Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/84

 QQ THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The wonderful stories of his strength and his love of warlike iiis Latin display made him a favorite with his troops. His tendencies. ^^^^^ desire scoms to have led him to seek the repu- tation of a Western knight rather than of a Roman emperor. Few sovereigns of Constantinople were ever more completely absolute than he, bnt he on several occasions used his wealth, strength, and ability rather for personal display than for the benefit of the empire. Had he shown the spirit and the statesmanlike energy of Jolm Zimiskes or of Basil, the Bul- garian Slayer, the future of the empire might have been oth- erwise than it was. The enormous wealth gathered by his predecessors was recklessly expended in foolish ostentation, in donatives to the soldiers, and in tournaments in which the emperor found his satisfaction in using a heavier spear and shield than any Western knight. His own subjects cared nothing for these displays, and noted them only as further illustrations of the sovereign's fondness for everything Latin. They noted, too, that each time that he had married it had been to a Latin princess, and that his daughter Maria had been married in 1178 to Reynier, the Marquis of Montferrat — a marriage which bore bitter fruit, since the Western writ- ers pretended that Manuel had made him King of Salonica.* The wasteful expenditure of Manuel caused him to commit the tremendous blunder, for an emperor of Constantinople, of neglecting the maintenance of the fleet, an act which more than any other facilitated the capture of the capital. Making allowances for his extravagances, and overlooking the neglect of the fleet, which might have been remedied by his succes- sors, the reign of Manuel had, however, not been unsuccess- ful. His death, at the age of fifty-eight, was contributed to by grief at the progress of the Turks in Asia Minor. He had fought them bravely, had resisted them steadily, and in the main successfully. Six years before his death he had made a great effort to recover Iconium, but his army had suffered a serious defeat. The Turks attacked the imperial army near Doryleon, which commanded an important moun-
 * No Greek writer mentions such promise.