Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/84

 64 THE DECLINE AND FALL Their Im- perfections might apply^ to his contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the warning of past times. Fi-om the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe ; and, if his successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may in- herit and enjoy the everlasting legacy. A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the gratitude of posterity : in the possession of these Imperial treasures, we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance ; and the fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by in- difference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version in the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian ; but the sense of the old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry ; and the absolute pro- hiliition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money, enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome ; he might learn to what a pitch of energy and elevation the human character had [Lives of the formerly aspired. But a contrary effect must have been pro- Acte*oftho duced by a new edition of the lives of the saints, which the Martyrs] great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare ; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by [Symeon] the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metaphrast.^ The 8 The life ;ind writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described by Hankius (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 410-460). This biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible of the original texture. [The most recent investigations of Vasilievski and Ehrhard as to the date of Symeon Metaphrastes confirm the notice in the text. He flourished about the middle and second half of the loth century ; his hagiographical work was suggested by Constantine Porphyrogennetos and was probably composed during the reign of Nicephorus Phocas. Symeon is doubtless to be identified with Symeon Magister, the chronicler ; see above, vol. 5, App. p. 502. (Cp. Krumb;icher, Gesch. der byz. Litt. p. 200.) Symeon's work was not original composition ; he collected and edited older works, lives of saints and acts of martyrs ; he paraphrased them, improved their style, and adapted them to the taste of his contemporaries, but he did not invent new stories. His Life of Abercius has been strikingly confirmed by the discovery of the original in- scription quoted in that life. The collection of Symeon was freely interpolated and augmented by new lives after his death, and the edition of Migne, P. G. 114, 115, 116, does not represent the original work. To determine the compass of that origin;il work is of the highest importance, and this can only be done by a compara- tive study of numerous Mss. which contain portions of it. This problem has been solved in the main by A. Ehrhard, who found a clue in a Moscow Ms. of the nth century. He has published his results m a paper entitled Die Legenden- sammlung des Symeon Metaphrastes und ihr urspriinglicher Bestand, in the Festschrift zum elfhundertjiihrigen Jubilaum des deutschen Campo Santo in Rom, 1897.]