ADDENDA
ADDENDA TO THE WORKS OF NICEPHORUS GREGORAS
OF THE MOST WISE AND LEARNED LORD NICEPHORUS GREGORAS: AN ADDRESS TO THE EMPEROR
A How pleasant and radiant is your return to us from your victories, most divine Emperor, and today more than before, and you more than all the emperors who preceded you, toward those who were previously your subjects. For what those others had the misfortune to lose, and what they had not the strength to recover, this you have taken back with much greater power and have restored to the broken chain of the Roman hegemony. Whence you are fair, most philanthropic Emperor, and fair are your feet, bringing us, your subjects, as they do, many good things, partly bringing them to completion, B and partly announcing them as good news. Now the sun seems to us to shine more radiantly, and the air bestows a more cheerful countenance; now all things that were contrary to our joy have been turned around, and better things flourish while worse things wither away. And just as after winter, when spring has arrived, every bird that journeys through the air makes the groves and meadows ring, singing hymns to the giver of spring, so too now, besides other things, the Muses themselves, having put aside their silence, sing joyful hymns to you, the provider of...
ALLOCUTION OF THE MOST WISE AND MOST LEARNED LORD NICEPHORUS GREGORAS TO THE EMPEROR
With how joyful and hilarious a countenance you return to us as victor, most divine Emperor, and now more than before, and even more gloriously than your predecessors. For if they were unable to recover what they had lost, you, with the enhancement of the empire's forces, have received them back after the breaking of the Roman servitude. Hence you yourself are beautiful, and your feet are beautiful, which bring or evangelize such perfect things to us, your citizens. Today for us the sun shines B more brightly, today the air blows more pleasantly upon us; today those things which seemed to hinder our joy have fled; now all things are proceeding for the better, and those things which are evil are passing away, and just as after winter, when spring arrives, the woods and meadows resound with the song of birds, so now the Muses, having laid aside their silence, sing back to you, the leader of the Muses, joyful hymns; the fields themselves rejoice, clothed in the beautiful garment of gladness, wearing a city-like face... For you...
are indeed the life-giving heart of affairs, the wall, the foundation, and the wealth of the cities; and wherever you may be, they look to you just as the growths of the earth look toward the sun. But the wise men and the Hellenic accounts say, among other things, that Heracles, having become a great benefactor of countless men and cities, filled Greece and the cities and lands beyond Greece that required his aid with his own great glory; for by driving forward, he would cleanse whatever diseases and outrages of that land were produced by wild beasts and the footsteps of robbers. But those were stories, after all, of myths striving for autonomy, which mostly abound in wealth and easily beguile the hearing; whereas now Greece has seen another Heracles in you, cleansing the long-standing diseases and outrages of that land—not waiting for summer or spring for the need of arms, but innovating the natures of the seasons and the elements, deeming the cold of winter to be summer, fasting to be luxury, wakefulness to be sleep, and the passing of the night under the open sky to be royal rest. You prefer common utility over your own comforts; to laborious courses you add new contests and toils, sparing neither time nor circumstances, and stirring up both maritime and land battles. And of such contests, some admire their multitude, others their continuity, and some the swiftness of your courses, others the sharpness and effectiveness of your mind, and how you follow the ends of the struggles with the additions of your initiatives; for you surpass by the speed of your running your own message, and before you are heard, you appear present, and by your sudden arrival you shatter the schemes of the enemies. In this way you struck with terror the leaders of the Triballians and Mysians, appearing often to them while they slept, unexpected like some heavenly thunderbolt; thus you captured Chios, thus you brought Phocaea into subjection, thus you overran the Illyrians, thus you have now led the Aetolians and Acarnanians back to the ancient B form of Roman rule.
... and both have filled the elements of the wonder. I speak, that is, of that Persian and difficult-to-fight strength and equipment which crossed over from Asia against us, which you defeated in a single day, destroying most, but taking more alive. And those things which we hear of Themistocles from Attica and Pausanias from Lacedaemon having done in a sufficient interval of time—erecting two divided trophies against the Persians with Xerxes—he indeed having submerged their naval force in the straits around Salamis, and he having routed the camps left behind with Mardonius around Boeotia—these you performed better in a single day against the Persians who had suddenly attacked us. For some you gave to be submerged by the waves and roarings of the sea, others you laid low like wheat stalks on the shores of Thrace, and the majority you took alive, as if by royal power partitioning the supreme victory into three parts. Long ago, indeed, the people of the Hellenes admired that Socratic Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, the one in...
A strategic matters keen and conspicuous, how even easily he had accustomed himself to that Spartan and harsh way of life, and for the most part spent his life in fasting and cold-bathing—a man remarkable for youthful ambition, and of the same age as that Atticizing luxury, and by the bloom of his body and beauty of his face easily drawing the eyes of those who saw him.
They did this, however, not having seen you. For they would have admired you alone, having once looked upon you. For the judgment of the Athenians changed the regimen of his life, and therefore shifted the life of the Spartans against greater evils. But you, to whom it was permitted to indulge in luxury in the royal chambers more regally, chose to exchange those royal, deep pleasures for long and foreign labors, so that your subjects might pass their lives at home without toil. They say indeed that that Macedonian Alexander, before he reached manhood, showed such a longing for arms and toils that he even commanded that those who were the best in the Olympic games be engraved upon coins, because this was evidence of great virtue and foreshadowed the sparks of future deeds of strategy hidden in his soul. But you do not deem it worthy to engrave the exercises of your martial trophies on coins, but hide them in the chambers of your heart. For you judged it to be of royal magnificence not to anticipate time and to proclaim a flame of the heart that is spreading and still pregnant in its throes, but to teach more clearly the timeliness and accuracy of the study through the results of the struggles, just as in the tasting of fruits one discerns the nobility of the root. B And if Alexander’s armies had been present with you, I would maintain that you would not only have defeated the Parthian and Indian rivers, but also the boundaries of the Libyans and the pillars of Heracles and whatever slopes of the Alps there might be. But now your soul, though strategic and more powerful than that of Alexander, is nevertheless deprived of a body, that is to say, of a multitude of camps and that Macedonian phalanx. Yet, knowing that in great empires justice regulates authority and makes it divine—a thing greater than mortal nature—and that injustice is brutal, wild, and unsociable, you did not neglect justice; but, laying hold of this too with both hands, you appointed agents and police, and commanded that patrols and guards of the villages and fields be maintained, lest the laws of good order and those of the same race, like wild beasts, should attack their fellow countrymen. Thus you possess these principles innate toward every good, and, being thus armed with these virtues, you easily venture against all dangers. Therefore, those winners of the Olympian and Pythian games were justly rewarded with crowns by the Hellanodikai; but by what crowns would the choir of scholars reward you, who now dwell among us, full of glory and of Hellenic renown, and an athlete of newer contests? I desired that I might possess that power of completion which you have in the courses of contests, so that I too might set forth your praises; but now, while I am rich in equal zeal, I do not find the strength, though I pray very earnestly for it. Thus to you the strength of actions becomes superior to the achievements of words themselves. But you, being most philanthropic, O Emperor, forgive me, seeing my intention as greater than my ability.