ioch, with
the cities of Cilicia and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a
permanent and useful accession to the Roman empire.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.--Part I.

Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.--Extent And
Division.--Wealth And Revenue.--Palace Of Constantinople.--
Titles And Offices.--Pride And Power Of The Emperors.--
Tactics Of The Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.--Loss Of The Latin
Tongue.--Studies And Solitude Of The Greeks.

A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the tenth
century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which he composed at a mature age for the
instruction of his son, and which promise to unfold the state of the
eastern empire, both in peace and war, both at home and abroad. In the
first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the
church and palace of Constantinople, according to his own practice, and
that of his predecessors. In the second, he attempts an accurate survey
of the provinces, the _themes_, as they were then denominated, both of
Europe and Asia. The system of Roman tactics, the discipline and
order of the troops, and the military operations by land and sea, are
explained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be
ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. In the fourth, of the
administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine
policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the
earth. The literary labors of the age, the practical systems of law,
agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject
and the honor of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the
_Basilics_, the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually
framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of
agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of the best
and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are comprised in
the twenty books of the _Geoponics_ of Constantine. At his command, the
historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three
books, and every citizen might apply, to his contemporaries or himself,
the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a
legislator, the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office
of a teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were
regardl