d tribes. Under those circumstances it was possible for
the bishops of Rome to maintain the independence of their city. Soon the
remnants of the empire, scattered throughout the peninsula, recognised
the Dukes of Rome (or bishops) as their political and spiritual rulers.

The stage was set for the appearance of a strong man. He came in the
year 590 and his name was Gregory. He belonged to the ruling classes of
ancient Rome, and he had been "prefect" or mayor of the city. Then he
had become a monk and a bishop and finally, and much against his will,
(for he wanted to be a missionary and preach Christianity to the heathen
of England,) he had been dragged to the Church of Saint Peter to be made
Pope. He ruled only fourteen years but when he died the Christian world
of western Europe had officially recognised the bishops of Rome, the
Popes, as the head of the entire church.

This power, however, did not extend to the east. In Constantinople the
Emperors continued the old custom which had recognised the successors of
Augustus and Tiberius both as head of the government and as High Priest
of the Established Religion. In the year 1453 the eastern Roman Empire
was conquered by the Turks. Constantinople was taken, and Constantine
Paleologue, the last Roman Emperor, was killed on the steps of the
Church of the Holy Sophia.

A few years before, Zoe, the daughter of his brother Thomas, had married
Ivan III of Russia. In this way did the grand-dukes of Moscow fall heir
to the traditions of Constantinople. The double-eagle of old Byzantium
(reminiscent of the days when Rome had been divided into an eastern and
a western part) became the coat of arms of modern Russia. The Tsar who
had been merely the first of the Russian nobles, assumed the aloofness
and the dignity of a Roman emperor before whom all subjects, both high
and low, were inconsiderable slaves.

The court was refashioned after the oriental pattern which the eastern
Emperors had imported from Asia and from Egypt and which (so they
flattered themselves) resembled the court of Alexander the Great. This
strange inheritance which the dying Byzantine Empire bequeathed to an
unsuspecting world continued to live with great vigour for six more
centuries, amidst the vast plains of Russia. The last man to wear
the crown with the double eagle of Constantinople, Tsar Nicholas, was
murdered only the other day, so to speak. His body was thrown into a
well. His son and his daughters we