The division of society into castes was the most serious and insurmountable impediment to progress encountered by the people of the Greek Empire. Public opinion was voiced by the court at the instigation of the clergy. There was one law for the members of the imperial household and another for all who did not enjoy that adventitious privilege. What was a crime in the citizen was scarcely considered an error in the patrician. The tradesmen, who to some extent constituted a middle class, were not wealthy or influential enough to own slaves,--a criterion of social importance,--and in nine cases out of ten sympathized with, if they did not actually support, the claims of the rabble. The cultivator of the soil, uncertain whether he would be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labors, through the rapacity of the imperial officials or the relentless fury of the barbarians, pursued his useful vocation to little purpose. In a region proverbial for fertility, under a sky unusually favorable to the husbandman, there was no uniformity in the amount of the yield, no certainty of even a moderate harvest. Under the same atmospheric conditions a year of famine often succeeded a year of the greatest abundance. The most lucrative branch of commerce was the slave-trade. The Saracen pirates, who swarmed in the Mediterranean, exchanged their captives in the markets of Byzantium for Baltic amber, Chinese silks, Arabian spices, and Indian jewels. These slaves, both male and female, were sold to Jews, who disposed of them to the Moslems of Persia, Egypt, Mauritania, and Spain. The manufacture of eunuchs was not only a profitable industry, but was often resorted to with a view to the future political or ecclesiastical promotion of the unfortunate subject. Parents mutilated their children in the hope that they might rise to the administration of important dignities in the palace or the Church. Unsuccessful aspirants to the throne were compelled to undergo this painful and dangerous operation, and were then confined for life in some secluded monastery. The abject degeneracy of the nation further revealed itself by the infliction of even more inhuman and revolting punishments. Political conspirators were flayed alive. Vivisection was practised upon criminals not sufficiently adroit or wealthy to escape the vigilance of the magistrate. Offenders guilty of public sacrilege were scourged, crucified, or burnt. With the intellectual debasement indicated by the enjoyment of human suffering were mingled the most puerile superstitions. Every class of society, from the emperor to the peasant, was a firm believer in visions, omens, auguries. The flight of birds was observed, the entrails of a slaughtered animal examined with an eagerness never surpassed by that of the votaries of Paganism. The occurrence of an inauspicious event, an unusual dream, an apparent prodigy, overwhelmed the unhappy Byzantine with dismay. Still tinctured