philosopher: but while he condemns the vanity,
he may search the motive, of this universal desire to obtain and hold
the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of the Byzantine series,
we cannot reasonably ascribe the love of fame and of mankind. The virtue
alone of John Comnenus was beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of
the princes, who procede or follow that respectable name, have trod
with some dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish
policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the Isaurian,
Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus, the second Basil,
and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are almost equally balanced;
and the remainder of the Imperial crowd could only desire and expect to
be forgotten by posterity. Was personal happiness the aim and object of
their ambition? I shall not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery
of kings; but I may surely observe, that their condition, of all others,
is the most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For
these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the revolutions
of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of the modern world,
which cannot easily repeat either the triumph of Alexander or the fall
of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed
them to domestic perils, without affording any lively promise of foreign
conquest. From the pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated
by a death more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but
the most glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from
their subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious
without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the Barbarians of
the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the loss of the provinces
was terminated by the final servitude of the capital.

The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the Caesars to
the last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen hundred years:
and the term of dominion, unbroken by foreign conquest, surpasses
the measure of the ancient monarchies; the Assyrians or Medes, the
successors of Cyrus, or those of Alexander.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***

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