and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertile land, which will reward the labours both of the priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presence in a general council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of Innocent.* In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their most sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience and tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from the clergy to the pope.

In the division of the Greek provinces,† the share of the

Knights Hospitallers, on whom he also settled a fourth part of his own private estate, the Duchy of Neocast. (Taaffe, ii. p. 88, App. lvi.) In the deed of gift, the new emperor styles himself "Balduinus Dei Gratia fidelissimus in Christo Imperator, a Deo coronatus Romanorum Moderator et semper Augustus."-ED.]

*The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which the collection in two vols. in folio, is published by Stephen Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. 1, c. 94–105.

In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted by the scribes; they might be restored, and a good map suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography. But, alas! D'Anville is no more. [This want has been in some degree, though far from completely, supplied by No. 61 of Spruner's Hand Atlas and Koeppen's fifth map, which exhibits Europe in the time of the Crusades. Koeppen (text 113-119) gives the following summary of the several portions allotted to the Latin conquerors of the Byzantine empire :

I. THE CROWN-LANDS, or imperial domain, which comprized the city of Constantinople, the province of Thrace, part of Bithynia, as far as the river Sangarius, and the islands of Proconnesus, Lesbos, Chios, Lemnos, Skios, &c.

;

Venetians was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one-fourth was appropriated to his domain ; a clear moiety of the remainder was reserved for Venice and the other moiety was distributed among the adventurers of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He ended at Con

stantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors till the middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular though true addition of lords of one-fourth and a half of the Roman empire.* The doge, a slave of state, was seldom

II. THE KINGDOM OF SALONIKI (Thessalonica), formed out of the greater part of ancient Macedonia.

III. THE DUCHY OF ATHENS, containing the former Attica and Boeotia.

IV. THE PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAIA AND THE MOREA, consisting of the chief part of the peninsula of the Peloponnesus.

V. THE ORIENTAL POSSESSIONS OF VENICE, composed of, 1. A fortified post in Constantinople, with the suburbs of Pera and Galata. 2. The duchy of Gallipoli (Kallipolis), or the ancient Thracian Chersonesus. 3. The cities of Koron and Modon, with some tracts of land in the south-west of the Peloponnesus. 4. Candia or Crete; and 5. The county of Negropont (Euboea), with Egina, Salamis, Cerigo (Cythere), and some smaller islands.

VI. THE DUCHY OF NAXOS AND OF THE ARCHIPELAGO, extending over Paros, Antiparos, and some of the neighbouring Cyclades, held by Mark Sanudo, the Venetian adventurer, who soon became independent.

VII. THE POSSESSIONS OF THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS (chiefly acquired from the year 1307 to 1314), viz., Rhodes and some neighbouring islands, several castles in Cyprus (granted to them by Henry II. Lusignan), and the fortress of Bodru (Halicarnassus), on the main-land of Caria.-ED.]

*Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year 1356. (Sanuto, p. 530. 641.) For the government of Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. 1. 37. [A note to the fourth canto of Byron's Childe Harold, stanza xii, points out Gibbon's omission here of "the important æ, he having written Romani instead of Romaniæ.” This disregard of punctilio is of no other importance than as it regards the title of the Doges, which had this form in all their subsequent acts till 1357, when it was used by Giovanni Dolfino in a document preserved by Muratori, Script. Ital. xxii. 641. No question of fact is involved, for it is well-known that Romania was the designation given at that period to the small remnant of the Roman empire; and of this Gibbon has shown himself fully aware in this very page, as well as at p. 478, vok vi.-ED.]

permitted to depart from the helm of the republic; but his place was supplied by the bail, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians; they possessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains, two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of the Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment; they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the neighbourhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labour and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury; they abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and contented themselves with the homage of their nobles,* for the possessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus it was, that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the Archipelago. For the price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis of Montferrat the fertile island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of a hundred cities ;t but its improvement was stinted by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; and the wisest senators would confess that

* Ducange (Hist. de C. P. 2. 6) has marked the conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the islands of Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Scyro, Cea, and Lemnos. [Some of these islands were never subject to Venice, although they favoured her commerce and were at times protected by her fleets; and others among them were not acquired by her till a much later period. The Ionian Islands were at first held by Frankish nobles, who placed themselves under the guardianship of Naples or the despots of Epirus. Zante (Zacynthus), Cephalonia, Itaka, and Santa Maura (Leucadia), belonged to the Beneventine family of Tacco, and passed by marriage to the Greek dynasty of Arta, who reigned till they were expelled by the Turks in 1431 and 1469. Corfu (Corcyra), remained under the supremacy of Naples till 1386, when it was conquered by Venice. (Koeppen, p. 118.) For the disposition of Naxos, Paros, Scyros, Lemnos, &c. see a former note, p. 4 and 5.-ED.]

Boniface sold the isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204. See the act in Sanuto, p. 533; but I cannot understand how it could be his mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor Alexius. In the year 1212, the doge, Peter Zani

the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St. Mark. In the moiety of the adventurers, the marquis Boniface might claim the most liberal reward; and, besides the isle of Crete, his exclusion from the throne was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond the Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica or Macedonia, twelve days' journey from the capital, where he might be supported by the neighbouring powers of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the proper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, who trod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of Thermopyla; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli,t which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin

sent a colony to Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and when I compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and the Turkish island.

* Villehardouin (No. 159, 160. 173-177) and Nicetas (p. 387-394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405), and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries. [This MS. (which Gibbon noticed before, vol. vi. p. 571) was published by Wilken, Lips. 1830, under the title Narratio de Statuis Antiquis, quos Franci post captam C. P. anno 1204, destruxerunt, and again by Bekker (1838) in the Scriptores Byzant. But the description of Tempe and Athens by Michael Nicetas, remains unpublished.-ED.]

Napoli di Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient sea-port of Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbour. (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p. 227.) [Athens and Thebes were never recovered by the emperors of the East; they fell to the share of Otho de la Roche, who attended this expedition. (See the close of ch. lxii.) He had the title of Méyag Kupwg, Grand Sire; his son Guy obtained that of Duke in 1254. Nauplia was retained by the Byzantine Greeks till 1248, when with the assistance of a Venetian fleet, William de Villehardouin, the youngest son of Geoffrey I., added it to his principality of Achaia and the Morea. (Koeppen, p. 114-117.) In the struggle which gave birth

pilgrims were regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage of the situation, and the ample or scanty supplies for the maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long-lost dependencies of the Roman sceptre; the Nile and Euphrates rolled through their imaginary realms, and happy was the warrior who drew for his prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium.* I shall not descend to the pedigree of families, and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica;† the principal fiefs were held by the service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and chief cook and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights and archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of his share, and their first efforts were generally successful. But the public force was weakened by their dispersion; and

to the new kingdom of Greece, Napoli di Romania was conspicuous, and for several years was the capital of the infant state. It then contained 9000 inhabitants; but this number has been considerably reduced since the removal of the seat of government to Athens. Still, from the excellence of its harbour, nearly all the trade of the Morea centres there, and its fortress, which is called the Gibraltar of Greece, stands on the top of a precipitous rock 720 feet above the level of the sea. Malte Brun and Balbi, p. 619.-ED.]

* I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See De Rebus post C. P. expugnatam, p. 375-384.

A city surrounded by the river Hebrus, and six leagues to the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII. [Brocquiére saw the double wall in 1433, and gives Dymodique as the name of the city at that time. He was not aware that the river Mariza or Maritza, which he crossed three times, was the ancient Hebrus. (Travels, p. 343, edit. Bohn.) Demotica is now a flourishing town with 15,000 inhabitants, and noted for its manufactures of fiue pottery, silk, and wool. Malte Brun and Balbi, p. 610.—ED.]