ury we trace the first dawnings of the restoration
of science. [106] After the fanaticism of the Arabs had subsided, the
caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than the provinces, of the
empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled the emulation of the Greeks,
brushed away the dust from their ancient libraries, and taught them to
know and reward the philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid
by the pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of letters,
a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused his ambition. A
particle of the treasures of his nephew was sometimes diverted from
the indulgence of vice and folly; a school was opened in the palace
of Magnaura; and the presence of Bardas excited the emulation of the
masters and students. At their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop
of Thessalonica: his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics
was admired by the strangers of the East; and this occult science
was magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the
celebrated Photius, [107] renounced the freedom of a secular and
studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was alternately
excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East and West. By the
confession even of priestly hatred, no art or science, except poetry,
was foreign to this universal scholar, who was deep in thought,
indefatigable in reading, and eloquent in diction. Whilst he exercised
the office of protospathaire or captain of the guards, Photius was sent
ambassador to the caliph of Bagdad. [108] The tedious hours of exile,
perhaps of confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two hundred and
fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers, theologians, are
reviewed without any regular method: he abridges their narrative or
doctrine, appreciates their style and character, and judges even the
fathers of the church with a discreet freedom, which often breaks
through the superstition of the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented
the defects of his own education, intrusted to the care of Photius his
son and successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of th