So ended the Roman empire of the East. Its fall was an undying disgrace to Christendom, which stood by and would not help. But it fell chiefly through its own weakness. Military power and religion had been the strength of the Empire; corruption had eaten away the first, and the luxury and vice of the imperial court had shown that the Christian faith had failed to hold its own. In the hour of their despair the Emperors turned again to Christ, but it was too late to save the Empire which their defiance of His laws had brought to desolation. The Church of Constantinople must pass through the fires of persecution, and recover in its isolation, if it might be, the strength of the first days.
When Mohammed passed from the great church, he rode along the Hippodrome, and when he came to the serpent column from Delphi he struck off one of the three heads. He had done, he might have said, with the old world. It was the day of the new peoples: a day which began with the destruction of the old. As he walked through the deserted halls of the great palace he repeated the words of Firdusi:
Now the spider draws the curtain in the Cæsar's palace hall, And the owl is made the sentinel on Afrasiab's tower of watch.
[1] This was close to where is now the Kutchuk Aya Sofia (church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus).
[2] Van Millingen, "Walls of Constantinople," p. 41.
[3] Themistius, _Oratio_ xviii., quoted by Van Millingen, p. 42.
[6] The very interesting little book of M. Antonin Debidour, _L'Impératrice Théodora_ (1885), should be read by all who are attracted by the wonderful career of this extraordinary Empress.
[7] _Church of the Sixth Century_, pp. 259, 260.
[9] See Curtis, _Broken Bits of Byzantium_, ii. 54, 56.
[12] _The Church and the Eastern Empire_, pp. 106-108.
[16] _History of Greece_, vol. ii., p. 191.
[17] Gibbon, vol. v., pp. 525, appendix II., a most important and thorough investigation of a very interesting period of legal history.
[18] On Nicephorus Phocas see the brilliant book of M. Schlumberger, "Un Empereur Byzantin au Xième Siècle."
[19] In modern times the greeting of a bishop at his entrance by a special anthem is still retained in the Greek Church; as also the greeting of cardinals when they enter S. Peter's--"Ecce sacerdos" etc.