Chapter 17

We must now turn from examining public history, to consider popular feeling. Belisarius, as we have already observed, was the hero of the Roman world; but another society existed in the very heart of that world, which hated every thing Roman. This society was Greek; it had its own feelings, its own literature, and its own church. Of its literature, Procopius has left us a curious specimen in his Secret History, where the facts of his public Roman history are presented to the discontented Greeks, richly spiced with calumny and libels on the Roman administration. Peculiar circumstances gave the reign of Justinian a prominent position in the history of the world, as the last great era of Roman history, and its memory was long cherished with a feeling of wonder and awe.[47] We must, however, remark, that from the death of Justinian to the accession of Leo III. the Isaurian, the government of the Eastern empire was strictly Roman. From the reign of Leo III. to that of Basil I. the Macedonian (867) if not quite Roman, it was very far from Greek.

Three centuries after the death of Belisarius and Justinian, new feelings arose. The Greeks then looked back on the authentic history of Belisarius as they did on that of Scipio and Sylla,--as a history unconnected with their own national glory, but marking the last conquests which illustrated the annals of the Roman empire, and affording one of those mighty names admirably adapted

"To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

We must now endeavour to prove that its use for this purpose, in the manner transmitted to us, was subsequent to the accession of Basil the Macedonian.

We believe that the blindness and beggary of Belisarius, as recorded in the Greek romance, of which the memory has become a part of the tradition of Western Europe, was suggested to the novelist by the fate of Symbat, an Armenian noble in the Byzantine service, who married the daughter of the Cæsar Bardas, the uncle of the Emperor Michael III. The catastrophe of the romance is mentioned by two writers of the twelfth century. One is the anonymous author of a description of Constantinople, who was a cotemporary of Zonaras. The other is John Tzetzes, who wrote a rambling work consisting of mythological and historical notices in Greek political, civil, or profane verse, as it may be called, (_versus politici_)--the epic poetry of modern Greece; correctly compared by Lord Byron to the heroic strain of

"A captain bold of Halifax who lived in country quarters."

This poet flourished at the end of the twelfth century.

The anonymous Guide-Book, relates that Justinian, envying the glory of Belisarius, put out his eyes, and ordered him to be placed in the Lauron with a bowl of earthenware in his hand, that the charitable might bestow on him an obolus.[48] Tzetzes repeats the same story in his learned doggrel, only he gives Belisarius a wooden dish in his hand, and stations him to beg in the Milion or Stadium of Constantinople. But Tzetzes, who piqued himself on his historical knowledge, candidly tells his readers, that other chronicles say that Belisarius was restored to all his former honours.[49]

The notices of a Greek guide-book, and the tales of a popular versifier, concerning a Roman general, ought certainly to be received with great caution, when they are found to be at variance with all historical evidence. In this case, tradition cannot be admitted to have had any existence for many centuries after the death of Belisarius. The supposed tradition is Greek,--the authentic history is Roman. But historical evidence exists to show that all the details concerning the blindness and beggary of Belisarius have been copied by the author of the romance, from circumstances which occurred at Constantinople in the year 866.

In that year, the Armenian, Symbat, after assisting his wife's cousin the Emperor Michael III. (who rejoiced in the jolly epithet of the Drunkard,) and the future emperor Basil the Macedonian, (who subsequently murdered his patron the Drunkard,) to assassinate his own father-in-law Cæsar Bardas, rebelled against his connexion the Drunkard.[50] He engaged Peganes, the general of the theme of Opsikion, or the provinces on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, in his rebellion. Peganes was soon taken prisoner by the imperial troops, and the Drunkard ordered his eyes to be put out and his nose to be cut off, and he then sent him to stand in the Milion for three days successively, with a bowl in his hand, to solicit alms. A month after, the news that Symbat was captured was brought to the emperor, while he was feasting in the palace of St Mamas. He ordered Peganes to be led out to meet the new prisoner, that Symbat might be conducted into Constantinople with every possible indignity. The blind and mutilated Peganes was compelled to walk before his friend, with a bowl of earthenware in the form of a censer, filled with sulphur, as if burning incense to perfume him. The right eye of Symbat was put out, and his right hand cut off, and in this state he was placed in the Lauron, like a beggar, with a bowl hung before his breast to receive charity. Three days after, the two rebels were allowed to return to their houses, where they were kept prisoners. Symbat regained possession of his sequestered fortune when Basil the Macedonian became emperor.

Now, even if we admit the possibility of the politic Justinian having treated Belisarius as Michael the Drunkard treated the unprincipled Symbat, still it is impossible to compare the words in which the Guide-book and Tzetzes commemorate the misfortunes of the hero with the narratives of the punishment of Peganes and Symbat, without feeling that the former are transcribed from the latter.

To prove this, if necessary, we could quote the words of our authorities. The earliest account of the punishment of Peganes and Symbat is given by George the Monk, a Byzantine writer whose chronicle ends with the year 920. The chronicle of Simeon Metaphrastes, which also belongs to the tenth century, and that of Leo Grammaticus, give the same account, almost in the same words. There can be no doubt that they are all copied from official documents; the style is a rich specimen of the monastic state-paper abridgment.[51]

The state-paper style was retained in the romance from which the Guide-book was copied, to impress the feeling of reality on the minds of the people; while the mention of the obolus, an ancient coin, marked the antique dignity with which the tale was invested. The obolus had been, for centuries, unknown in the coinage of Constantinople; and the word was no longer in use in the public markets of Greece. But besides this, if the Guide-book is to be admitted as an authority for a historical fact, it very soon destroys the value of its own testimony concerning the blindness and beggary of Belisarius; for, only a few lines after recording his disgrace, it mentions a gilt statue of the hero as standing near the palace of Chalce.

Such is fame. The real Belisarius, the hero of the history and the libels of Procopius, being a Roman general, owes his universal reputation to the creation of an imaginary Belisarius by some unknown Greek romance-writer or ballad-singer. The interest of mankind in the conquests and records of Byzantine Rome has become torpid; but the feelings of humanity, in favour of the victims of courtly ingratitude, are immortal. The unextinguishable aversion of the Hellenic race to tyranny and oppression, has given a degree of fame to the name of Belisarius which his own deeds, great as they were, would never have conferred. This is but one proof of the singular influence exercised by the Hellenic mind over the rest of the world during the middle ages. It may be continually traced in the literature both of the east and the west. Whenever the sympathies are awakened by general sentiments of philanthropy among the emirs of the east, or the barons of the west, there is reason to suspect that the origin of the tale must be sought in Greece. Europe has been guided by the mind of Hellas in every age, from the days of Homer to those of Tzetzes; and its power has been maintained by addressing the feelings common to the whole human race--feelings long cherished in Greece after they had been banished from western society by Goths, Franks, and Normans.[52]

There is yet one important reflection which, if the study of the age of Belisarius and Justinian does not suggest, we have failed to comprehend its true spirit. In spite of its glory--of its legislative, its legal, its military, its administrative, its architectural, and its ecclesiastical greatness, it was destitute of that spiritual power which rules and guides the souls of men. It was an age entirely material and selfish. Religion was a mere formula: Christianity slept victorious amidst the ruins of extinguished paganism. Belisarius could depose one Pope, and sell the chair and the keys of St Peter to another, without rousing the indignation of the Christian world. Liberty was an incomprehensible term. That energy of individual independence and physical force which excited the barbarians of the north to conquer the western empire, and enabled the Romans of Byzantium to save the eastern, was sinking into lethargy. Patriotism was an unknown feeling. Indeed, what idea of nationality or love of country could be formed by the privileged classes of Constantinople? Their successors the Turks may be taken as interpreters of the sentiments of the Byzantine Romans on this subject, who, while vegetating in Stamboul, gravely tell you that Mecca is their country.

In short, the spirit of liberty and religion was torpid in the empire of Justinian, and perhaps in the soul of Belisarius. These two remarkable men were both governed by the material impulses of military discipline and systematic administration. Verily, the mission of Mahomet was necessary to awaken mankind, and rouse the Christian world from its lethargy to the great mental struggle which, from the hour of the unfolding of the banner of Islam, has left the minds of men no repose; and will henceforth compel them to unite the spirit of religion with all their restless endeavours to realise each successive dream of social improvement that the human soul shall dare to conceive.

_Athens, March 20, 1847._

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _Procopius de Bello Vandalico_, lib. i. c. 11. GIBBON (vol. vii. p. 161. note _e_) says that he could not find the Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, mentioned by Alemanni, in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. Alemanni's authority may be found in _Notitiæ Græcorum Episcopatuum_, where Germania is the sixty-seventh metropolitan see dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople.--(_Codinus de officiis Magnæ Ecclesiæ et Aulæ Constantinopolitanæ_, p. 380, ed. Paris.) It is probable that the city Germane of the _Edifices_ of Procopius (iv. 3) is the same as Germania. There was a fort in its territory, called Germas. _De Ædif._ iii. 4. Germanos is still a favourite ecclesiastical name with the Greeks. There is a place on the Gulf of Corinth, in the territory of Megara, with splendid remains of the military architecture of an ancient burgh, now called Porto Germano, the ancient Ægosthenæ.--(_Leake's Travels in Northern Greece_, vol. i. p. 405.) Herodotus mentions Germanii, [Greek: Germanioi], as an agricultural tribe of Persians in the time of Cyrus.--(_Clio_, 125.) These various Germans and Germanians can hardly be blood relations of our Germany or Deutschland.

[10] _Lord Mahon's Life of Belisarius_, p. 3. _Procopius de Bello Vand._ ii. 6.

[11] _Procopius de Bello Persico_, i. 12. _Clinton's Fasti Romani_. From this time Procopius was the official secretary of Belisarius.

[12] A good soldier can only be formed from men between eighteen and forty years of age. In ancient times it required more strength to make a soldier than in modern. The demand for such men, in an improving state of society, makes them too valuable to be expended on the game of war, and hence despots in civilised ages are compelled to use an inferior class. Good troops must always be highly paid. A good heavy-armed soldier, in ancient Greece, had half the pay of his captain. The pay of the celebrated English archers, in the middle ages, was extremely high; as it required the service of a brave and vigorous yeomanry to give that corps the efficiency it displayed in so many hard-fought battles--(_Hallam's Constitutional History of England_, ch. ix. vol. 2.) Lord Brougham, however, overrates the pay of a mounted archer, in making it "equal to thirty shillings of our money" a-day.--(_Political Philosophy_, part iii. p. 237.)

[13] Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, vii. 166. It is impossible to resist transcribing Gibbon's note.

[Greek: Neurên men mazô pelasen toxô de sidêron. Linxe bios, neurê de meg' iachen achto d' oistos.]

_Iliad_, iv. 124-125.

"How concise--how just--how beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the archer--I hear the twanging of the bow." The figures of the archers in the Æginetan marbles at Munich, admirably illustrate the genius of Homer and the taste of Gibbon.

[14] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, i. c. 18.

[15] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico,_ i. c. 21.

[16] _Ibid._ 28-29.

[17] This singular military manoeuvre was repeated more than once by Roman generals, and shows how admirably the troops were drilled in what are called the degenerate days of the Roman armies.--(_Finlay's Greece under the Romans_, p. 246.)

[18] The best edition of the works of Procopius is that published at Bonn in the new _Corpus Scriptorum Byzantinæ Historiæ_ commenced under the auspices of Niebuhr. It is edited by W. Dindorff, and contains a corrected text with various readings, and a reprint of the notes of Alemanni on the Secret History. 3 vols. 8vo. 1833-8.

[19] _Procopius de Bello Vandalico_, ii. c. 9.

[20] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, ii. c. 28. [Greek: Basilia t*s Espirias Bilisariei as*ipin *giksat]

[21] _Life of Belisarius_, p. 1.

[22] _Decline and Fall_, vol. vii. 161.

[23] Crassus was in the habit of saying, that no man was rich who could not maintain an army.

[24] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, iii. 1.

[25] Compare _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, i. c. 25, with _Anastasius de Vitis Pontificum Romanorum_, p. 38, ed., Paris.

[26] _De Bello Gotthico_, ii. c. 8.

[27] _Ibid._ i. 22.

[28] There is a touch of the malicious spirit of the Secret History in the narration of Procopius, caused probably by some recollection of the ridiculous though dangerous position of Belisarius in avoiding the stab aimed at him by Konstantinos. The whole scene could hardly fail to produce a profound impression on the coolest spectator, even in that age, when men were more accustomed to stabbing than in our delicate days of gunshot wounds. [Greek: Ho de (Belisarios) kataplageis opisô te apestê kai Bissa ingus tou estkati periplakeis diaphygein ischyos]--(_De Bello Gotthico_, ii. 8.) Bessas was as great an extortioner as Konstantinos. (See _Ibid._ iv. 13.)

[29] Ildiger, doubtless a barbarian, from his name, was married to a daughter of Antonina by her first husband.--(_De Bello Vandalico_, ii. 8.) Valerian was also probably a barbarian, as he commanded a division of federate cavalry in the African war. He was general of the right wing of the Roman army under Narses at the battle of Taginas or Lentagio, which put an end to the life of the gallant Totila, and gave the mortal wound to the monarchy of the Ostrogoths.--(_De Bello Gotthico_, iv. 31.)

[30] Procopius would lead us to believe that a fine of 300 lbs. of gold (upwards of £140,000 in specie, and twice that sum in value) extorted from Belisarius in 543, was the produce of his profits during the Asiatic campaigns of 541 and 542. But it is difficult to know what confidence ought to be placed in the details of the Secret History.--C. 4, p. 32, l. 1, ed. Bonn. _Clinton's Fasti Romani_, p. 780.

[31] _Anastasius, or the Memoirs of a Greek, by Thomas Hope_, vol. ii. 393., first edition. The writer of these pages remembers reading _Anastasius_ with singular pleasure, at the time of its publication. Now, after four-and-twenty years' intimate acquaintance with the East, and with the representatives of most of the classes of men depicted in the novel, he finds that its correctness of description and truth of character give it all the inexhaustible freshness of actual life.

[32] _Historia Arcana_, c. 4. Tom. iii. p. 34, ed. Bonn.

[33] Ibid, Tom. iii. p. 31.

[34] _De Bello Gotthico_, iii. 35.

[35] _Agathias_, lib. v. c. 6, p. 159, ed. Paris.--The conversion of royal guards into cheesemongers is by no means a very uncommon corruption. The dreaded janissaries degenerated into a corporation of hucksters and green-grocers. The Hellenic kingdom, founded as an incorporation of the spirit of anarchy and despotism, by the grace of the foreign secretaries of the three great powers of Europe, possesses a more singular body of military than even the defunct Ottoman corps of green-grocers. It consists of officers without troops. Its inventor, Armansperg, the quintessence of Bavarian corruption in Greece, called it the Phalanx.

[36] _Agathias_, v. ii. p. 161, ed. Paris.

[37] The authentic history of the last events of the life of Belisarius must be gathered from Theophanes, p. 201, John Malalas, p. 239, and Cedrenus, p. 387. Though, perhaps, Cedrenus may be objected to as living too long after these events. Theophanes died in 817 at the age of 60. His chronography ends with the year 813. John Malalas lived in the ninth century. The chronicle of Cedrenus ends with the year 1057.

[38] _Pandects_, xlvii. tit. 18. 1, s. 23.--Quæstioni fidem non semper, nec tamen nunquam habendum, constitutionibus declaratur; etenim res est fragilis, et periculosa, et quæ veritatem fallat.--Every one conversant with the social condition of the people of the East, (and probably it is the case under all despotic governments,) knows the extreme difficulty of obtaining judicial evidence that can be relied on, and the temptation judges incur to sanction torture. Hence the common assertion of public functionaries, that torture is absolutely necessary to secure the administration of justice; and of course people who require torture to persuade them to speak the truth, are unfit for self-government and constitutional liberty. Thus falsehood and oppression are perpetuated, and truth kept perpetually at bay.

[39] _Joannis Antiocheni cognomenti Malalæ Historia Chronica. Pars altera_, p. 84, ed. Venet.

[40] _Theophanis Chronographia_, p. 201, ed. Paris. The accounts of Theophanes and Malalas must be compared together, as the comparison establishes the fact that they were both drawn from official sources. See also p. 202, 203, and note.

[41] _Georgius Codinus de Originibus Constantinopolitanis_, p. 54.

[42] _Georgii Cedreni Compendium Historiarum_, p. 387.

[43] _Joannis Zonaræ Annales_, tom. ii. p. 69. ed. Paris.

[44] This may have resulted from the marriage of Joanna, the daughter of Belisarius, with Anastasius, the grandson of Theodora.--_Procopii Arcana_, c. 4, p. 34.

[45] _Leonis Grammatici Chronographia_, p. 132. Bonnæ: 1842. 8vo.

[46] _Corpus Juris Civilis. Aliæ aliquot Constitutiones_. Tom. ii. p. 511, ed. ster. 4to. _Privilegium pro Titionibus ex Cujac. Obss._ lib. x. c. 12. In a new edition of the _Corpus_ there is the following note:--Hoc privilegium editum est in Cujac. Obss., sed ex quo fonte desumptum sit, non indicatur, nisi quod Cujacius a P. Galesio Hispano se id decepisse dicat. Non sine ratione addidit Beck. qui in App. Corp. Juris Civ. hanc constitutionem recepit, an genuina sit, dubio non carere.

[47] _Greece under the Romans_, p. 229.--If the writer of this article may presume to refer to his own authority.

[48] _Imperium Orientale: studio A. Banduri_. Tom. i. _pars tertia. Antiquitatum Constantinopolitanarum_, p. 7. ed. Paris.

[49] _Joannis Tzetzæ Historiarum Variarum Chiliades_, p. 94, ed. Kiesslingii, Lipsiæ, 1826, 8vo.

[50] Basil the Macedonian was originally a groom, and owed his first step in the imperial favour of the Drunkard to his powers as a whisperer. He broke an ungovernable horse belonging to the emperor, by the exercise of this singular quality, and rendered it, to the amazement of the whole court, as tame as a sheep. Leo Grammaticus says, [Greek: Tê men mia cheiri ton chalinon kratêsas, tê de hetera tou ôtos draxamenos eis eme*rot*êta probatou metebalon].--P. 230, ed. Bonn.

[51] _Georgius Monachus_, p. 540. _Simeon Metaph._ p. 449. _Scriptores post Theophanem_, ed. Paris. _Leo Gramm._, p. 469, ed. Paris, p. 247, ed. Bonn.

[52] Things have not changed in our day. Capodistrias lighted his pipe with Canning's treaties and King Leopold's renunciation; and Colettis makes game of the feeble acts and strong expressions of Viscount Palmerston.

ANCIENT AND MODERN BALLAD POETRY.[53]

The first day of April is a festival too prominent in the Kalendar of Momus to be passed over without due commemoration. The son of Nox, who, according to that prince of heralds, Hesiod, presides especially over the destinies of reviewers, demands a sacrifice at our hands; and as, in the present state of the provision market, we cannot afford to squander a steer, we shall sally forth into the regions of rhyme and attempt to capture a versifier.