the last of the Barbarians, who
trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly exhibit
the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted from the feeble
sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their government and character
denied, might have been inspired in some degree by the influence of
religion; but the religion of the Greeks could only teach them to suffer
and to yield. The emperor Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the
discipline and glory of the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the
honors of martyrdom on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy
war against the infidels. But this political law was defeated by the
opposition of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators;
and they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were
polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated, during
three years, from the communion of the faithful. [83]

[Footnote 77: See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in
the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of
Constantine.]

[Footnote 78: (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such were
not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the loose and
distant practice of archery.]

[Footnote 79: Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and 721, and
the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]

[Footnote 80: In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely deplores
the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times, and repeats,
without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches, nor does it appear
that the same censures were less deserved in the next generation by the
disciples of Constantine.]

[Footnote 81: See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the form of
the emperor's trampling on the necks of the captive Saracens, while
the singers chanted, "Thou hast made my enemies my footstool!" and the
people shouted forty times the kyrie eleison.]

[Footnote 82: Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open battle
against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and the remark is
true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old Romans, Leo had never
reigned on the shores of the Thracian Bosphorus.]

[Footnote 83: Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and Cedrenus,
(Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus, most
unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the patriarch.]

These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the tears of
the primiti