Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/239

 TUE CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1200. 221 tions of the "West had been in course of formation, the llonian Empire liad, in the East, been continuini^ its history in ahnust unbroken prosperity. We may })robably gain the best idea of the forms into which that prosperity would liave devek)ped by recalling what her great rival subsequently became. Yen- ice, I repeat, was in her later history the reproduction on the Adriatic of what her former patron had been on the Bos- phorus. The rule of the New Home vas over a wider area and under more difiicult conditions than that of Venice, but the resemblance is not the less remarkable. The condition of things in Constantinople at the moment Comparison ^^ '^^'^'^^ attacked by the army of the West presents dmmM"fem." ^^^^^Y rcsembhinces, but with some all-important Greeks mid differences, to that which exists in the same city at under Turks. |.]^q present moment. Then, as now, the people were oppressed, and in the practice of the government seemed to exist mainly for the purpose of paying taxes. Corruption had honeycombed every department of the State. Offices were bought and sold. The influence of the eunuchs was greater than that of ministers of state. Public debts were paid by delegations upon the provinces — a mode which then, as now, allowed the local government to share the plunder of the people. Money collected for the State was seized by the palace and diverted from its legitimate purpose. Effeminacy had taken possession of the ruling classes, and had done much to demoralize them. It would be easy to multiply the re- semblance between the Constantinople of the twelfth century and the same city under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. The danger would be to make the pictures too closely resemble each other. The essential differences between them were of a vital character. There existed a public spirit in the capital which jealously protected private interests, and which was singularly unlike the apatliy towards private wrongs which now exists. The people of Constantinople never forgot that they were the ultimate source of authority, that they could make and unmake emperors. They allowed the members of the royal family to fight out their differences, to intrigue against each other, to pay for the support of their followers