07 Dec




















[Footnote 31: From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes, was employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his own writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at the death of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms to his successor: Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui ministravit mihi fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. i.) Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the service of the despots of Peloponnesus.] [Footnote 32: See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many manuscripts of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of Rome, Milan, the Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and reproach, that we should be reduced to the Latin version, or abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem Theophylact, Simocattæ: Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and elegance, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 615--620.) * Note: * The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonæ, 1796. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of the Byzantines, Bonn, 1838.--M.] [Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243--248.] [Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to sea, was 3800 orgyiæ, or _toises_, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes, l. i. c. 38,) which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller than that of 660 French _toises_, which is assigned by D'Anville, as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for the breadth of the isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheeler and Chandler.] The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palæologus the Second, was acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole emperor of the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and to contract

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