The rivalries of the naval states of Italy kept the empire in nearly perpetual naval war with one or other of them ; but the navy which was strengthened by this warfare was that of Venice, and not of the New Borne.

During the last half of the century preceding the great expedition which Venice carried to Constantinople, her hostility and jealousy had been continually increasing. The tradition of her alliance with Constantinople was forgotten. Her later conquests had been won by her own strength alone. The alliance of the New Borne was no longer needful to her, and as that alliance had been withdrawn there was substituted for it the strongest desire to wound the empire, to destroy its influence, and to take possession of its trade. Her intimate relations with the New Borne made her understand better than any other state how valuable was her commerce, and probably also how much her resources had been diminished by the attacks on land and sea; and the tenacious hostility which she showed during the generation preceding her final blow contributed more to the weakening of the empire than the opposition of all the other Italian states.

I have endeavored to show that during the century and a half preceding the Latin conquest the New Borne and the empire over which it ruled had been at weak emetic the tacked as surely no state had ever been attacked be positioning fore. The long contest of the Elder Borne with 1200 the states of Italy, the five centuries of warfare
waged by the remnant of Spaniards who had never given in to the Moor, have each of them features which separate them distinctly from the contest waged by Constantinople.

The Boinans of the earlier time

The Boinans of the earlier time and the Spaniards who expelled the Moors were welded together by community of interest and of origin. Intercourse between the various citizens of each race was easy. Sympathy between them was natural; for their numbers were small, and each citizen felt that the welfare of the state was also his private interest. The empire had no such advantages. It was composed of peoples widely different in origin, in history, and in sympathy. The Greeks of the south had never altogether forgotten their ancient civilization, and wrere a race in intellectual decay.

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