as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the memory of their
conquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on the captive
land: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and the
defects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed
the secret, that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks
abated, their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and
before a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude
they trusted. [23]

[Footnote 17: See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
Villehardouin, (No. 141--145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.) Neither
the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a tyrant or rebel,
whose punishment, however, was more unexampled than his crime.]

[Footnote 18: The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso relievo
his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at
Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius, (Topograph. iv.
7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort,
(Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note,
vol. v p. 388.--M.)]

[Footnote 19: The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks concerning
this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it is singular
enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes,
(Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in the
forum, and a man sitting on the column, clapping his hands, and uttering
a loud exclamation. * Note: We read in the "Chronicle of the Conquest of
Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the Morea,"
translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo VI., called the
Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious emperor should be
precipitated from the top of this column. The crusaders considered
themselves under an obligation to fulfil this prophecy. Brosset, note on
Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M Brosset announces that a complete edition
of this work, of which the original Greek of the first book only has
been published by M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new
series of the Byzantine historian.--M.]

[Footnote 20: The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which
Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are learnedly
explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiae Byzantinae of Ducange.]