Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguâ.
Æneid, b. viii.
[142] Cum ergo victores victam, quam jure belli suam fecerant, alacriter spoliarent, cœpit Martinus abbas de suâ etiam prædâ cogitare, et ne ipse vacuus remaneret, proposuit et ipse sacratas manus suas ad rapinam extendere.—Gunther.
The same Gunther relates how Martin committed violence upon a Greek priest to obtain relics from him. When speaking of Martin Litz Gunther employs these singular expressions—prædo sanctus.
[143] We have spoken in the early part of the work of the true cross which the kings of Jerusalem caused to be borne before them in battle, and which was taken by Saladin at the battle of Tiberias; Saladin refused to deliver it up to Richard, as many of the Crusaders must have known. How then could the true cross be found at Constantinople? The Greeks, however, were not very nice with respect to the authenticity of their relics, and the Christians of the West on this point yielded very easy faith to them. [I cannot but think our author a little out in his criticism here: they were but fragments or portions of the cross, at Constantinople the Saracens still held the main body of the true cross—if true it was.—Trans.]
[144] Villehardouin, when speaking of the rigorous justice exercised upon all who endeavoured to conceal any part of the plunder, says: Et en y eut tout plein de pendus.
[145] One edition of Villehardouin makes the plunder of Constantinople amount to five hundred thousand silver marks, equivalent to twenty-four millions; if we add to this sum the fifty thousand marks due to the Venetians, and deducted before the division, and the part which they had in the division itself, we shall find the total amount of booty fifty millions four hundred thousand francs (about £2,100,000.—Trans.). As much, says the modern historian who supplies us with this note, perhaps, was appropriated secretly by individuals. The three fires which had consumed more than half the city had destroyed at least as much of its riches, and in the profusion that followed the pillage, the most precious effects had lost so much of their value, that the advantage of the Latins probably was not equivalent to a quarter of what they had cost the Greeks. Thus we may suppose that Constantinople, before the attack, contained 600,000,000 of wealth (£25,000,000). (What would the plunder of London amount to in 1852?—Trans.)
[146] The ceremony of the lighted flax still takes place at the exaltation of the popes; these words are addressed to them: Sic transit gloria mundi.
[147] Nicetas relates all the circumstances of the sharing of the lands of the empire. We find in Muratori the treaty for the division which was made before the siege; we do not offer it to our readers, because it is unintelligible in several places, and cannot shed any light over geography. The names of the cities and provinces of the empire are given in a very unfaithful and imperfect manner. The Venetians without doubt furnished the necessary information for the drawing up of the treaty, but this information was very incomplete.
[148] The pope would not at first recognise this election, which appeared to him a usurpation of the rights of the Holy See; but as Morosini was an ecclesiastic of great merit, Innocent was not willing to choose another. Morosini was sent to Constantinople not as if elected by the Crusaders, but as if appointed by the pope.