OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 295 Charlemagne affected to confound their vanity by displaying in a Franconian village the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine palace. ^"**^ The Greeks were successively led through four halls of audience ; in the first, they were ready to fall prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed them that he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the horse, of the emperor. The same mistake and the same answer were repeated in the apai-tments of the count palatine, the steward, and the chamberlain ; and their im- patience was gradually heightened, till the doors of the presence- chamber were thrown open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present possession. But the Greeks '^'^ soon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the barbarians by whom it was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the aiigusf Charlemagne with the acclamations of ha.sileit.s and emperor of the Romans. As soon as these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son, the Byzantine letters were inscribed, " To the king, or, as he styles himself, the emperor, of the Franks and Lombards ". When both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title, and, with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes. His reply '•'- is expressive of his weakness ; he proves, with some learning, that both in sacred and profane history the name of king is synonymous with the Greek word hcmleus ; if, at Con- stantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from the pope, a just participation of the honours of the Roman purple. The same i-'" Gaillard very properly observes that this pageant was a farce suitable to children only, but that it was indeed represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children of a larger growth. i-'i Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi (toni. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c. ), the contrast of Charlemagne and his son: To the former the ambassadors of Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est, linguft Grseca laiides dixerunt, imperatorem eum et Bao-tAeo. appellantes ; to the latter, Voca/o iniperatori Francorum, &c. [Gasquet, L'empire byzantin et la monarchic franque, 1888.] 1^ See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer of Salerno (Script. Ital. torn. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254, c. 93-107), whom Baronius (..D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.
