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 the capital. He then invested and besieged the city by sea and land. The people began to starve. Constantine is said to have received refugees into his own camp. The city was taken by a general assault. The usurper fled by sea: he was captured with his two sons; their eyes were put out; they were then immured in a monastery, adding three more to the emperors of the East who have worn out their sightless days in these abodes of sorrow.

The external events of the empire were the long wars with Bulgarians and Saracens, the repression of brigandage, and the improvement of the Slavonian colonies. The internal history of this reign presents a steady progress along the lines marked out by Leo. A general council condemned image worship, ordered the destruction of all holy pictures, and proscribed "the godless art of painting." Again the saints showed their displeasure; once by darkening the sun for five days; once by an earthquake in Syria; once by a winter of great severity; and once by the great pestilence which raged over the whole world.

The successor of Constantine, Leo IV., died in five years after his accession, and was succeeded by a boy, Constantine VI., ten years old, who was ruled by his mother Irene. Then the iconoclasts were persecuted in their turn. Irene called a general council at Nicæa, which entirely revoked the doctrines of that held under Leo. Irene deposed her son, put out his eyes, and crowned herself empress. There was more than the average amount of blindings and mutilations under this