Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

Historia Arcana, c. 4. Tom. iii. p. 34, ed. Bonn.

33

Ibid, Tom. iii. p. 31.

34

De Bello Gotthico, iii. 35.

35

Agathias, lib. v. c. 6, p. 159, ed. Paris.—The conversion of royal guards into cheesemongers is by no means a very uncommon corruption. The dreaded janissaries degenerated into a corporation of hucksters and green-grocers. The Hellenic kingdom, founded as an incorporation of the spirit of anarchy and despotism, by the grace of the foreign secretaries of the three great powers of >Europe, possesses a more singular body of military than even the defunct Ottoman corps of green-grocers. It consists of officers without troops. Its inventor, Armansperg, the quintessence of Bavarian corruption in Greece, called it the Phalanx.

36

Agathias, v. ii. p. 161, ed. Paris.

37

The authentic history of the last events of the life of Belisarius must be gathered from Theophanes, p. 201, John Malalas, p. 239, and Cedrenus, p. 387. Though, perhaps, Cedrenus may be objected to as living too long after these events. Theophanes died in 817 at the age of 60. His chronography ends with the year 813. John Malalas lived in the ninth century. The chronicle of Cedrenus ends with the year 1057.

38

Pandects, xlvii. tit. 18. 1, s. 23.—Quæstioni fidem non semper, nec tamen nunquam habendum, constitutionibus declaratur; etenim res est fragilis, et periculosa, et quæ veritatem fallat.—Every one conversant with the social condition of the people of the East, (and probably it is the case under all despotic governments,) knows the extreme difficulty of obtaining judicial evidence that can be relied on, and the temptation judges incur to sanction torture. Hence the common assertion of public functionaries, that torture is absolutely necessary to secure the administration of justice; and of course people who require torture to persuade them to speak the truth, are unfit for self-government and constitutional liberty. Thus falsehood and oppression are perpetuated, and truth kept perpetually at bay.

39

Joannis Antiocheni cognomenti Malalæ Historia Chronica. Pars altera, p. 84, ed. Venet.

40

Theophanis Chronographia, p. 201, ed. Paris. The accounts of Theophanes and Malalas must be compared together, as the comparison establishes the fact that they were both drawn from official sources. See also p. 202, 203, and note.

41

Georgius Codinus de Originibus Constantinopolitanis, p. 54.

42

Georgii Cedreni Compendium Historiarum, p. 387.

43

Joannis Zonaræ Annales, tom. ii. p. 69. ed. Paris.

44

This may have resulted from the marriage of Joanna, the daughter of Belisarius, with Anastasius, the grandson of Theodora.—Procopii Arcana, c. 4, p. 34.

45

Leonis Grammatici Chronographia, p. 132. Bonnæ: 1842. 8vo.

46

Corpus Juris Civilis. Aliæ aliquot Constitutiones. Tom. ii. p. 511, ed. ster. 4to. Privilegium pro Titionibus ex Cujac. Obss. lib. x. c. 12. In a new edition of the Corpus there is the following note:—Hoc privilegium editum est in Cujac. Obss., sed ex quo fonte desumptum sit, non indicatur, nisi quod Cujacius a P. Galesio Hispano se id decepisse dicat. Non sine ratione addidit Beck. qui in App. Corp. Juris Civ. hanc constitutionem recepit, an genuina sit, dubio non carere.

47

Greece under the Romans, p. 229.—If the writer of this article may presume to refer to his own authority.

48

Imperium Orientale: studio A. Banduri. Tom. i. pars tertia. Antiquitatum Constantinopolitanarum, p. 7. ed. Paris.

49

Joannis Tzetzæ Historiarum Variarum Chiliades, p. 94, ed. Kiesslingii, Lipsiæ, 1826, 8vo.

50

Basil the Macedonian was originally a groom, and owed his first step in the imperial favour of the Drunkard to his powers as a whisperer. He broke an ungovernable horse belonging to the emperor, by the exercise of this singular quality, and rendered it, to the amazement of the whole court, as tame as a sheep. Leo Grammaticus says, Τη μεν μια χειρι τον χαλινον κρατησαϛ, τη δε 'ετιρα του ωτοϛ δραξαμενος εις εμ*ροτ*τα προβατου μεταβαλον. —P. 230, ed. Bonn.

51

Georgius Monachus, p. 540. Simeon Metaph. p. 449. Scriptores post Theophanem, ed. Paris. Leo Gramm., p. 469, ed. Paris, p. 247, ed. Bonn.

52

Things have not changed in our day. Capodistrias lighted his pipe with Canning's treaties and King Leopold's renunciation; and Colettis makes game of the feeble acts and strong expressions of Viscount Palmerston.

53

The Minstrelsy of the English Border; being a collection of Ballads, ancient, remodelled, and original, founded on well-known Border Legends. With illustrative notes by Frederick Sheldon. London: 1847.

A Book of Roxburghe Ballads. Edited by John Payne Collier, Esq. London: 1847.

A Lytell Geste of Robin Hood. Edited by John Mathew Gutch, F.S.A. 2 vols. London: 1847.

Poems and Songs of Allan Cunningham. London: 1847.

The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, Second Edition, Enlarged. Glasgow: 1847.

54

We are indebted for the above extract to the Homeric Ballads, published some years since in Fraser's Magazine. We hope that some day these admirable translations may be collected together and published in a separate form.