Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/595

Rh JOANNES. port of the son of their late emperor, but tlie forces upon which the latter could rely with more security were the mercenary band and the ships of Gnste- luzzi or Gatteluzzi, a noble Genoese who promised to help hira to the crown on condition of obtaining the hand of his sister and the grant of some lands. The descendants of Gasteluzzi became sovereign princes, and were conspicuous in the latter part of Byzantine history. Falaeologus and Gasteluzzi made sail for Constantinople ; and pleading distress and want of provisions as pretext for their admis- sion within the Golden Horn, the chain across the entrance of the port was lowered by the watch of the harbour, who were either bribed by Falaeo- logus, or were not aware that the ships had hos- tile intentions. The inhabitants of Constantinople now took up arms against Cantaciizenus, who, al- though he asserts the contrary, was apparently forsaken by most of his adherents, abdicated (Janu- ary, 1355), and four days after his abdication renounced the world, and assumed the monastic habit. Under the name of Joasaph or Joseph, he spent the remainder of his days in devotion and literary occupation in the convents of Constantinople and Mount Athos ; and in his solitude he wrote the history of his times. His wife, Irene, likewise retired to a convent. The time of the death of John Cantacuzenus is uncertain. He was still alive in 1375, for in that year pope Gregory XI. wrote a letter to him; but if he died only in 1411, as has been pretended, and Ducange (Fam. Bezant. p. 260) believes, he would have attained an age of more than one hundred years, because he was a contemporary of, and probably of the same age with, Andronicus Palaeologus the younger. His principal work is the "* History" {'laTopLcou hi§ia A), which comprises in four books the reign of Andronicus the younger and his own, and finishes with the year 1357. It is written with elegance and dignity, and shows that the author was a man of superior intelligence, and fully able to understand and judge of the great events of history: but it is far from being written with impartiality; he throws blame upon his adversaries wherever he can, and praises his party, and especially himself, in a manner which betrays a great deal of vanity and hypocrisy. For the knowledge of the time it is invaluable, especially as the history of Nice- phorus Gregoras is a sufficient check upon his ; so that if the two works are compared, a sound and sagacious mind will correct the one by the other. Gibbon speaks of this history in the following terms, and his judgment is as true as it is expres- sive : " 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 elegant work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a 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 am- bitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels and characters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface of events, highly var- nished with his own praises and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure, their ends always JOANNES. 5S legitimate; they conspire and rebel without any vievvs of interest, and the violence which they inflict or suffer is celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason and virtue." This work was first made known to the world through Gretserus, who published a Latin transla- tion of it by Jacob Pontanus, with notes and the life of the author by the same, Ingolstadt, 1603, fol. Pontanus perused a MS. which was kept in the Munich library. The Greek text first appeared, from a Paris MS., in the splendid edition of Pierre Seguier, chancellor of France, Paris, 1645, 3 vols, fol., with the revised translation of Pontanus, his and the editor's notes, and the life of the author by Pontanus. It was badly reprinted in 1729 by the editors of the Venice collection of the Byzantines. The last edition is that of Louis Schopen, 1 828 — 32, 3 vols, in 8vo. in the Bonn collection of the Byzantines, a careful reprint of the Paris edition : the editor, however, had no MS. to peruse. The other works of Cantacuzenus are of no great importance. Apologiae (Kara t^s twv ^apaK-qvoiv alpeaews 'AnuAo'yiai A), the principal, are in four books, being a refutation of the religion of Mohammed ; and Kara tov Mwdfifd K6yoi A, four orations against Mohammed. The author was evidently well acquainted with the Koran ; but in refuting Mohammedanism, and proving the truth of the Christian religion, he allowed himself to be guided by the prejudices of his time and all sorts of vulgar stories, legends and fables. The Greek text and a Latin translation of these works, along with a translation of the Koran, was first published by Rudolphus Gualterus, Basel, 1543, fol. ; the translation alone, ib. 1550. Cantacuzenus also wrote a Paraphrasis of the Ethics of Aristotle ; six epistles extant in MS. at Oxford ; and several smaller treatises, chiefly on religious subjects. The chief sources are the works of Cantacuzenus f nd Nicephorus Gregoras, especially lib. viii — xv. ; Ducas, c. 1, &c. ; Phranza, i. 1 — 14 ; Fabric. Bihl. (Jraec. vol. vii. p. 787 ; Hankius, De By- zantin. Rerum Script. (>!raec.^ p. 602, &c. ; Pon- tanus, Vita Jounnis Cantacuzeni.) [W. P.] JOANNES VI. PALAEO'LOGUS Clwd^v-ns 6 IlaAaioKoyos)^ emperor of Constantinople (a. d. 1355 — 1391), often called Joannes V., the only son and heir of the emperor Andronicus III. Palaeologus the younger was born in 1332, and nominally suc- ceeded his father in 1341. It has been narrated in the preceding article how the young prince first reigned under the guardianship of Joannes Canta- cuzenus, then under the authority of a party headed by the admiral Apocauchus and the empress Anne of Savo}', and at last as a nominal colleague of John Cantacuzenus, who held the title and the power of emperor, till he ceded both to John Pa- laeologus, in 1355, whose real accession conse- quently begins with that year. For the same reason he stands in the series of emperors as John VI., although strictly he was the fifth of that name. John VI. was a weak prince. " After his enfran- chisement from an oppressive guardian," says Gibbon, " he remained thirty-six years the helpless and, as it should seem, the careless spectator of the public ruin. Love, or rather lust, was his only vigorous passion ; and in the embraces of the wives or virgins of the city, the Turkish slave forgot the dishonour of the emperor of the Romans. The reign of this emperor is nevertheless full of the most important events, and nothing affords a better P p 3