I. THE BURDEN OF TYRE 215

governed at all. But the Venetians, for their third part, appointed a “bailo” to do civil justice, and a “viscount” to answer for military defence; and appointed magistrates under these, who, on entering office, took the following oath:-

“I swear on the holy Gospels of God, that sincerely and without fraud I will do right to all men who are under the jurisdiction of Venice in the city of Tyre; and to every other who shall be brought before me for judgment according to the ancient use and law of the city. And so far as I know not, and am left uninformed of that, I will act by such rule as shall appear to me just, according to the appeal and answer. Farther, I will give faithful and honest counsel to the Bailo and the Viscount, when I am asked for it; and if they share any secret with me, I will keep it; neither will I procure by fraud, good to a friend, nor evil to an enemy.” And thus the Venetian state planted stable colonies in Asia.

11. Thus far Romanin; to whom, nevertheless, it does not occur to ask what “establishing colonies in Asia” meant for Venice. Whether they were in Asia, Africa, or the Island of Atlantis, did not at this time greatly matter; but it mattered infinitely that they were colonies living in friendly relations with the Saracen, and that at the very same moment arose cause of quite other than friendly relations, between the Venetian and the Greek.

For while the Doge Michael fought for the Christian king at Jerusalem, the Christian emperor at Byzantium¹ attacked the defenceless states of Venice, on the mainland of Dalmatia, and seized their cities. Whereupon the Doge set sail homewards, fell on the Greek islands of the Egean, and took the spoil of them; seized Cephalonia; recovered the lost cities of Dalmatia; compelled the Greek emperor

¹ [John II. Comnenus (1088-1143). It will be noticed that in the inscription (p. 217 n.) the Doge Michael is said to have been the terror of the Emperor Emanuel, who, however, did not succeed to the throne till 1143. The inscription also gives the date of the Doge’s death wrongly.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]