OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 42S the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find that the count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the successors of Constantine ; and his am- bassadors were dismissed with an haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon by touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial thi'one. His resentment ^'^ would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood ; his cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the Greeks ; affected a tender concern for their sufferings ; and promised that their first struggles for freedom should be supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of association and secrecy : the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their daggers in the breasts of the victorious strangers ; but the execution was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, had transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal : and the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene of the massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to Hadrianople ; but the French and Venetians who occupied that city were slain or expelled by the fmuous multitude ; the garrisons that could effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis ; and the fortresses that separately stood against the rebels were ignorant of each other's and of their sovereign's fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally ; and Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingd<jm, had drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives, and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods.^^ Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor dispatched a swift messenger to recall count Henry and his troops ; and, had Baldwin expected the return of his gallant ^ In Calo-John's answer to the Pope, we may find his claims and complaints (Gesta Innocent. III. c. io3, 109) ; he was cherished at Rome as the prodigal son. [The name Kalo-]o
was also used of John Vatatzes, and of the young John
Lascaris, son of Theodore ii. ; see Meliarakes, 'laropCa roO Paa-. ttj; Ni»caias, p. 541, note.] '•1 The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater part were Pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde was converted to Christianity (a.d. 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary. [See above, p. 147, n. 52, and p. 238, n. 36.]
