres and garrisoned all the fortresses as far as the wall that defended the pass of Christopolis. He extended his dominions along the shores of the Adriatic, and to the south he carried his arms to the gulf of Ambracia. He subdued the Vallachians of Thessaly, and placed strong garrisons in Achrida, Kastoria and Joannina. Flushed with victory he at last formed the ambitious scheme of depriving the Greeks of their political and ecclesiastical supremacy in the Eastern Empire and transferring them to the Servians" (Finlay, iv. p. 441-2). In 1346 he was crowned at Skopia as " Tsar of the Serbs and Greeks," and gave his son the title of Krai ; and he raised his archbishop to the rank of Patriarch. The prosperity of his reign is better shown by the growth of trade in the Servian towns than by the increase of Servian territory. Moreover Stephen did for Servia what Yaroslav did for Russia ; he drew up a code of laws, which might be quoted to modify Gibbon's contemptuous references to the Servians as barbarians. This Zakonik has been repeatedly edited by Shafarik, Miklosich, Novakovich and Zigel.]