“The list of [Alexias’s] presents [to Henry the Third or Fourth, king of Germany and Italy] expresses the manners of the age—a radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against the common enemy.”

—Edward Gibson, from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 5 of 6, published in 1856. I found this musty old book in a thrift store, bought it for the beautiful impressions of the type, but what do you know, I eventually read it and loved it! I’m not the first to say it, but this is a good book.