History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
shipboard or on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for
the success of his arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by
his example to save and to second their fearless emperor. But
such efforts, and some supplies of men and money from France,
were of less avail than the errors, the cruelty, and death, of
their most formidable adversary. When the despair of the Greek
subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped that he
would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon
taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to
execrate the savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his
intention of dispeopling Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and
of transplanting the inhabitants beyond the Danube. Many towns
and villages of Thrace were already evacuated: a heap of ruins
marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity was
expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first authors of the
revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne
of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and
trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their
sergeants and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and
with this slender force he fought 321 and repulsed the Bulgarian,
who, besides his infantry, was at the head of forty thousand
horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between a
hostile and a friendly country: the remaining cities were
preserved by his arms; and the savage, with shame and loss, was
compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege of Thessalonica was
the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or suffered: he
was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general, perhaps
the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. 33
After several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an
honorable peace with the successor of the tyrant, and with the
Greek princes of Nice and Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful
limits, an ample kingdom was reserved for himself and his
feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten years, afforded
a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the narrow
policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks
the most important offices of the state and army; and this
liberality of sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as
the princes of Nice and Epirus had already learned to seduce and
employ the mercenary valor of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry
to unite and reward his deserving subjects, of every nation and
language; but he appeared less solicitous to accomplish the
impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope’s
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