of humanity; and they revenge their fathers'
wrongs on the children of their tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of
Bohemia and the Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century,
were the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. [17] They
were first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who
exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the heretics;
and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected their independence
and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming flame was kindled by the
persecution of Theodora, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician,
who commanded the guards of the general of the East. His father had been
impaled by the Catholic inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature,
might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren
were united by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of
anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph;
and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable
enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between Siwas and Trebizond he
founded or fortified the city of Tephrice, [18] which is still occupied
by a fierce or licentious people, and the neighboring hills were covered
with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible
and the sword. During more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the
calamities of foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads,
the disciples of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and
the peaceful Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were
delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant
spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so intolerable
the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son of Theodora, was
compelled to march in person against the Paulicians: he was defeated
under the walls of Samosata; and the Roman emperor fled before the
heretics whom his mother had condemned to the flames. The Saracens
fought under the same banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas;
and the captive generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either
released by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and
ambition of Chrysocheir, [19] his successor, embraced a wider circle
of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful Moslems, he boldly
penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops of the frontier and
the palace were repeatedly overthrown; th