The Historians' History of the World 07

In the partition of the Byzantine Empire, the republic of Venice receives about three-eighths of the whole empire of Romania; but her resources not being adequate to conquer this amount of territory, she makes no effort to take a considerable portion of her share. We have seen how a portion of Thessaly was exchanged with Boniface of Montferrat, and a considerable amount of land falls into the hands of the other adventurers. Venice pursues the policy, allowing her barons personally to conquer certain territories, on condition that they be held as fiefs of the republic. Thus the Dandolo and Viaro families take Gallipoli and the island of Andros; the Ghisi seize Tinos, Scyros, Mycone, and other islands. Ceos falls to the Justiniani and Michicle, Lemnos to the Navigajosa, Astypalia to the Quirini. The twelve islands of the Archipelago forming the Byzantine theme of the Ægean Sea are taken by Mark Sanduno. He invades Naxos about 1207. The Sanduno and Della Carceri rule the islands, vassals of Romania and Venice—uneventful rules in which a fierce Seljuk invasion of Naxos in 1330 is perhaps the most important event—until 1381 when through conspiracy the Crispo family seizes the duchy. In the treaty between Muhammed II and Venice after the capture of Constantinople, the dukes of the Archipelago act as subjects of Venice. When the republic and the Ottoman Empire engage in hostilities, the duke of the Archipelago is compelled to become a vassal of the Sublime Porte, 1537. In 1566, on complaint of the Greek residents, the sultan Selim II seizes the duchy and adds it to his empire, and the last fief of the Romanian Empire is extinguished.

CHAPTER I

THE REIGN OF ARCADIUS

[395-408 A.D.]

The Emperor Theodosius I died in Mediolanum on the 17th of January, 395, after a long illness. A few months before this he had defeated at Frigidus, in the pass of the Julian Alps, Eugenius, the second pretender to lay claim to the throne during his reign. The pious monarch met his death in a different manner from his young co-rulers, Gratian and Valentinian II, but as had many of his predecessors. No murderous steel of mercenary aspirants put an end to his life, but surrounded by faithful friends and followers, and attended by the venerable Bishop Ambrose, his great soul departed from a body long worn out with trouble and anxiety and the many struggles of an almost incessant war. He was not old when he died, for having been born in 346 he had not yet reached the age of fifty, and so, according to the prospect of longevity, it had been thought that he would have a much longer reign.

There had never been a more prosperous time for the Roman world than just then; for, after the defeat of Eugenius, the whole of the Roman Empire had once more passed under the undivided control of one man. Theodosius with his two-sided policy—openly to welcome the Germans pressing into his country, if they agreed to keep peace and friendship, or strongly to oppose their hostile advances—would have been well able to withstand the overcrowding of the west by the tribes persecuted by the Huns for many years longer; but the death of so powerful an enemy, who was greatly feared even by the barbarians, was the signal for an internal rising as well as for an external revolt.

In the midst of all this trouble and distress the ruler now died, leaving the kingdom to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius, the former but a youth, the latter a child of eleven years. With regard to the dividing of the empire, that was all settled, at least as far as Arcadius was concerned, for it was certainly not on his death-bed that the careful Theodosius had first considered the matter. The eastern half, formerly ruled by the father, was left to Arcadius as the elder son; whilst before the murder of Valentinian II a part of the Occident was probably intended to be divided between him (Valentinian) and Honorius.

A COMPARISON OF THE TWO EMPIRES

[395 A.D.]

The Western Empire consisted of Britain as far as the frontier wall of Hadrian, of Gaul, of Germany up to the limes transrhenanus, of Spain, of Italy, of the western part of the province of Illyricum which embraced Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, and of which the boundary stretched southeastwards from the mouth of the Scodra (Scutari) over the Bosnian Mountains, along the Drinus (Drina) to the Savus (Save), and of the entire north coast of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Barca plain. The eastern half bequeathed to Arcadius included the Balkan peninsula, bound on the north by the Danube, Asia Minor, the Tauric peninsula (Crimea), Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Lower Libya, and the Pentapolis.