Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/686

614 to Lesbos, where he entered into the service of the prince of that island, and wrote his history after the reduction of Lesbos by the Turks in. It commences in , aud goes down to the conquest of Lesbos. Ducas is the most difficult and barbarous of all the historians, and the only one who appears entirely unacquainted with classical models. At the same time he is among the most intelligent, impartial, and sagacious. The ruin of the Greek empire has also been recorded by XX. and XXI. . Both of these were eminent among the states men of their disastrous period, and Phrantzes in particular played a very important part in diplomacy. Broken hearted at the capture of his native city and the death of his son and daughter in slavery, he retired to a monastery in Corfu, where he wrote his Chronicon about , to which year it extends. It commences at the year , but by far the most valuable portion is that which records the transactions of the author's lifetime, and the value of this is very great. Chalcocondyles, beginning at, brings his history down to the invasion of the Morea by the Turks in. He also is an accomplished man, of much experience in. public business; and although his digressions respecting the affairs and manners of other nations are irrelevant, and betray ignorance, they are interesting as an index to the knowledge possessed by his countrymen at his time.

II. . The chronologers usually published in the collection are frequently very valuable, but neither their lives nor their writings need detain us long. They are I., the attendant (syncellus) upon the patriarch Tarasius, about the. His unfinished chronicle extends from Adam to Diocletian, and was continued to by II. , a martyr in the cause of image worship. III. and IV. continued Theophanes to and respectively. V. The chronicle of the Syrian extends from the beginning of the world to. Malalas is usually supposed to have lived in the , and to have left his work incomplete, but some regard him as contemporary of Justinian. VI. , Patriarch of Constantinople under Leo the Armenian,, compiled a chronological history from the murder of the Emperor Mauricius to his own times, and an abridged chronological manual of events from the Creation. VII. , a writer of the, compiled a chronology, chiefly of ecclesiastical occurrences, to, which has only been printed as far as the death of Valens . VIII. The contemporary chronicle of of Thebes is of little value. IX. The valuable Chronicon Paschale, which extends to, is the work of three anonymous writers. There has been considerable difficulty in settling the respective claims to originality of X. and XI. , but the latter was probably the copyist. The contrary opinion has prevented the publication of Scylitza's work, with the exception of the portions not transcribed by Cedrenus. These extend from to. The chronicle of Cedrenus reaches from the Creation to the. XII. The chronicle of is written in political verses, and extends from the beginning of the world to the accession of Alexius Comnenus in. XIII. , a writer of uncertain date, published a general chronology down to the year. XIV. The abbreviated chronicle of reaches the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in XV. The chronicle of, a writer of the , comes down to the capture of Constantinople, and is associated with a compilation respecting the antiquities of the city, which is of much greater value. The contribution of the historians to literature may be compared with the part enacted by the in the history of the world. That empire added nothing to the treasures of civilization, but it preserved much. Like the earth in winter, it seemed barren and unlovely, but it kept the good seed hidden in its bosom for better days. Had it perished before the intellectual revival of Western Europe, the solution of continuity between ancient and modern culture would have been irreparable. In like manner the historians preserved the traditions of historical composition, while their brethren of the West were merely chroniclers and annalists. They have safely embalmed in their generally unattractive pages a vast mass of most valuable information, for which we are in most cases solely dependent upon them, and they aid us to reconstruct the polity, and to some extent the social life, of what was for several centuries the only really civilized Christian state in the world. They are undoubtedly for the most part perfectly ignorant of the significance of their own times; they have postponed what was really interesting to barren details of battles and court intrigues, and have wasted opportunities which would have been invaluable to a philosophic historian. Cinnamus and Ducas are the only two with any claim to this character, and is the only artist. When, however, all their disadvantages are taken into consideration, it will probably be deemed that they are much better than might have been expected. They were isolated from all the rest of the known world by prejudice, policy, and religious hatred. There was no scientific or other intellectual movement in their times, no aspiration for liberty, no conception of a more liberal culture; they were crushed by a rigid despotism, and enthralled by an abject superstition. Under these circumstances the good sense and sagacity of many among them are very remarkable, and are chiefly to be explained by the large proportion among them of men accustomed to practical life and public affairs. Their roll includes sovereigns, generals, prime ministers, secretaries of state, diplomatists, and other important public officers; even the ecclesiastics among them are not recluses but men versed in business. The civil service was the strong point of the empire, and its solid if prosaic qualities are admirably reflected by its literary representatives.

The first collective edition of the historians was published at Paris, –, in 27 volumes, with a preface by Labbe, and notes and translations by Fabrotus, Combefisius, and others. It was reprinted, with additions, at Venice, –. These editions are superseded by the great edition of Bonn, –, in 48 volumes, undertaken at the recommendation and under the superintendence of Niebuhr, and continued after his death under the patronage of the Royal Prussian Academy. The separate volumes are edited, by Bekker, Dindorf, Hase, and other distinguished scholars; nevertheless, according to Brunet, “de bons textes des historiens byzantins restent encore a donner.” Like former collections it contains several works of value not strictly belonging to history, but illustrative of it. No guide to history is comparable to Gibbon, whose narrative of this period is an unparalleled literary feat of masterly and impartial condensation. See likewise Lebeau, Histoire du Bas Empire, Paris, –. MrFinlay's volumes are also invaluable companions to the historians. Of special works on the subject, the most important is Hankius, De Byzantinarum rerum scriptoribus Græcis Leipsic,, a book distinguished by extensive and accurate erudition, but necessarily deficient as respects the writers not published in the author's day. It contains notices of ecclesiastical writers also. Special points of interest are discussed in Von Hammer's essay in the Annals, (vol.6) on the correction of the  historians from Ottoman sources; in Heyne's Antiquatates Byzantinæ (–); and in Hullman's Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels. Sabatier's great work on Byzantine numismatics also affords much illustrative matter, and there is a lively sketch of the general social condition of the Eastern Empire in Augustin Marrast's Esquisses Byzantines (Paris, .) (Author:Richard Garnett)