So long as the emperor and nobles could employ their own peasantry or could hire auxiliaries, they had resisted the Turks with a certain amount of success. From Dalmatia to Matapan, from Durazzo to the capital, as well as in Asia Minor, the progress of the enemy had been contested. The Greek armies were destroyed by overwhelming numbers rather than defeated by superior courage. When the capital was cut off from its supply of soldiers from the provinces, it was in grievous straits, and to this condition it had come on the accession of the last Constantine.
Priests and nobles appear to have gradually drifted into the belief that resistance was hopeless. Their acquiescence in what they believed to be the inevitable suggests the mediocrity of their leaders. Their merits and faults were alike negative. They were not given over to vice and profligacy; they were not cruel tyrants; they were not wanting in courage; but they were without ability or energy, incapable of initiating or executing any successful plan of campaign against the enemy or of making arrangements for securing efficient foreign aid.
It is, of course, easy to suggest after the event that the empire might have been saved, but it is difficult to believe that among the governing class there was not a lack of vitality which contributed to its fall. Looking across the centuries, we may, perhaps, conclude that the empire followed the natural course of evolution under despotic rule: struggle for existence, success, wealth, contentment to the point of stagnation, a general slackness and loss of energy and a reluctance to struggle of any kind. But whether such conclusion be justified or not, it cannot be doubted that weariness of strife and general enervation characterised all classes of society. In remembering this, it may be said that the morale of the empire was destroyed and its population demoralised.[167]
Three causes mainly contributed to the diminution and ultimate downfall of the empire: first, the establishment Causes of decay of empire. of the Latin empire, with which must be associated (a) the internal dissensions among the Greeks themselves, and (b) the increased difficulty in assimilating the races occupying the Balkan peninsula; second, the attacks, literally from every side, by hordes of Turkish invaders, who usually, beginning by raids upon their cattle, ended by expelling or exterminating the conquered people and taking possession of their lands; and, third, the depopulation of the Balkan peninsula and of the cities in Asia Minor held by the empire caused by Black Death or Plague.
Latin conquest.
The history of the empire subsequent to the Latin occupation bears evidence of the weakness which that occupation had caused. The whole framework of government administration had been broken up. The imperial system was in ruins. The ancient forms of administrative organisation were restored, but there never existed sufficient strength in the capital to put new life into them, and the old traditional spirit of municipal life and to a certain limited extent of self-government had during two generations of hostile rule and the subsequent series of attempts at the restoration of Latin rule been forgotten. The empire was, indeed, kept together by obedience to law, but it was rather a traditional obedience than one due to a strong administration. When a man defied law it was public opinion which he had to face rather than dread of the emperor. The Latin conquest and the growth of neighbouring states consequent upon such conquest made it impossible for the emperors ever to obtain a strong and sufficient hold over the territories which they recaptured.
Internal divisions.
The divisions among the Greeks themselves, especially those regarding the occupancy of the throne, led to civil wars and gave the Turks opportunities of entering the country and occupying it. They were due in the first place to the change in the succession when Michael the Eighth seized the imperial throne, and were therefore also directly caused or contributed to by the Latin conquest. Though the rules of succession had never been so strictly observed as in the West, his usurpation weakened the office of emperor and manifestly increased the power—not of a regularly constituted body like our House of Lords, or the American Senate, but—of an irresponsible body of nobles. In the next place, the dissensions may be attributed to the existing and traditional form of government.
It is a commonplace to say that uncontrolled autocracy is the best government if a succession of able men can be assured. The difficulty is that, if the ordinary rules of succession are observed, the successor of a Justinian or a Julius Caesar may be a fool. In Constantinople effective control over the appointment of an emperor was wanting. The senate or council of an absolute ruler, be he called emperor or sultan, is usually weak in proportion to the strength of the ruler, and if, in the customary order of succession, the heir to the throne is unsuited to the office, the ring of creatures, by whatever name it is called, which his predecessor has gathered round him is pretty sure to support the heir, irrespective of his merit or ability. Others acquiesce for the sake of peace, or are drawn to support a pretender. The nobles usually gained strength during the reign of a weak prince, and in the support they gave to rival claimants the empire bled.
Democratic government in the modern sense of the term had not yet been born. Sir Henry Maine claims that the modern doctrines of popular government based on democracy are essentially of late English origin. It is certain that nothing like them had existed in the Roman empire, either in the East or West. Any traditions of self-government which the Greeks had retained—a form of self-government which was never upon modern democratic lines—had been entirely overshadowed, not merely by the autocratic government of the emperors, but by that of the Church. The government was that of an absolute sovereign moderated by irresponsible nobles.