The general principle as stated by Montesquieu and Hume — ^to the effect that all governments rest upon opinion — must be accepted with due qualifica- tion, and with due regard to the forc6 of the term opinion, when appMed to different governments.
In the first place, it is to be noticed that a con- siderable class of exceptions to the principle arises in cases in which the government is forced upon the nation from without. In such cases there need be no concurring opinion whatever in the mind of the people who receive the government.
' Philosophical Works, vol. iii, p. 28, Boston, 1854.
466 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
In the next place, it must be kept in view that in the lower social states government rests more upon the opinion of a few, whilst in the higher ones it rests more upon the opinion of many.
The following, therefore, woiild seem to be a closer statement of the principle: Where nations are left to themselves, and not co- erced from without, all governments rest ultimately upon opinion; but this opinion — so far as it is posi- tive and active, and hence efficient to maintain, mod- ify, or reject the government — ^has, in despotic socie- ties, its minvmum, and in free societies, its moijcimum, social extent. This last distinction is, indeed, im- plied in the illustrations given by Hume. Praetorian Guards, Mamalukes, Janizaries, and other, like bodies, which have been the depositaries of opinion support- ing despotic governments, have constituted but a small part of the total society.
The opinion, therefore, that underlies despotisms, when taken as a measure of liberty or choice, is a fact which, although of the same species, is of very limited quantity and value when compared with the opinion upon which free governments repose.
III. The statement of Montesquieu, that the dis- tinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical power was "as well known" among the ancient Eomans "as it is among us," I regard as probably erroneous — and certainly so if we take into consideration the development of opinion which has taken place since NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 467 his time. However tolerant the religion of the Ro- mans may have been, it was very much mixed up with the affairs of the state; and, indeed, in the whole Eoman system there was a confusion and a blending of functions which, on the one hand, mark the conformity of this system to the prevaiHng typo of all ancient constitutions, and, on the other, offer one of the great features of contrast between it and the more distinctly classified and defined polities of modern societies. " The same person," says Dr. Adam, "might regulate the police of the city and direct the affairs of the empire, propose laws and execute them, act as a judge or a priest, and com- mand an army." The augurs exercised very grieat influence over purely secular affairs. Dr. Adam re- marks that " nothing of importance was done respect- ing the public, either at home or abroad, in peace or in war, without consulting them "; and in this connection we may particularly notice that sort of sacerdotal authority to which Montesquieu refers in the eighth chapter of this work, by virtue of which the priesthood had it in their power even to suppress the days appointed for the public assemblage of the people, "under pretext that the auspices were not favorable." The fecial priesthood exercised functions in relation to the declaration of war and the conclu- sion of treaties which in all modern nations are per- formed by secular functionaries. The college of pon- tiffs possessed in some cases the power to inflict the 4.68 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
penalty of death— limited, it is true, by the right of appeal to the people. The pontifex maximus could restrain even a consul — ^if he happened withal to be a priest — from absenting himself from the city; and, in later times, this supreme spiritual dignity was as- sumed by the emperors; so that the same person was at once head of the state and head of all the sacerdotal orders of the empire. I think it is clearly true that there was no period, either under the Mngs, under the republic, or under the empire, when the distinction between the secular and the spiritual was as well realized in the Eoman policy, or as well apprehended in the Koman mind, as it is at the present day.'
It may be stated in general terms that the re- ligious and the civil functions were more blended to- gether in ancient than they are in modem times; and that, in proportion as the world's civilization de- velops, there is a persistent and increasing tendency to work out a complete separation of the two. That process of differentiation by which so many things that were commingled in the early stages of civiliza- tion have since come to be separated, can be distinct- ly traced in connection with the affairs of the state and the affairs of religion; but, in consequence of the vast interests involved, and the immense influ- ence of established priesthoods over the masses of mankind, the process of separation, in this last res See Adam's Bom. Ant., Phila., 1872, pp. 73, 192-204.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 469 Bpect, has been mucli less rapid than it has been in numerous other regards. And yet nothing can be more unmistakable than the tendency of that great mental impulse which civilization has felt since the reyival of learning in the fifteenth century. That tendency has been, and is, to completely secularize all the powers of civil government — a result which has been already accomplished in one great nation,' and the ultimate consummation of which in aU the other states of the civiHzed world is only a question of time.
* The United States of America.
4.70 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONiESijuiED.
OHAPTEK XXIII.
CAUSES OF THE DTJKATION OF THE EA8TEEN EMPIEE. — ITS DESTEUGTION.
After what I have said in relation to the Greek empire, it is natural to inquire how it was able to continue its existence during so long a period of time. I believe I can give the reasons for this.
The Arabs having attacked the Eastern empire, and having conquered some of its provinces, their chiefs came to a dispute in relation to the caliphate; and thus the fire of their first zeal only produced civil discords among themselves.
The same Arabs having conquered Persia, and having there also become divided and weakened, the Greeks were no longer compelled to hold the prin- cipal forces of the empire upon the Euphrates.
An architect, named Callinicus, who had come from Syria to Constantinople, discovered the compo- sition of a fire which was blown through a tube, and which was of such a nature that water, and all sub- stances that extinguish ordinary fires, only had the effect of increasing its violence. The Greeks made use of this fire, and were thus enabled, during many CHAP, xxni.] OF THE ROMANS. 471 centurieB, to burn all the fleets of their enemies, especially those of the Arabs, who came from Africa or Syria to attack them before Constantinople. This fire was placed in the rank of state secrets; and Con- stantine Porphyrogenitus, in his work on the admin- istration of the empire — dedicated to his son Eo- manus — warns the latter that, in case the barbarians should ask him for Greek fire, he should tell them that it was not permitted that he should give it to them, for the reason that an angel, who had brought it to Constantino, had forbidden its communication to other nations, and that those who had dared to do so had been immediately devoured by fire from heaven upon entering into a church."
' In the two great attacks which the Arabs made upon Constantino- ple— the one in the latter half of the seventh and the other early in the eighth century — Gibbon attributes the deliverance of the city mainly " to the novelty, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the Gi-eekfire." On the latter occasion, after investing the city on the land side, a fleet of the enemy, recruited from Syria and Egypt, and stated at eighteen hundred ships, made its appearance for the purpose of supporting by water the operations of the siege. I add Gibbon's animated description of the scene which followed: " This huge armada proceeded on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards the mouth of the Bosporus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed, in the language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for n general assault by sea and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown aside the chain that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor; but while they hesitated whether they should seize the op- portunity or apprehend the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The fire-ships of the Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their arms, and vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the waves; and I do not find a vestige of the fleet that had threatened to extirpate the Roman name." (Gibbon's Rome, vol. v, pp. 280-282.)
^Y2 GEANDEUE AND DECADENCE [mohtesqcieu.
At a time when tlie Gothic natioHS on tlie one side, and the Arabs on the other, had ruined com- merce and industry everywhere else, Constantinople carried on the greatest, and indeed almost the sole, commerce of the world. The manufacture of silk had passed from Persia to this city; and, after the invasion by the Arabs, this manufacture was much neglected in Persia itself. The Greeks being, more- over, masters of the sea, these advantages brought immense wealth into the state, and consequently en- dowed it with great resources. The result was, that, whenever the empire experienced some respite, we at once see the public prosperity reappear.
Some suppose that the secret of this composition, instead of being discovered by Callinicus, was derived from India. (Chambers' Ene., art. Greek fire.)
At a later period the Saracens themselves got possession of the secret, and used it with effect against the Christians. Gibbon describes the fiery missile, launched by the former against the latter, in the terms of an old French knight: " It came flying through the air, says Joinville, like a winged, long-tailed dragon, about the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity of lightning; and the darkness of night was dispelled by this deadly illumination. (Vol. v, p. 286.)
Voltaire, however, is skeptical as to the reputed efiBcacy of this celebrated compound. Eef erring to the ease with which the Crusad- ers captured Constantinople in the year 1204, he says: "We do not see that the Greek fire, so much vaunted by the historians, produced the least effect. If it were such as it was said to be, it should have always given certain victory, on sea and land. If it were something similar to our phosphorus, the water might, it is true, preserve it; but then it would have had no action while in the water. In short, not- withstanding this secret, the Turks had taken almost the whole of Asia Minor from the Greeks, and the Latins took from them the re- mainder." (Ouvres Complies de Voltaire, Paris, 1828, tom. xxi, pp. Bl, 52.) — Tr4.nsi.atoe.
CHAP, mil.] OF THE ROMANS. 473 Of this we will give a notable example. Androni- cus Comneims the elder was the Nero of the Greeks; but since, with all his vices, he showed an admirable firmness in protecting the people against the injus- tices and the vexations of the grandees, it was re- marked that, during the three years that he reigned, the prosperity of many of the provinces was re-established."
Finally, the barbarians who dwelt upon the shores of the Danube having become settled, they were no longer as formidable as they once were, and they even served as a barrier against other barbarians.
Thus, while the empire of the East was weighed down by a bad government, it was yet sustained by particular causes. It is thus that we see at the pres- ent day some of the nations of Europe maintain themselves, notwithstanding their weakness, by the wealth which they derive from the Indies; that we see the temporal States of the Pope protected by the respect which is felt for their sovereign; and the Corsairs of Barbary maintained by the obstructions which they put upon the commerce of the smaller na- tions— whereby they render themselves useful to the more powerful ones.'* The empire of the Turks is at the present time ' NiCETAS, lAfe of Andronicus Comnenus, lib. i.
' They hinder the commerce of the Italian states on the Mediter- Ta^ean.
* The motive here assigned for the former toleration of the pirates of the Barbary coast need not be questioned; but it ought not to be stated without being at the same time stigmatized as belonging to the most un- worthy species of human meanness. — Translator.
474 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONiESQtriEn.
in nearly the Bame degree of weakness as was that of the Greeks before; but it will continue to exist for a long time; for, if any sovereign should, in the course of his conquests, place this empire in peril, the three commercial powers of Europe understand their affairs too well not to interpose immediately in its defence." ° It is the good fortune of the Turks that God has permitted nations to exist in the world which are adapted to the useless occupation of a great empire.
During the time of Basil Porphyrogenitus, the power of the Arabs was destroyed in Persia. Mo- hammed, son of Sambrael, who reigned there, called from the North three thousand Turks, in the char- acter of auxiliaries.' Upon the occurrence of some dissatisfaction, he sent an army against them; but they put his army to flight. Indignant at the con- duct of his soldiers, Mohammed ordered that they should pass before him clad in the garments of women; but they joined themselves to the Turks, who proceeded at once to capture the garrison which guarded the bridge over the Araxes; and thus the ' Thus, the projects against Turkey — as, for instance, the one which was formed under the pontificate of Leo, by which the emperor was to approach Constantinople by the way of Bosnia, the king of France by the way of Albania and Greece, whilst other princes were to embark from their respective ports — these projects, I say, were either not serious, or else were undertaken by men who did not comprehend the interests of Europe.
" See my Note at the end of this chapter. — Translator.
' Hist, written by N. B. Cmsar, Lives of Const. Ducas and R. Diogenes.
CHAP. XXIII.] OF THE ROMANS. 475 way was opened for an inmimerable multitude of their countrymen.
After having conquered Persia, the Turks spread from east to west over the provinces of the empire; they captured the emperor, Komanus Diogenes, who at- tempted to arrest their career, and subdued nearly the whole of the Greek possessions east of the Bosporus.
Some time later, during the reign of Alexis Com- nenus, the Latins attacked the East. An unhappy schism had long since engendered an implacable ha- tred between the nations of the two rites; and it would have broken out sooner if the Italians had not been more intent upon humbling the emperors of Germany, whom they feared, than the emperors of the Greeks, whom they only hated.
It was in these circumstances that a religious opin- ion suddenly spread through Europe, that, the place where Jesus Christ was bom, and the place where he suffered, being profaned by infidels, the means of effacing one's sins was to take arms for their expul- sion. Europe was full of men who loved war, and who had many crimes to expiate. It was proposed that they should expiate their crimes by following their dominant passion. The result was that im- mense multitudes took the cross and the sword.
Having arrived in the East, the crusaders besieged and captured Nice.' They restored this city to the ' They took it from the Turks, who had made it their capital.— Translator.
J fro GKANDEUR AND DECADENCE [mohtesqcieh.
Greeks; and, amid the consternation of the infidels, Alexis and John Comnenus drove the Turks back to the Euphrates.
But, whatever advantages the Greeks may have derived from these expeditions of the crusaders, there was no Greek emperor who might not tremble iu presence of the danger of seeing a succession of heroes so haughty, and of armies so large, pass through the very heart of his states. They sought, therefore, to disgust Europe with these enterprises; and the crusaders everywhere met with betrayals, perfidy, and all that might be expected from a timid enemy.
It must be admitted that the French, who com- menced these expeditions, did nothing to render them- selves indurable. In the invectives of Andronieus Comnenus against us ' we see, at bottom, that the French did not restrain themselves when in a foreign country, and that we possessed then the same defects of character for which we are reproached at the pres- ent time.
A French count proceeded to seat himself upon the throne of the emperor. " Tou ought to know," said Count Baldwin, taking him by the arm, "that when one is in a country he should observe its customs." "Indeed!" replied the other, "that is a fine clown to be seated here while so many captains are standing! " The Germans, who passed through afterwards, and ' History of Alexius, his Father, lib. x and xi.
CHAP, xxni.] OF THE ROMANS. 477 who were the best people in the world, were sub- jected to a rough penance for the wild conduct of the French. They everywhere found that the minds of the Greeks had been revolted by the behavior of their predecessors." " Hate finally reached its height; and some bad treat- ment of Venetian merchants, combined with ambition, avarice, and false zeal, determined the French and the Yenetians to enter upon a crusade against the Greeks.
They found the latter as little warlike as at a later period the Tartars found the Chinese. The French mocked their effeminate habiliments; they promenaded the streets of Constantinople, decked out in painted robes; they carried inkhoms and paper in their hands, in derision of a nation which had re- nounced the profession of arms; " and, after the war was over, they refused to admit any Greek whatever into their military service."
They subdued the whole of the western part of the empire, and there elected the count of Flanders as emperor, whose remote states could not be the occasion of any jealousy in the minds of the Italians. The Greeks maintained themselves in the eastern part, separated from the Turks by the mountains and from the Latins by the sea.
'" NiCETAS, Sisiory of Manuel Comnerms, lib. i. " See my Note at the end of this chapter.— Translator. " NicETAS, History, after the capture of Constantinople, ch. ii. " For an idea of the contempt into which the Greek and Koman names sunk, see my Note at the end of this chapter. — Translator.
478 GBANDEDR AND DECADENCE [montesquueu.
The Latins, wlio had encountered no obstractions while effecting their conquests, met with an infinity of obstacles in the work of aifirming theii* acquisi- tions. The Greeks returned from Asia into Europe, retook Constantinople, and recovered almost all they had lost in the West.
But this new Greek empire was no more. than the phantom of the first. It possessed neither the same resources nor the same power. It held httle in Asia except the provinces on this side of the Mseander and the Sangarius; and most of the Euro- pean provinces were divided up into petty sovereign- ties. And it must be observed, in addition, that, dur- ing the sixty years that Constantinople had remained in the hands of the Latins, the conquered Greeks being dispersed, and the conquerors being occupied with the interests of war, commerce had passed en- tirely to the cities of Italy, and Constantinople had thus lost her wealth.
Even the internal commerce of the new empire was carried on by the Latins. The Greeks, newly re- established, and filled with fears, were willing to con- ciliate the Genoese by conceding to them the privi- lege of trading without the payment of duties; " and the Yenetians — ^who accepted no terms of peace, but agreed to some suspensions of hostilities, and whom the Greeks were unwilling to irritate — paid no more for the same privilege.
" C^NTACDZENE, lib. iv.
CHAP, xxni.] OF THE ROMAKS. 479 Although before the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Manuel Comnenus had suffered the ma- rine of the empire to fall into decay, yet, since com- merce stm existed, it was easy to re-establish it; but when, under the new empire, commerce itself was abandoned, the evil admitted no remedy, for the state was constantly growing weaker.
This empire, which dominated many islands, which was divided by the sea, and surrounded by it in many of its parts, was without vessels for the navigation of its own waters. The provinces were no longer in communication with each other; the inhabitants were obliged to retire further inland, in order to avoid the pirates; and, when they had done so, they were compelled to seek refuge in fortresses, in order to save themselves from the Turks."
The Turks at this time carried -on a singular war against the Greeks. Properly speaking, they hunted and chased them as game. Sometimes they traversed two hundred leagues of country for the purpose of perpetrating their ravages. As they were divided under many sultans, it was impossible, by means of presents, to make peace with all, and it was useless to do so with a part of them." They were invet- erate Mohammedans; and their zeal for their religion imparted to them a marvelous zest in the work of rav- aging the lands of the Christians. As they were, " Pachtmee, lib. Tii.
'* Cantacuzene, lib. iii, ch. xcvi; and Pachymee, lib. xi, ch. ix.
480 GRANDEUB AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
besides, the ugliest people on earth — and as their women were as hideous as themselves" — ^from the moment that they had seen the Greek women they could no longer endiire others; and thus they were prompted to the perpetration of continual abduc- tions." In short, they had always been addicted to rapine; and they were those same Huns who had heretofore inflicted so many calamities upon the Eo- man empire."
The Turks inundating all that remained of the Greek empire in Asia, such of the inhabitants as were able to effect their escape fled before them to " This gare room for that tradition of the North, related by the Goth Jornandes, that Pliilimer, king of the Goths, having entered into the ter- ritory of the Getse, and having there found women who were sorcerers, he drove them far from his army; that they wandered into deserts, where inoubi cohabited with them, from which intercourse sprang the nation of the Huns. Germs ferocissimum, quod fuit primum inter paludes, minu- tum, ielrum, atgue exile, nee alia voce notum, nisi guw humani sermonis imaffiTiem assiffnabaf.
's Michael Duoas, History of John Manuel, John and Oonstantine, chap. ix. Oonstantine Porphyrogenitna, at the beginning of his Excerpt from the Embassies, warns the Romans that, whenever the barbarians visit Constantinople, they should be very careful not to show them the greatness of their wealth, nor allow them to see the beauty of their women.
" The race identity of the Turks and the Huns has been maintained and denied. Mllman rejects the theory of M. de Guignes, which had been followed by Gibbon, and which appears to have the effect of bringing the Huns and the Turks together in a common origin; and in rejecting this theory the learned editor fortifies his dissent with the authority of Schlozer, Klaproth, St. Martin, and A. R^musat, who, he says, " concur in consider, ing the Huns as belonging to the Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls, the Mandscheus, and the Turks." (Gibbon's Eome, vol. iii, text and notes, pp. 15, 16.) Others, however, incline to the view that the two peoples in question are at least related, if not originally the same. — Translator.
CHAP. XXIII.] OF THE ROMANS. 481 the Bosporus; and those who found vessels sought refuge in the western part of the empire — a circum- stance which considerably increased the population of the European provinces. But this population soon diminished. The civil wars which broke out were so furious that the two contending parties called in different Turkish sultans, subject to a condition as extravagant as barbarous — that all the inhabitants whom they might capture in the country belonging to the opposite party might be carried away into slavery;'" and thus both the factions, with the view of ruining their enemies, concurred in the destruction of their nation.
Bajazet having subdued all the other sultans, the Turks would have then completed what they after- wards did under Mohammed II, if they had not them- selves been on the verge of destruction at the hands of the Tartars.
I have not the heart to speak of the calamities which followed. I will only say that, under the last emperors, the empire of the East, reduced to the suburbs of Constantinople, ended as the Ehine — which is no more than a brook when it loses itself in the ocean.
'" See the History of the Emperors John Palmologus and John Cantacu- zene, written by Cantacuzene. 21 ^.82 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
NOTE BY THE TRAJSTSLATOE.
In tie course of his concluding chapter, Mon- tesquieu either very briefly refers to, or merely hints at, several matters which, for completer general ap- preciation, will admit of some further remarks.
I. The crusades of Christianity against Mohamme- danism were the most remarkable phenomena — as being upon the most extensive scale — that are to be found in the world's entire history of religious fanati- cism. These great waves of invasion, precipitated from west to east, continued for about one hundred and seventy-five years,* with the final result — after enormous ruin and sacrifice of life — that Mohamme- danism remained in firm possession of Asia — including the primitive seats of Christianity — while its antag- onist was left to occupy Europe, and to extend itself over the new continents which were about to be dis- covered.
It is curious to reflect that both these great, active religions — which have engaged in such frightful con- tests in the past, and which have divided the larger KOTE.] OP THE EOMAKS. 483 portion of the modern world between them — took their rise in the bosom of the same Asiatic race — Chris- tianity among the Judaic, Mohammedanism among the Arabic, Semites. "We have already seen that it was the Semitic race that gave birth to the worship of Moloch" — so wonderfully fecund of diverse religions has this race been, ranging in quality from the most abominable that the world has known to the one whose morals must coalesce with the last possible re- sults of human development. What a prodigious in- terspace between the nadir and the zenith of the re- ligious genius of the same race — the one extreme touching hell in its worship of Moloch, the other scal- ing the heaven of heavens in its doctrine of purity and charity!
II. The distinction which Montesquieu takes be- tween the conduct of the Germans and that of the French during the crusades which they made against the East, and his remark about the French not re- straining themselves "when in a foreign country," leads me to observe that Yoltaire is quite in the same vein in his estimate of some of the national traits of his own countrymen. Speaking of the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in the year 1204, he says: "They entered the city almost without re- sistance; and, having killed all whom they met, they abandoned themselves to every excess of fury and avarice. Nicetas asserts that the booty of the French ' See pp. 103-105 of this volume.
484 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [bakee.