oast
of the Black Sea. His nameless son and successor [212] is described as
the vassal of the sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances: that
Comnenian prince was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the title
of emperor was first assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson
of Alexius. In the West, a third fragment was saved from the common
shipwreck by Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. His
flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his freedom; by his
marriage with the governor's daughter, he commanded the important
place of Durazzo, assumed the title of despot, and founded a strong and
conspicuous principality in Epirus, AEtolia, and Thessaly, which have
ever been peopled by a warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their
service to their new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins
[22] from all civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and
obey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their nerves were
braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble or
valiant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus,
and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the ambiguous praise of
attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and
the country would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude;
and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry was
crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_ emperors
of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed with
power for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise,
and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by
a titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious
confederates; the fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, were
held and ruled by the sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty,
and ignorance, extended the ramifications of tyranny to the most
sequestered villages. The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of
the priest, who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier,
who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of religion
and language forever separated the stranger and the native. As long