The Eastern Empire. R 0 
■me nothing to lose." Yet the indolence of the young em¬ 
peror seems to have balanced his ambition. 
He was defeated and wounded in a ruinous battle with the 
Turks, and his overthrow confirmed the establishment of 
their empire, while his own was rapidly hastening to decay. 
At length, in consequence of his early intemperance, and 
the unrestrained indulgence of his passions, he sunk into 
the grave, in the forty-fifth year of his age, leaving an only- 
son, John Palaeologus, who was only nine years of age at his 
father’s .death. 
The weakness of the infant emperor was protected by the 
genius of John Cantacuzene, who had long been the friend 
and counsellor of the late emperor, and who in his last 
moments pressed him to accept the imperial title. The 
dangerous proposal, however, was rejected by the virtue of 
tliis illustrious Greek; and he was then named regent, during 
the minority of John. 
There is every reason to believe he would have discharged 
the delegated trust with fidelity, had not his designs been 
thwarted by the ambition of Apocaucus, the great admiral, 
who owed every thing to the influence of Cantacuzene, but 
who, forgetting the obligation he was under to his benefactor, 
encouraged Anne, the widow of the late emperor, to assert 
the laws of nature, in undertaking the tutelage of her son. 
To the same views he brought over John of Apri, the patri¬ 
arch, a proud and feeble old man, who assumed the claims 
of a Roman pontiff, and pressed religion into the service of 
faction. 
The legal guardian was assailed .on all sides; his prero¬ 
gatives disputed, his opinions slighted, and his friends 
persecuted. At length, while absent in the public service, he 
was proscribed as an enemy to the church and state; his for- 
-f une was confiscated, and his aged mother thrown into prison. 
Cantacuzene was driven by injustice to perpetrate the very 
crime he was falsely accused of; yet such was his love of 
peace, that he meditated to throw himself at the feet of the 
young emperor, and patiently submit to his fate. 
The remonstrances of his family and friends, however, 
diverted him from this dangerous resolution; and no other 
resource remained but to declare himself independent. At 
Demotica, his own private domain, he-was invested with the 
purple; : but still the name of John Palaeologus was ordered 
to be proclaimed before his own. Necessity, not choice, evi¬ 
dently dictated this revolt; for Cantacuzene had neither 
provided an army, nor military stores; and immediately 
after he had assumed the imperial title, he retired with five 
hundred followers among the savage Servians, where he gra¬ 
dually sunk to a suppliant, a captive, and an hostage; and 
was at length dismissed to encounter new vicissitudes of hope 
and fear. 
For six years the empire was distracted by contending 
factions; but the liberality of-Cantacuzene having engaged 
the support of the Turks, and his rival Apocaucus being 
taken off, the road was gradually paved to the return of the 
revolted chief; who at length investing the walls of Con¬ 
stantinople, the empress Anne and her son consented to a 
treaty, by which it was stipulated, that the young emperor 
should marry Irene, the daughter of Cantacuzene, and admit 
him a partner in the empire, with the sole administration for 
the space of ten years, by which time John would have 
attained the age of twenty-five. These conditions being 
ratified, Irene was espoused, and crowned empress. 
The reign of Cantacuzene, however, was far from being 
tranquil. He had the misfortune to offend his friends, by not 
gratifying their unreasonable expectations ; and his enemies 
were irreconcileable. His son-in-law, as he advanced in 
years, began-to -be inspired with views of independence, and 
to evince at once the ambition and the sordid and sensual 
appetites of his father Andronicus. Being left at Thessalo- 
nica, and secluded from the eye of Cantacuzene, he con¬ 
cluded a secret treaty with the Servians, in opposition to the 
interests of his partner and administrator: an open rupture 
succeeded, and every attempt to reconcile the rivals proved 
ineffectual. The Turks espoused the cause of the regent, and 
now gained a lasting establishment in Europe; but though 
M E. The Eastern Empire. 335 
Cantacuzene prevailed by their assistance, he lost the con¬ 
fidence both of the people and of Palaeologus. Constanti¬ 
nople was still attached to the blood of her ancient princes; 
the citizens rose in arms; and the long and general shouts 
of “ Life and victory to John Palaeologus!” proclaimed the 
extinction of the power of the regent. He descended from 
the throne without any further attempts to regain his lost 
power; embraced the monastic habit and profession ; and 
spent the remainder of his days in piety and studious pur¬ 
suits. 
Before his abdication, the Turks had invaded nearly the 
whole of the empire, and a Genoese colony at Pera, one of 
the suburbs of Constantinople, monopolized every branch of 
commerce, and fed or famished the capital, according to their 
interest or caprice. The most perfect union alone could 
have enabled the Greeks to resist enemies so powerful and so 
near; but diseord on the contrary every where reigned, and 
especially in the imperial family. 
For a long series of years, John Palaeologus was the 
helpless and indifferent spectator of the public ruin. His 
eldest son Andronicus had formed a criminal intercouse with 
Sauzes, the son of Amu rath, sultan of the Turks; and both 
the young princes conspired against the lives of their respec¬ 
tive parents. Their designs, however, were timely discovered 
by Amurath, who deprived his son of sight, and insisted on 
Palaeologus inflicting a similar punishment on Andronicus. 
The abject emperor obeyed; and involved his infant grand¬ 
son John in the same sentence: but the operation was so 
mildly performed, that one recovered the sight of an eye, and 
the other was only disfigured by squinting. The fidelity of 
Manuel the second son, was rewarded by associating him to 
the purple; but in two years, the Greeks, with characteristic 
levity, raised the late criminal and his innocent son to the 
throne, and consigned the aged emperor and Manuel to a 
prison. A lapse of two years more effected another revolu¬ 
tion: the captives made their escape; and finding numerous 
partisans, the claims of the contending parties were compro¬ 
mised, by assigning to the elder Palaeologus and his son 
Manuel the possession of the capital, and by allotting what¬ 
ever remained beyond the walls, to the younger Palreologus 
and his son John. 
Soon after, the amorous old monarch deprived Manuel of 
a blooming princess of Trebizond, and sent him to display 
his valour in the wars of the sultan Bajazet; but the jealousy 
of this despot being excited by a plan of fortifying Con¬ 
stantinople, the new works were demolished at his peremp¬ 
tory command; and this mortification, added to the many 
which John Palaeologus had received in a reign of thirty-six 
years, preyed on his heart, and sent him Jo the grave. 
On -receiving intelligence of his father’s death, Manuel 
escaped from the Turkish camp, and hastened to occupy the 
Byzantine throne. That station, however, was disputed by 
his nephew John, whose guilty father was no more ; and 
Bajazet, after concluding a treaty with Manuel, and almost 
immediately after rescinding it, embraced the cause of John, 
and invested the imperial city. 
By the assistance of some Franks, Manuel was enabled to 
repel the Mahometans for more than a year; but the enemy 
soon returning with augmented numbers, he found it impos¬ 
sible to resistthe torrent, and therefore, leaving his competitor 
to occupy the throne, he determined to implore in person 
the assistance of France, -Scarcely, however, had John 
entered the capital, before the sultan claimed it ashis rightful 
possession; and all the resistance he could have made, would 
have delayed the fate of the city but a very short time, had 
not the rapid progress of Tamerlane called off the Turk to a 
contest with an enemy more worthy of his prowess. 
When Manuel undertook his suppliant expedition, he 
expected the instant subversion of the church and state; and 
was agreeably surprised by the successive intelligence of the 
retreat, overthrow, and captivity of Bajazet. He immediately 
set sail for Constantinople, and being restored to the throne, 
banished his competitor John to the isle of Lesbos. 
Soliman, the son of Bajazet, fearful lest the Greeks should 
favour the Moguls, earnestly solicited the alliance of Manuel 
and 
