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.
alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose.” But the Greeks
were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be
healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not
destined to be the savior of a falling empire. On the first
repulse, his party was broken by his own levity, their intestine
discord, and the intrigues of the ancient court, which tempted
each malecontent to desert or betray the cause of the rebellion.
Andronicus the younger was touched with remorse, or fatigued with
business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure rather than power
was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand hounds, a
thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to sully
his fame and disarm his ambition.
89 (return) [ The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and
dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young
Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn
the emperor of his danger when the march was determined.
Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist. Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.—M.]
9 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum
of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his
household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted
the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of
the revenue.]
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