829.

To this singular request, Theophilus returned A.D. a rude refusal, adding, "That the sciences, which had conferred a lustre on the Roman name, were not to be imparted to barbarians."*

His pride, however, was aroused, on contrasting his own degraded taste with that of the lordly Arab; and the humble pedagogue, whose fame spread so far, was drawn from his seclusion, and placed at the head of a seminary which the emperor established in the palace of Magnaura. He was subsequently promoted to the archbishopric of Thessalonica; but forced, on the condemnation of the ikonoclastic controversy, in a. D. 849, to return to his former professorship at Constantinople. Of the productions of Leo, nothing now remains to attest the justice of the high reputation he enjoyed; but perhaps the surest test of his merit was his being chosen by Bardas, the uncle of Michael III. to assist him in his efforts for the revival of letters during the reign of his nephew.

A.D.

Devoted solely to the pursuit of pleasure, 829. this flagitious prince abandoned to his relative all the cares of government; and Bardas, though of mean acquirements himself, had learned to

Schoell, 1. vi. c. xci. Berington, app. i. p. 553.

+ Gibbon, c. liii. attributes the opening of this seminary to Bardas. We have to regret that his sketch of the literary history of the Greeks is so brief and imperfect.

842.

A.D. appreciate them in others. Aware of the ignorance in which the measures of former sovereigns, and in particular Michael the Stammerer, had plunged the mass of the nation; and stung with envy by the lustre of science then dawning round the throne of the Kalifs, his earliest efforts were strenuously devoted to the establishment of seminaries of education, and the revival of learning. In this generous effort his earliest assistants were Leo, and his contemporary John Lecanomante, a man of deep erudition and extensive power, who had been raised by Theophilus to the patriarchal chair, in A.D. 832.*

A.D.

But a more energetic, though, perhaps, not equally successful agent, was the renowned Photius, who occupies so prominent a position in the ecclesiastical affairs of the ninth century.t After enjoying some of the most important offices of the state, this distinguished layman 858. was nominated by Bardas, in a. D. 858, patriarch of Constantinople; and after a stormy and turbulent life, he died in obscurity, in a monastery in Armenia, whither he had been banished by Leo the Philosopher, son to the Emperor Basil. The character of Photius has been assailed with all the venom of priestly hatred; but notwithstanding their bitterest revilings, Schoell, vol. vii. p. 299, n.

his opponents have admitted that he was a proficient in every science and accomplishment of the age, and that, in vastness of intellect and profundity of knowledge, he left his most exalted rivals immeasurably behind.

In

Whilst serving as commander of the imperial guard, he employed the leisure of an embassy, on which he was dispatched to Bagdad, in the composition of his Myriobiblon, or Library, which, we learn from its title,* he undertook for the information of his brother Tarasius. this extraordinary compilation, though thrown together without the least regard to chronology, order, or arrangement, he criticised, condensed, or made extracts from, the works of two hundred and eighty authors, as well Pagan as Christian, historians, philosophers, orators, romancers, geometricians, and geographers, of whom from seventy to eighty now exist merely in the eulogy or excerpts of Photius.†

Such was the individual whom Bardas se

Απογραφὴ καὶ συναρίθμησις τῶν ἀνεγνωσμένων ἡμῖν βιβλίων, ὧν εἷς κεφαλαιώδη διάγνωσιν ὁ ἠγαπημένος ἡμῶν ἀδελφὸς Ταράσιος ἐξητήσατο. ἔστι δὲ ταῦτα εἴκοσι δεοντων ἐφ' ἑνὶ τριακόσια.

+ Besides his Library, Photius composed a Glossary (Aewv Zuvaywyn) of indifferent merit, an Abridgment of the Seven Ecumenic Councils, and a Nomocanon, or Digest of the Ecclesiastical Laws. Harles, sec. v. p. 542. Boeclerus, sec.

A.D.

858.

858.

A.D. lected as his colleague in the grand work of reformation; but, unfortunately, the success of the effort was by no means commensurate to the splendour of the means employed. The talents of Photius, amidst a host of furious and illiterate enemies, were more likely to generate envious opposition, than to attract imitation; the spark of taste or genius, if it still survived, was buried beneath the mass of religious fanaticism; and the generous qualities of the ancient Greeks had disappeared, whilst their representatives merely retained the vanity, the fickleness, the bad faith, and crouching subserviency, with which the Romans had stigmatized their fathers. A.D. The most favourable instances of the success of

886.

Photius were exhibited by his pupils, Leo the Philosopher, and his son, Constantine VI. Porphyrogenitus, whose reigns form the most prosperous era in the literary history of Greece.* The former, having cultivated the belles lettres with indifferent success,† applied himself with assiduity to the completion of the judicial

P. C. viii. p. 88. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxx. c. lxxxix. c. xcvii. Berington, app. i. p. 554. Fabricius, l. v. c. 35. Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. iv.

* Gibbon, c. liii.

+ Independently of the Xpnopol, or Oracles, attributed (doubtfully) to Leo, he has left some lines on the Fall of Greece, some hymns, nine epigrams, and a few Kapxivos, or

886.

code commenced by his father, in order to clear A.D. away the confusion and contradictions which had collected round that of Justinian. This arduous task was completed by Leo and his assistants, and published in a. D. 886; but A. so rapid were the changes in the laws and constitution of the empire, that ere twenty years had elapsed, a second revision was undertaken by his son Constantine, which is the work still known by the title of the Basilics.*

In this degenerate century, few names, save those I have enumerated, attract the attention of the investigator: the Chronicle of Syncellust was continued by Theophanes the Isaurian ;‡ John of Antioch, surnamed Malala, compiled a history, from the creation to A. D. 556, valuable merely for its extracts from authors who have perished; and Nicephorus, who was patriarch in A. D. 815, evinced considerable talent in the composition of a similar work, retrograde verses; that is, presenting two sentences when read from right to left, and left to right. He was likewise author of a compiled work on tactics.

* Βασιλικαὶ διατάξεις.

† See P. 112.

Born at Constantinople, or, according to Harles, at Samothrace; but so called, perhaps, from his father. He died about 817, A. D.-Harles, sec. v. p. 539. Berington, app. i. p. 549. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxxv. Fabricius, 1. v. c iv. 38.