auzes of his sight, the Ottoman
threatened his vassal with the treatment of an accomplice and an enemy,
unless he inflicted a similar punishment on his own son. Palaeologus
trembled and obeyed; and a cruel precaution involved in the same
sentence the childhood and innocence of John, the son of the criminal.
But the operation was so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the
one retained the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with
the infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the two
princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of Manuel,
the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with the gift of
the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the turbulence of the
Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a revolution; [661] and the
two emperors were buried in the tower from whence the two prisoners were
exalted to the throne. Another period of two years afforded Palaeologus
and Manuel the means of escape: it was contrived by the magic or
subtlety of a monk, who was alternately named the angel or the devil:
they fled to Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with which Caesar
and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The Roman world was now
contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black
Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth; a space of
ground not more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany or
Italy, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the
wealth and populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it
was found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
Palaeologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital, almost
all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind princes, who fixed
their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In the tranquil slumber of
royalty, the passions of John Palaeologus survived his reason and his
strength: he deprived his favorite and heir of a blooming princess
of Trebizond; and while the feeble emperor labored to consummate his
nuptials, Manuel, with a hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a
peremptory summons to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor in
the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited
his jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, pe