mperor, is
prompted by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just
regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and
private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of
disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the
sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen
and a stranger: in the days of freedom and virtue, a senator would have
scorned to match his daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was
sullied by an Egyptian wife: [59] and the emperor Titus was compelled,
by popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice.
[60] This perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of
the great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially
of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished, that such strange
alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city.
The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the
impious prince who should stain the majesty of the purple was excluded
from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the
ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine
history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation
of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father
Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars,
the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince,
and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the
son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three
answers were prepared, which solved the difficulty and established the
law. I.

The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were acknowledged.
The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font, and declared war
against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian wife. By this
impious alliance he accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was
devoted to the just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus
could not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian usurper,
ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of the monarchy. His
son Christopher, the father of the bride, was the third in rank in
the college of princes, at once the subject and the accomplice of a
rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and devout Christians;
and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of many th