328 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE on their side. The archbishop concludes his account of this last religious procession in the Christian city, on the eve of the great struggle, by declaring that ' we prayed that the Lord would not allow His inheritance to be destroyed, that He would deign in this contest to stretch forth His right hand to deliver His faithful people, that He would show that He alone is God and that there is none else beside Him [no Allah of the Moslems] and that He would fight for the Christians. And thus, placing our sole hope in Him, com- forted regarding what should happen on the day appointed for battle, we waited for it with good courage.' "When the procession had completed its journey, the emperor addressed a gathering of the nobles and military leaders, Greeks and foreigners. Phrantzes gives at consider- able length the speech delivered by Constantine. Gibbon, Funeral while describing it as * the funeral oration of the Eoman oration of .... empire. empire,' suggests that the fullest version which exists of it, that namely of Phrantzes, ' smells so grossly of the sermon and the convent ' as to make him doubt whether it was pronounced by the emperor. We have, however, the other summary given by Archbishop Leonard, who also was probably present. Each account is given in the pedantic form which is characteristic of mediaeval churchmen, Greeks or Latins. The reporter always seems to think it necessary to introduce classical allusions, to enlarge on the religious aspect of the coming struggle, and to report in the first per- son. But, bearing in mind this fashion of the time, and recalling the fact that the accounts of Phrantzes and the archbishop are independent, their records of the funeral oration are substantially identical and do not vary more than would do two independent reports written some months after the delivery of a speech in our own time. The emperor called attention to the impending assault, reminded his hearers that it had always been held the duty of a citizen to be ready to die either for his faith, his country, his sovereign, or his wife and children, and pleaded that all these incentives to heroic sacrifice were now combined. He dwelt upon the importance of the city and their attachment
