CHAPTER LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire .-- Part I.
Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire .-- Reigns Of Andronicus, The Elder And Younger, And John Palaeologus .-- Regency, Revolt, Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene .-- Establishment Of A Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata .-- Their Wars With The Empire And City Of Constantinople.
The long reign of Andronicus [1] the elder is chiefly memorable by the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise of the Ottoman power.

He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous prince of the age; but such virtue, and such learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of society A slave of the most abject superstition, he was surrounded on all sides by visible and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war.
Under the reign of the Palaeologi, the choice of the patriarch was the most important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues, their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible.

By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanasius [2] excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the sinner should swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolish tale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted the lettuce of a convent garden.

Driven from the throne by the universal clamor, Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very opposite cast.

His public testament was in the tone of charity and resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst anathemas against the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded forever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and the saints.