The second period begins with the reign of Bazil I., in 867, and during two centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members of his family.  At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of external power and internal prosperity.  The Saracens were pursued into the plains of Syria, the Bulgarian monarchy was conquered, the Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated, Byzantine commerce filled the whole of the Mediterranean.  But the real glory of the period consisted in the respect for the administration of justice which purified society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding era of the history of the world.

The third period extends from the accession of Isaac I., in 1057, to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders, in 1204.  This is the true period of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire.  The separation of the Greek and Latin churches was accomplished.  The wealth of the empire was dissipated, the administration of justice corrupted, and the central authority lost all control over the population.

But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor.  Then followed the Crusades, the first three inflicting permanent evils on the Greek race; while the fourth, which was organised in Venice, captured and plundered Constantinople.  A treaty entered into by the conquerors put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire, and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was elected emperor of the East.  The conquest of Constantinople restored the Greeks to a dominant position in the East; but the national character of the people, the political constitution of the imperial government, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Orthodox Church were all destitute of every theory and energetic practice necessary for advancing in a career of improvement.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century a small Turkish tribe made its first appearance in the Seljouk Empire.  Othman, who gave his name to this new band of immigrants, and his son, Orkhan, laid the foundation of the institutions and power of the Othoman Empire.  No nation ever increased so rapidly from such small beginnings, and no government ever constituted itself with greater sagacity than the Othoman; but no force or prudence could have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with such rapidity to power if it had not been that the Greek nation and its emperors were paralysed by political and moral corruption.  Justice was dormant in the state, Christianity was torpid in the Church, orthodoxy performed the duties of civil liberty, and the priest became the focus of political opposition.  By the middle of the fourteenth century the Othoman Turks had raided Thrace, Macedonia, the islands of the Aegean, plundered the large town of Greece, and advanced to the shores of the Bosphorus.