The Eastern Empire. 
ROME. 
33 2 
a general assault. For two days the intrepid crusaders were 
obliged to yield to superiority of numbers, and the ad¬ 
vantages of ground; but on the third, their valour surmounted 
every obstacle of nature and art, and the banners of the 
Latins were seen floating on the walls of Constantinople. 
The Greeks deserted their posts and threw down their arms; 
and the usurper, hopeless and abandoned, escaped by 
favour of a small vessel, carrying with him Euphrosyne, 
widow of Alexius Angelus, and her daughter Eudoxia, for 
whom he had forsaken his lawful wife. This great revolution 
took place eight hundred and seventy-four years after 
the seat of the empire was transferred from Rome to Constan¬ 
tinople. 
The fate of the city was singular. It had been erected by 
Constantine as the capital of the east, and it was taken by 
the valour of the west, which he had deserted; while the 
champions of the religion he had established, plundered the 
palace of the first imperial protector of Christianity. The 
ornaments which had been transported from Rome to adorn 
the new metropolis, became the prey of the Latin victors ; 
the sacred vessels of the Greeks were converted into drinking 
cups; and the churches profaned by the unreflecting zeal of 
men who considered themselves as the orthodox, but who 
ought to have respected the temples of their common 
master. 
In this pillage, and the consequent devastation, posterity 
has to regret the numerous works of art which were defaced 
or melted down by the gross avarice of the crusaders; the 
statues of brass, which were coined into money to pay the 
holy vagrants; and the invaluable works of genius in every 
branch of literature, which were destroyed by the negli¬ 
gence or contempt of ignorant pilgrims. 
The government of Constantinople now assumed for 
sixty years the title of the Latin empire. This empire may 
be considered as confined to that city, and circumscribed 
within a greater or less extent, according to the successes or 
the reverses of the Greeks, Turks, and Bulgarians, and even 
the Latins, who assailed it in all quarters. 
The French and Venetians having previously stipulated 
to divide such possessions as they might conquer, six electors 
of each nation were named to choose the future emperor of 
the East. To him the title and prerogatives of the Byzan¬ 
tine throne, with one quarter of the Greek monarchy, were 
assigned ; and it was determined equally to share the three 
remaining portions between the republic of Venice and the 
barons of France; but that each feudatory, with an honour¬ 
able exception in favour of the doge, should acknowledge 
and ^perform the duties of homage and military service to 
the supreme head of the empire. 
The twelve electors being assembled, their unanimous 
voices pronounced Dandolo worthy of the imperial purple; 
but the venerable patriot was satisfied with the honour 
of the nomination, and declined the office. Baldwin, 
count of Flanders and Hainault, was then solemnly pro¬ 
claimed, and his competitor, the marquis of Montserrat, 
was the first to kiss the hand of the new sovereign. The 
Venetians were allowed to nominate a patriarch; and this 
revolution was confirmed by pope Innocent, while the 
ambassadors of Baldwin announced his accession to the 
diadems of Palestine, France and Rome. 
Thrace, with an absolute authority over the Greek pro¬ 
vinces, was appropriated to the emperor. A moiety of the 
remainder was reserved for Venice, and the other moiety was 
distributed among the adventurers of France and Lombardy. 
The brave and aged Dandalo was proclaimed chief of 
Romania, and. closed his long and glorious career at Con¬ 
stantinople. The Venetians extended their settlements 
along the coast from Ragusa to the Hellespont, and obtained 
the isles of the Archipelago. Thessaly was erected into a 
kingdom for the marquis of Montserrat: the lots of the 
Latin pilgrims were regulated by chance or choice. Each 
baron, at the head of his adherents, attempted to secure the 
possession of his share: numerous quarrels of necessity 
arose among men whose sole umpire w-as the sword: and 
tjiree months after the conquest of Constantinople, the 
The Eastern Empire. 
hostile preparations of the empire and the king of Thes- 
salonica were only abandoned, at the powerful mediation of 
their mutual friends. 
After this arrangement, which subverted the ancient 
abric of the constitution, two persons still remained as the 
objects of jealousy from their former possession of power. 
Murtzuphlus was seized, and precipitated from a column 
147 feet high; and Alexius, the brother of Isaac, was sent 
to end his days in a monastery of Asia. Theodoras 
.Lascaris, however, the son-in-law of the latter, a man of 
signal resolution, having escaped to Anatolia, fixed his 
residence at Nice, and established his independent authority 
over Prussia, Philadelphia, Smyrna, and Ephesus. Alexius, 
the lineal heir of Comneni, had been appointed duke of 
Trebizond; and, without changing his title, the public 
confusion allowed him to extend his dominions from Sinope 
to the Phasis. An illegitimate descendant of the Angeli 
founded a strong principality in Epirus, iEtolia, and Thes¬ 
saly ; and some of those enumerated independent states 
reflected a lustre on their rulers and the times. 
John, the revolted chief of the Bulgarians and Wal- 
lachians, paid an unwilling homage to the Latin conquerors; 
and finding the Greeks also discontented, he made a com¬ 
mon cause with them. No sooner had Henry, the new' 
emperor’s brother, conveyed his troops beyond the Helles¬ 
pont, than the signal of insurrection was given ; the Latins 
were massacred by their slaves; and the furious multitude 
expelled the French and Venetians from the city of Adri- 
anople. The rapid advance of the Bulgarian chief, at the 
head of a formidable army of barbarians, increased the 
general consternation: the emperor recalled his brother; 
but the ardent spirit of Baldw in not suffering him to wait 
for his tardy arrival, he attempted the siege of Adrianople, 
and being precipitated into an action by the rashness of the 
count of Blois, after an ineffectual display of personal 
valour, the emperor became the captive of his barbarian 
foes. 
The victors delaying to press their good fortune to the full, 
the venerable doge and the marshal Villehardouin found 
means to retire to the sea coast ^ and the skill and firmness of 
the latter, in a retreat of three days, did him immortal 
honour. At Rodosto they u'ere joined by Henry and his 
troops, who had landed from the Asiatic shore. In the 
exigency of their affairs, Henry assumed the regency of the 
empire; and intelligence soon after arriving, that Baldwin 
had been put to a most cruel death, notwithstanding the 
powerful interference of his friends to procure his liberation, 
the regent consented to take upon him the imperial dignity. 
Henry mounted a throne encompassed with dangers, and 
the difficulties with w hich he was pressed demanded incessant 
exertion to obviate or remove them. The venerable Dan¬ 
dolo, a warrior to the last, had sunk under the pressure of 
accumulated years; the king of Thessalonica, in the mo¬ 
ment of victory, had been mortally wounded by the Bul¬ 
garians; and other friends of the Latin empire were either 
dead or had lost their influence; yet Henry, unsupported 
and almost alone, acquired the character of a valiant knight, 
and a skilful commander. 
Ever foremost on shipboard or on horseback, the drooping 
Latins were roused by his example, or inspired by his 
presence. The fickle Greeks already repented their con¬ 
nection with John, the tyrant of Bulgaria, w'ho no longer 
dissembled his intention of transplanting the inhabitants of 
Thrace beyond the Danube. 
The voice of nature called on Henry to revenge his 
brother’s wrongs, and the cries of the unhappy Thracians 
melted his heart. He took the field against the barbarians: 
repulsed the Bulgarian monarch, and soon had the satisfac¬ 
tion to find that the ferocious tyrant John was assassinated 
as he lay in his tent. The Latin emperor, after repeated 
victories, concluded an honourable peace with the successor 
of John, and with the Greek princes of Nice and Epirus; 
but having presumed to curb the insolence and avarice of a 
domineering clergy, he died after a reign of eleven years, 
not without the suspicion of poison. 
The 
