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 206 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. downfall. So long as the country had been able to keep its democratic organization of municipalities — so long, that is, as the Greek idea of local government had continued, so long the empire had been in little danger. After its conquests had been extended far eastward, its wealth caused the emperors to be independent of the European provinces, and enabled them gradually to deprive the provincial towns and cities of their in- dependence. The nobles of Constantinople governed the provinces of Syria and Asia Minor as sovereigns in everything but their subjection to the emperor. The government in the capital fell gradually into the hands of men who had been used to these Asiatic modes of rule. The traditions which the Greek race had preserved of independent municipal rule were for- gotten. All government was centralized in the capital, until the people in the provinces began to forget that the interest of Constantinople was also theirs. There were, as we have seen, new influences at work, the tendency of which was to make the government Venetian in character, but of these the Crusaders knew nothing. Even in the capital itself the in- fluences of Asia were altogether baneful. The rulers had but. few occasions when it was necessary to consult the wishes of the citizens. Wealth poured into the imperial treasury in such abundance that an appeal to the popular will for new taxes was rarely necessary. The citizens lost their interest in politics worthy of the name, and contined themselves to taking part in the many dynastic changes with which the later history of the empire abounds. Even from the founda- tion of the ISTew Eome its imperial government had been possessed with the ideas of luxury which had already weak- ened the elder city on the banks of the Tiber. A new govern- ment had been imported into Byzantium, a government which was Caesarian and absolute in character, and which had even in Italy absorbed much of the effeminacy, extravagance, and lux- ury of the East. The position, however, of the city of Con- stantino rendered it more liable than its predecessor had been to be affected by the influences averse to progress which have usually surrounded Asiatic princes. The gorgeousness of the Persian and Indian courts came to be reproduced on the Bos-