Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/213

 OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 191 if they meant to execute a mortal sentence. An ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded the annalist of the church that death was the immediate consequence of this barbarous execution. 2'^ The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by the authority of Baronius ; and Protestant zeal has re-echoed the words of a cardinal, desirous, as it should seem, to favour the patroness of images. Yet the blind son of Irene survived many years, oppressed by the court, and forgotten by the world ; the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished ; and the memory of Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his daughter Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second. The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the un-irene. a.d. natural mother, who may not easily be paralleled in the history ' "^' of crimes. To her bloody deed superstition has attributed a subsequent darkness of seventeen days ; during which many vessels in mid-day were driven from their course, as if the sun, a globe of fire so vast and so remote, could sympathize with the atoms of a revolving planet. On earth, the crime of Ii*ene was left five years unpunished ; her reign was crowned with external splendour ; and, if she could silence the voice of conscience, she neither heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world bowed to the government of a female ; and, as she moved through the streets of Constanti- nople, the reins of four milk-white steeds were held by as many patricians, who marched on foot before the golden chariot of their queen. But these patricians were for the most part eunuchs ; and their black ingratitude justified, on this occasion, the popular hatred and contempt. Raised, enriched, entrusted with the first dignities of the empire, they basely conspired against their benefactress ; the great treasurer Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple ; her successor was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia by the venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated, with [Tarasius] dignity, the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her unsus- picious clemency, and, for the throne and treasures which she resigned, solicited a decent and honourable retreat. His avarice ^ [Theophanes says that the bUnding was inflicted in such a way that death was meant to result. The survival of Constantine is attested by Zonaras, xv. c. 14 ; and is not disproved by Theophanes. But Schlosser {op. cit. 329-30) is not justified in asserting that he was only recently dead when ^Iichael II. came to the throne (a. D. 820). On the contrary, the passage 'in Theoph. Contin., p. 51, ed. Bonn (•= Cedrenus, ii. 75), taken along with Genesius, p. 35, points to a prevailing belief that he died soon after the operation on his eyes.]