History of the Byzantine Empire – AD 1057-1453 (Illustrated)

The contemporaries of Isaac Comnenus believed that the Byzantine, or, as they called it, the Roman empire, had attained a degree of wealth and power which secured it a permanent superiority over every other government. A review of the vicissitudes it had undergone in the preceding ages, entitled them to look forward with confidence to centuries of future prosperity. But to those who study the causes of decline in the Byzantine government from a modern point of view, the empire presents a very different aspect. To us, it is apparent that the administrative organization of the Byzantine state, and the social and religious feelings of the popular mind, had already undergone a change for the worse. The power of the emperor had become more absolute in the capital, by the neglect of official education and regular promotion among the servants of the state. The arbitrary will of the emperor had taken the place of the usages of the administration, and courtiers now assumed duties which were formerly executed only by well-trained and experienced officials. This increase of arbitrary power did not conduce to augment the energy of the central government in distant provinces : justice was administered with less firmness and equity, and the distant population felt fewer benefits from their connection with the emperor and with Constantinople. The concentration of all executive power in the cabinet of the sovereign, moreover, caused much important business, in which neither the emperor’s personal interest nor authority appeared to be immediately interested, to be greatly neglected; for sovereigns, like private individuals, look with more attention at what relates to their own advantage than at what concerns only the public welfare. The repairs of distant ports, aqueducts, and roads, the improvement of frontier fortifications, and the civil government of unprofitable possessions, were held to absorb more than a due proportion of the funds required to maintain the imperial dignity. The pageants of the palace, of the hippodrome, and of the church, became every year more splendid, for each emperor wished to surpass his predecessors; and in no branch of the imperial duties was it so easy to purchase popular applause. In the meantime, the facilities of provincial intercommunication and the defence of the frontiers were proportionably neglected...