these popular forms, no less than spiritual affairs. "From the mo ment a people," says Mr. Finlay, "in the state of intellectual civilization in which the Greeks were, could listen to the preachers, it was certain they would adopt the religion. They might alter, modify, or corrupt it, but it was impossible they should reject it. The existence of an assembly, in which the dearest interests of all human beings were expounded and discussed, in the language of truth, and with the most earnest expressions of persuasion, must have lent an irresistible charm to the investigation of the new doctrine among a people possessing the institutions and feelings of the Greeks. Sincerity, truth, and a desire to persuade others, will soon create eloquence, where numbers are gathered together. Christianity revived oratory, and with oratory it awakened many of the characteristics which had slept for ages. The discussions of Christianity gave also new vigor to the communal and municipal institutions, as it improved the intellectual qualities of the people." § 10. But it was impossible for such organizations to exist, without gradually rising to an important influence in the state; and it was impossible for the maxims of Christianity to gain an extensive prevalence, without coming in collision with the maxims of the Roman government. The responsibility of rulers and ruled to a common and impartial tribunal could not be very tasteful to the rapacious masters of the Roman Empire; and the doctrine of equality and brotherhood was a strange lesson for those whose policy and arms had enslaved the world. A bond which united the Christians of all countries in the strictest relations of friendship and affection, could not but be viewed with suspicion by those who regarded the citizenship of Rome as the most binding and exalted relation possible among men. And the Roman, in his nature, was less susceptible to religious influences than the Greek; he looked upon Christianity with reference to its supposed political bearings, and persecuted it accordingly. But, in spite of all obstacles, in defiance of all persecutions, Christianity identified itself with the habits, thoughts, sentiments, hopes, and nationality of the Hellenic race. It was bound up with the language, in which the Apostles and earliest Fathers preached and taught and wrote. It held them together, and saved them from absorption into the vast body of the Roman Empire, and from annihilation by the hordes of barbarians who swept the country like a whirlwind, and settled upon it like devouring locusts. It ascended the throne with Constantine, and for eleven centuries shared in the highest dignities of the Eastern Empire. FROM THE ACCESSION OF § 1. Building of Constantinople. § 2. Effect of transferring the Seat of Government to By zantium. § 3. Local Governments. § 4. The Emperor Julian. § 5. Separation of the Eastern and Western Empires. The Goths. New Meaning of the Name Hellenes. Attila and the Huns. § 6. Reign of Justinian. § 7. Slavonians. § 1. Constantine removed the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople, and inaugurated the latter city, with great pomp and ceremony, in the year A. D. 330. For thirty-four years the newly founded capital was the single seat of government in the Roman world, down to the reign of Jovian. For one hundred and one years the Empire was double-headed, the Eastern Empire having its seat of government at Constantinople, and the Western at Rome, until Romulus Augustulus closed his inglorious reign, and with it the Western Roman Empire, in the year 476. From this time the Roman Empire was the Eastern Empire, living on, under the Roman organization and Roman law, and claiming to be Roman, in all essential respects, under a succession of twenty-eight Emperors, until the accession of Leo III., commonly called the Isaurian, who ascended the throne in the year 717, and reigned twenty-four years. With the reign of this reforming Emperor, the old Roman spirit of the administration was ex From the close tinguished, and the proper Byzantine period commences. of this Emperor's reign, in 741, to the conquest of Constantinople by the Western princes, or the termination of the reign of Alexius Ducas, in 1204, forty-three rulers, including three Empresses, Irene, Zoe, and Theodora, held the reins of government for a period of four hundred and sixtythree years. The Latin Emperors, five in number, held the throne of Constantinople fifty-seven years only, when, in 1261, the line of Greek Emperors was restored, in the person of Michael Palæologus VIII. A succession of nine Emperors filled the period down to the reign of Constantine XIII., the last of the Palæologi, who closed his reign and his life with the downfall of the Byzantine Empire, in 1453, when Mohammed II., entering the city of Constantinople over the body of the slaughtered Emperor, planted the crescent on the dome of St. Sophia. For the long period of more than eleven hundred years Constantinople had been the great Christian capital of the East. The ancient city of Byzantium was founded by Megarian colonists, in the seventh century before Christ. It was built on a promontory, facing the waters of the Bosporus and the shores of Asia: and certainly no city in the world can surpass it in the beauty of its position, its facilities for commerce, or the picturesqueness of the scenery that surrounds it. It is washed on the east by the Bosporus, on the north by the Golden Horn, which derived this name from the rich traffic the fisheries supplied, at a very early period, and retains it to the present day. The harbor is seven miles in length, and the water, scarcely affected by tides, is deep enough to float vessels of the largest size. It was and is the key to the Euxine and the Ægean Seas, and its possession was an object of eager rivalship among the most powerful nations of antiquity. Philip of Macedonia, no less than Nicholas of Russia, made every effort to bring it under his power, and was prevented only by the energetic resistance of Demosthenes, for which the people of Byzantium decreed, in honor of the Athenians, a statue and a golden crown. In the wars of the Romans, Byzantium suffered her full share of disasters, in sieges, slaughters, the demolition of her walls, and changes in her political institutions. When Constantine determined to place his new capital here, he greatly enlarged the boundaries, and, to make it in all respects another Rome, took in the seven hills, which rise one above the other, and are covered by the city. From his time it has borne the name of Constantinopolis Constantinople in the languages of Europe, Constanyi in the Arabic, and Stamboul in the Turkish, which is formed from the Greek words eis tyv Tóλw, into or in the city. The line of walls across the peninsula was marked by the Emperor, marching at the head of a procession: a splendid exhibition of chariot games was given in the hippodrome, after which the Emperor was drawn in a magnificent car through the city, bearing a golden statue of Fortune in his hand, surrounded by his guards arrayed in festal robes, and carrying lighted torches. The ceremonies of inaugura tion lasted forty days. The walls were not completed until the reign of Constantius; they were overthrown by an earthquake at the beginning of the fifth century; and the dilapidated walls which still exist, running from the Sea of Marmora to the harbor, are the remains of the double line, reconstructed in A. D. 447 with rectangular flanking towers at short intervals. The circuit of the city was about thirteen miles. § 2. One effect of the transference of the seat of government to Byzantium was to bring the Greeks into a more direct communication with the Roman administration. It was the aim of the first Roman Emperors — those of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries to establish the Latin language, the Roman law, and Roman institutions generally, on a more permanent footing than they had yet gained in the East. The influence of the court had some effect. Those who were connected with it, or dependent on its favors, prided themselves in adopting the style, manners, and dignities of Roman officers: they called themselves Romans, and their country Rome, and even the spoken Greek language was subsequently known, and is known down to the present day, as the Romaic. In the writings of those times we find a strange jumble of Latin with the Greek, especially in the legal documents. But this effect did not extend among the Greeks generally. The strong nationality of the race easily withstood this tide of foreign manners, and while the dignitaries of the empire, and some of the leading ecclesiastics, were indulging in the pomp and ceremonies of the Roman court at Constantinople, the body of the Greek people, and the humbler clergy, remained faithful to the Hellenic ideas, and to the simple form of the religion they had received from the Apostles and their immediate successors. In fact, their aim was to make Constantinople a Greek and not a Latin city. The Roman spirit of the administration was gradually destroyed, though the capital shared little in the national feeling, and, giving itself up to the, enjoyments of the largesses, and the games of the circus, granted her by the favor of the Emperors, remained insensible to the sufferings of the provinces and the decline of the Empire. § 3. In Greece, the local governments were still allowed to exist, but the public burdens were rigorously enforced by the imperial government: so that the reforms inaugurated by Constantine were of no substantial benefit to the Greeks as a nation. A system of monopoly, since imitated by that overpraised barbarian, the Pacha of Egypt, in which the Emperor and members of the imperial household largely shared, interfered with the natural course of commerce, and tended powerfully to impoverish the provinces, and to weaken the barriers which the Empire had maintained against the inroads of the barbarians. § 4. The remarkable career of the Emperor Julian, who ascended the throne A. D. 361, twenty-four years after the death of Constantine, deserves a brief notice, with reference to its bearings on the condition and fortunes of the Greeks. In his childhood and youth, though under the jealous eyes of Constantius, and deprived of liberty, he was nevertheless carefully educated, both in the dogmas of the established church and in Greek and Roman literature. Athens was still the centre of Greek culture, and here, after with difficulty obtaining the Emperor's consent, Julian was permitted to retire from the Asiatic cities, and for a time to lead the life of a scholar and private man. His acquirements and elegant tastes attracted the attention of the most eminent masters, and he passed his time in a circle of young men of congenial tastes, among whom was Gregory of Nazianzus, who was afterwards known as the Christian orator and bitter enemy of the apostate Emperor, and the fiery antagonist of the Arians. In a short time he was disturbed from these peaceful pursuits, and placed in a military command, in the western and northern provinces of the Empire. He describes his feelings on quitting Athens in his letter to the Athenians: "What fountains of tears did I shed, what lamentations did I utter, stretching my hands up towards the Acropolis, when I invoked and supplicated Athena to save her servant, and not to abandon him." His brilliant successes awoke again the jealousies of the Emperor Constantius, who recalled the best portion of his troops, under pretence of needing them for the defence of the East. The troops refused to obey, and, breaking into the lodgings of their beloved commander, forced him to accept the imperial crown. Before he came into actual conflict with the armies of the East, the Emperor died, and now, without opposition, Julian mounted the throne, in A. D. 361. Up to this moment he had disguised his apostasy from the religion in which he had been educated, though it had already been suspected by his brother Gallus, by Gregory, and perhaps by others. The policy of Constantine, the cruelty of Constantius, the persecuting spirit already displaying itself between the Orthodox and Arians, backed by the arguments of the Athenian philosophers, with whom he had chiefly associated, had completely alienated him from the Christian faith. He however published an edict of toleration, professing to secure to both Christians and Pagans the rights of conscience: but he gratified his private inclinations by preferring Pagans to Christians in civil and military offices, and forbidding the Christians to teach rhetoric and grammar in the schools. He was initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis; did much towards restoring Athens, Argos, and Corinth to their ancient splendor; re-established the Isthmian games; and in many other ways manifested his passionate attachment to the land of Greece, her literature, her institutions, and her arts. But the dream of restoring to her declining gods the ancient reverence was that. of an enthusiast, but an imperial enthusiast; of a pedant in paganism, though a very able and perhaps honest one. The work he wrote against the Christian dogmas, though it excited a prodigious controversy in its day, is known only by tradition, and by extracts preserved in Cyril, who replied to it, the copies of the work being destroyed by Theodosius II. The impression his name makes in later times is due chiefly to the odious epithet of Apostate, by which he is |