FABLE AND FOLKLORE 33 



rule until it included all the civilized part of western Asia, 

 Greece, Bulgaria, southern Italy, and much of the islands 

 and shores of the Mediterranean; and they asserted re- 

 ligious supremacy, at least, over the rival European em- 

 pire erected on Charlemagne's foundation. It would 

 seem natural that at this prosperous period, when 

 Byzantium proudly claimed, if she did not really possess 

 all "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that 

 was Rome," such a double-headed device might be 

 adopted, signifying that she had united the western power 

 with her own. The evidence of this motive is doubtful, 

 however, for it is not until a much later date that the 

 figure begins to be seen on coins and textiles, first at 

 Trebizond, particularly in connection with the emperor 

 Theodore Lascaris, who reigned at the beginning of the 

 13th century. Dalton 25 suggests plausibly that this 

 symbol may have become Byzantine through the circum- 

 stance that this Lascaris had previously been despot of 

 Nicomedia, in which province Bogaz-Keui and other 

 Hittite remains were situated, and where the bicephalous 

 carvings heretofore alluded to are still to be seen on rock- 

 faces and ruins, always in association with royalty. 



It is very attractive to think that this form of eagle 

 was chosen, as has been suggested, to express the fact 

 that Constantinople was now lord over both halves, East 

 and West, into which Diocletian had divided the original 

 empire of Rome. Whether this idea was behind the 

 choice I do not know, but at any rate the two-faced 

 eagle became latterly the acknowledged ensign of imperial 

 Byzantium, and as such was introduced into European 

 royal heraldry, whether or not by means of the returning 

 Crusaders, as commonly stated, remains obscure. 



In the 15th century what was left of the Holy Roman 



