Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/86

 66 THE DECLINE AND FALL Embassy of Liutprand. [A.D. 968-9] pleased to record ; nor should his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population of the capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard, have been unnoticed by Leo the Philosopher and his son Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained with the same blemishes ; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit ; the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous ; but the geography and manners of the barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Con- stantinople about the middle of the tenth century ; his style is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen ; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius. ^^ From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire : the provinces and wealth, the civil government and military force, the character and literature, of the Greeks, in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of Heraclius to the successful invasion of the Franks or Latins. The themes, After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the of uuM^pfre, swarms of barbarians from Scythia and Germany overspread the fnevsry'^e' provinccs, and extinguished the empire, of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion ; her limits were inviolate, or at least entire ; and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient and precarious ; and almost a moiety of the Eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian caliphs ; and, after the The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram ngainst Fr^ron ; Un serpent mordit Jean Fr^ron — Eh bien? Le serpent en mourut. But, as the Paris wits are seldom read in the Anthology, I should be curious to learn through what channel it was conveyed for their imitation (Constanlin. Forphyrogen. de Themat. c. ii. Brunk, Analect. Grasc. tom. ii. p. 56 [p. 21, ed. Bonn] ; Brodaei. Anthologia, 1. ii. p. 244 [Anthol. Pal., xi. 237]). [Of Constantine's Book|on the Themes, M. Ranibaud observes : " C'est I'enipire au vi^ siecle, et non pas au x* sitele, que nous trouvons dans son livre" [op. cif., p. 166).] 1' The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephoium Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. [In Pertz, Monum. vol. 3. There is a convenient ed. of Liutprand's works by E. Diimmler in the Scr. rer. Germ. 1877.]