ent. Three hundred years previously, the historian Luitprand, who
was sent by the Emperor Otho I. to the court of Nicephorus Phocas, says
of her, speaking as an eye-witness, "That city, once so wealthy, so
flourishing, is now famished, lying, perjured, deceitful, rapacious,
greedy, niggardly, vainglorious;" and since Luitprand's time she had
been pursuing a downward career. It might have been expected that the
concentration of all the literary and scientific treasures of the Roman
empire in Constantinople would have given rise to great mental
vigour--that to Europe she would have been a brilliant focus of light.
[Sidenote: The literary worthlessness of that city.] But when the works
on jurisprudence by Tribonian, under Justinian, have been mentioned,
what is there that remains? There is Stephanus, the grammarian, who
wrote a dictionary, and Procopius, the historian, who was secretary to
Belisarius in his campaigns. There is then a long interval almost
without a literary name, to Theophylact Simocatta, and to the Ladder of
Paradise of John Climacus. The mental excitement of the iconoclastic
dispute presents us with John of Damascus; and the ninth century, the
Myriobiblion and Nomacanon of Photius. Then follows Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, vainly and voluminously composing; and Basil II.
doubtless truly expresses the opinion of the time, as he certainly does
the verdict of posterity respecting the works of his country, when he
says that learning is useless and unprofitable lumber. The Alexiad of
Anna Comnena, and the history of Byzantine affairs by Nicephorous
Bryennius, hardly redeem their age. This barrenness and worthlessness
was the effect of the system introduced by Constantine the Great. The
long line of emperors had been consistent in one policy--the repression
or expulsion of philosophy; and yet it is the uniform testimony of those
ages that the Eastern convents were full of secret Platonism--that in
stealth, the doctrines of Plato were treasured up in the cells of
Asiatic monks. The Byzantines had possessed in art and letters all the
best models in the world, yet in a thousand years they never produced
one original. Millions of Greeks never advanced one step in philosophy
or science--never made a single practical discovery, composed no poem,
no tragedy worth perusal. The spirit of their superficial literature--if
literature it can be called--is well shadowed forth in the story of the
patriarch Photius, who composed