Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/81

 WEAKENING OF EMPIRE. 03 was the power of generalization, how subtile the power of dis- tinction, which was brought to bear on theological and legal questions. During long centuries the masses of people who appeared in the empire were being leavened with the Greek spirit. In time all the races of the empire would have to come within its influence. Huns and Bulgarians had been converted from cruel savages and nomadic hordes into na- tions which had entered upon the path of civilization. The conversion of Eussia to Christianit}^ the great glory of the Orthodox Church, had placed the SLavic race upon the same road. Patchinaks, Comans, and Uzes would have also felt the influence of the New Rome, which might, indeed, have been powerful enough to recover Asia Minor had its existence not been brought to an end. The warfare of the empire in Asia Minor during the century and a half preceding 1200 was hardly more severe or constant than was that which she had to wage against the hordes still pressing into the Balkan pe- ninsula from the northeast and against their predecessors, whom she was succeeding gradually in reducing to the habits of civilized life. The imperial city stood firm as a rock amid the moving masses of people about her, the centre and source of good government; the teacher by means of commerce, of law, and of civilization ; subduing one horde only to find oth- ers coming to the front ; reducing finally all to subjection, only to begin again with new immigrants. Much of her wealth and of her strength was spent in this work, for it was long and con- tinuous. While security and peace remained in the capital, while all the efforts of Arabs and others had failed before her walls, while in the ^gean and the Marmora she had preserved a security for life and property which enabled her nobles to live in their splendid villas in security and her merchants to pass unmolested, and made all men in the east of Europe and the west of Asia look to her walls as the one absolutely safe de- posit for their wealth, the empire itself had, during long cent- uries, never known peace. While the Teutonic and the Latin races behind her were developing their strength, forming themselves into nations, making progress in civilization, she was fighting their battles against Asiatic barbarians. Her