gross as they were, embodied perhaps its noblest and most hopeful
sentiment, were a source of incalculable profit to the sharp-witted
mistress of the Adriatic. It was the age of penances, pilgrimages, and
relic-hunting, and the wealth which she wrung from the devotion of others
was exceedingly great. Her ships carried the pilgrims to and from the Holy
Land; her adventurers ransacked Palestine and the whole Orient for the
bones and memorials of the saints; and her merchants sold the precious
relics throughout Europe at an immense advance upon first cost.

But the foundations of this prosperity were at last tapped by the tide of
wealth which poured into Venice from every quarter of the world. Her
citizens brought back the vices as well as the luxuries of the debauched
Orient, and the city became that seat of splendid idleness and proud
corruption which it continued till the Republic fell. It is needless here
to rehearse the story of her magnificence and decay. At the time when the
hardy, hungry people of other nations were opening paths to prosperity by
land and sea, the Venetians, gorged with the spoils of ages, relinquished
their old habits of daring enterprise, and dropped back into luxury and
indolence. Their incessant wars with the Genoese began, and though they
signally defeated the rival Republic in battle, Genoa finally excelled in
commerce. A Greek prince had arisen to dispute the sovereignty of the
Latin Emperors, whom the Venetians had helped to place upon the Byzantine
throne; the Genoese, seeing the favorable fortunes of the Greek, threw the
influence of their arms and intrigues in his favor, and the Latins were
expelled from Constantinople in 1271. The new Greek Emperor had promised
to give the sole navigation of the Black Sea to his allies, together with
the church and palaces possessed by the Venetians in his capital, and he
bestowed also upon the Genoese the city of Smyrna. It does not seem that
he fulfilled literally all his promises, for the Venetians still continued
to sail to and from their colony of Tana, at the head of the Sea of Azof,