CHAP. VII. $ 6. The palace of the dukes of Athens was built over the columns of the Propylæa of the Acropolis, and the great tower which still exists was the keep of that edifice. Though perhaps it may disfigure the classic elegance of the spot, it is a grand historical landmark, and testifies, by the solidity of its construction, both the wealth of the dukes and their firm confidence in the stability of their power, now that every other trace of their palaces and their buildings has disappeared.1 The Turks only whitewashed the fortresses which the Franks strengthened. There was a building erected by the Franks at Thebes, which was far more celebrated in the days of its splendour than their buildings in the Acropolis of Athens. A single ruined tower is now all that remains of this renowned construction, and it still retains the name of Santomeri, in memory of Nicholas Saint-Omer, who became proprietor of one half of the barony of Thebes, in consequence of his grandfather's marriage with the sister of Guy I., duke of Athens.2 Nicholas married the princess of Antioch, who brought him an immense dowry. His fortified palace at Thebes was built with a strength and solidity of which the ruined tower affords us some evidence; and the jealousy of the Catalans who destroyed it gives us additional testimony; while of its magnificence the Greek Chronicle of the Conquest of the Morea speaks in terms 1 Some remains of the ducal palace were visible in the northern chamber of the Propylæa, called the Pinacotheca, until they were removed with the battery that encumbered the centre of the building. The period at which this tower was constructed is not certain, but it seems to be a monument of the dukes of the family of De la Roche, and to belong to the same epoch as the ruined tower of Mark Sanudo, in the citadel of Naxos, and that of Santomeri at Thebes. This early age was the period in which towers were a universal system of defence. For the strong towers in Palestine constructed by the French, see Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, Pièces Justif. Vie de Malek Mantour Kelaoun, and Bibliothèque des Croisades, iv. partie, p. 491, Makrisi. The tower built by Philip Augustus at Bourges was a hundred and twenty feet high, and the walls twenty feet thick. In Italy, many republics would not allow towers to be built more than eighty feet high, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.-Vincen's Histoire de Gènes, i. 247. 2 The sister of Guy de la Roche, who married Nicholas Saint-Omer, was widow of Demetrius, king of Saloniki. DESTRUCTION OF FRANK REMAINS AT ATHENS. 199 § 6. of great admiration, celebrating its apartments as worthy CHAP. VII. of royalty, and its walls as works of wonderful art, adorned with paintings of the chivalric exploits of the Crusaders in the Holy Land.1 A few lines in rude Greek verse, and a ruined tower, are all that remains of the pride of Saint-Omer. The Acropolis and city of Athens, even to the present day, contain many rude but laborious sculptures executed during the period of the Frank domination; and their number was much greater before the recent reconstruction of the town, and the destruction of numerous medieval churches, which formed a valuable link in the records of Athens, and an interesting feature in Athenian topography, while they illustrated the history of art by their curious and sometimes precious paintings. But in the space of a few years, the greater and most valuable part of the paintings has disappeared; and hundreds of sculptured monuments of Byzantine and Frank pride and piety have been broken in pieces, and converted into building materials or paving-stones. 2 But though the marble monuments of the dukes and archbishops, their charters and their archives, have all disappeared, the renown of the dukedom lives, and will live for ever, in many imperishable works of European literature. The Catalan chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, a work considerably older and not less delightful than the brightest pages of Froissart, gives us an account of the chivalric pomp and magnificent tournaments of the ducal court.3 Muntaner bore a prominent part in many of the scenes he so vividly describes. He had fought in numerous bloody battles with the Turks and Greeks; he had 1 Greek text of Copenhagen, v. 6743. 2 The destruction of historical records contained in the remains of Byzantine and Frank sculpture and painting, and Turkish inscriptions, which have been annihilated by Bavarians and Greeks during the reign of king Otho, has deprived Greece of records of medieval art and Turkish chronology, valuable even among the classic remains of Hellas. Such conduct ratifies the proceedings of Lord Elgin on the part of Germany and Greece. Muntaner, chap. ccxliv. § 6. CHAP. VII. visited the court of Guy II., the last duke of the family of De la Roche; he had viewed the magnificent halls of the castle of Santomeri at Thebes, where his friend and master, the Infant Don Fernand, of Majorca, was detained a prisoner. What can be more touching than the stout old warrior's tale of how his heart swelled in his breast as he took leave of his king's son in prison; and how he gave his own rich habit to the cook of the castle, and made him swear on the Holy Scriptures that he would rather allow his own head to be cut off, than permit anything hurtful to be put in the food of the Infant of Majorca ? 1 Gibbon tells us that "from the Latin princes of the fourteenth century, Boccacio, Chaucer, and Shakspeare have borrowed their Theseus, duke of Athens;"" and the great historian adds, "An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most distant times." 2 The fact is, that every age does the same thing. The name of Dante must be added to those enumerated by Gibbon. Dante was a cotemporary of Guy II. and Walter de Brienne, and in his day the fame of the dukes of Athens was a familiar theme in the mouths of the Italians of all the commercial republics, as well as of the statesmen at Naples and the priests at Rome. It was natural, therefore, that the "great poet-sire of Italy" should think that he gave his readers a not unapt idea of the grandeur of Pisistratus, by calling him "Sire della villa Del cui nome ne' Dei fu tanta lite, Surely this is at least as correct as our established phrase, which styles him tyrant of Athens. Dante also calls Theseus duca d'Atene-and he did so, doubtless, because 1 Muntaner, chap. ccxxxviii. 2 Decline and Fall, chap. lxii. vol. xi. p. 353. THE ATHENIAN DUCHY OF SHAKSPEARE. 201 the title appeared to him more appropriate than that of CHAP. VII. king, and he was compelled to choose between them.1 Boccacio, whose relations with Nicholas Acciaiuoli have been already noticed, and who was familiar with the state of Athens from many sources, has left us a charming picture of the Athenian court.2 Chaucer and his cotemporary readers must have been well acquainted with the fame of Walter de Brienne, titular duke of Athens, who, as constable of France, perished on the field of Poitiers; and the history of his father, whom the Catalans had deprived of life and duchy in the battle of the Cephissus, must have been the theme of many a tale in every country in Europe. Chaucer may therefore have considered that he adorned the name of Theseus by lending it the title of a great and wealthy prince, instead of leaving it with that of a paltry king.3 Shakspeare, on the contrary, very probably never bestowed a thought either on the history of Theseus or the chronology of the Athenian duchy. Little did he care for that literary fastidiousness which allows the attention to be diverted from a true picture of human nature by historical anachronisms. To such critics it is possible that the Midsummer Night's Dream would appear more perfect if Theseus had been inventoried in the dramatis persona as a member of the house of De la Roche, and Hippolyta as a princess of Achaia; but the defect is in the critics, who can allow their minds to go wandering into history, and thinking of Doric temples or feudal towers, when they ought to be following Shakspeare into the fairy-land he creates. 1 Inferno, xii. st. 6. 2 See the history of the princess Alathiel-Decameron, ii. 7. § 6. CHAPTER VIII. PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAIA, OR THE MOREA SECT. I.-CONQUEST OF ACHAIA BY WILLIAM OF CHAMPLITTE. THE conquest of the Peloponnesus by the French differs considerably from the other military operations of the Crusaders in the Byzantine empire, and bears a closer resemblance to the conquest of England by the Normans. The conquering force was small the conquest was quickly yet gradually effected-the opposition did not become a national struggle that interested the great mass of the population, and the conquerors perpetuated their power and kept their race, for some generations, distinct from the conquered people; so that the enterprise unites in some degree the character of a military conquest with that of a colonial establishment. The number of the Frank troops that invaded the Peloponnesus, or at least that began its conquest after the retreat of the king of Saloniki from Corinth, was numerically inadequate to the undertaking; nor could any degree of military skill and discipline have compensated for this inferiority, had the Byzantine provincial government possessed the means of organising any efficient union among the local authorities, or had the native Greek population felt a patriotic determination to defend their country, and avail themselves of the many strong positions scattered over the surface of a |