Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/30

 12 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. was commerce. Trade was the life and soul of both cities. Their governments, indeed, differed, but the difference was rather in form than in reality. If Venice, in the language of Wordsworth, had once held " the gorgeous East in fee and was the safeguard of the AYest," she was so only as the con- tinuator of the work of Constantinople, which, as we shall see, was in a far truer sense the first bulwark of defence against the advance of the hordes of Asia. Under the rulers of the Basilian dynasty, Constantinople had not only resisted all foreign invasions, but had carried the development of trade to a very remarkable extent. Koads, bridges, and security had made access to the coasts easy. Harbors, a powerful fleet, and freedom from restrictions in trade had encouraged commerce. AYith the end of the Basilian dynasty comes a time when, Decline of em- though vcry slowly, there begins a period of dc- P""®- cline. This period I may place between 1057 and 1203, when the capital was captured by the Latins. By the latter event the long and prosperous history of the Byzantine empire was suddenly interrupted, and the European state which was by far the most advanced in civilization was handed over to anarchy and, subsequently, to barbarism. At the beginning of this period of, speaking generally, one hun- dred and fifty years preceding the Latin conquest, the em- pire was still strong. In order to show how it had become weakened, it becomes necessary that I should describe at some length the events in which it took part during the period in question, and which were the cause uf this weak-