Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/216

 194 THE DECLINE AND FALL successive reigns of the two former, the fruitless and fatal enterprise of the third. This prediction was verified, or rather was produced, by the event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp rejected the husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same Leo, the first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As he affected to hesitate, " With this sword," said his companion Michael, " I will open the gates of Constantinople to your Imperial sway ; or instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you obstinately resist the just desires of your fellow-soldiers". The compliance of the Armenian was re- warded with the empire, and he reigned seven years and an half under the name of Leo the Fifth.-" Educated in a camp, and ignoi-ant both of laws and letters, he introduced into his civil government the rigour and even cruelty of military dis- cipline ; but, if his severity was sometimes dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the guilty. His religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of Chameleon, but the Catholics have acknowledged, by the voice of a saint and con- fessors, that the life of the Iconoclast was useful to the republic. The zeal of his companion Michael was repaid with riches, honours, and military command ; and his subordinate talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet the Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favour a scanty portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal ; and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in a hasty discourse, at length assumed a more threatening and hostile aspect against a prince whom he represented as a cruel tyrant. That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected, warned, and dismissed the old companion of his arms, till fear and resentment prevailed over gratitude ; and Michael, after a scrutiny into his actions and designs, Avas convicted of treason and sentenced to be burnt alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity of the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A solemn day, the twenty- fifth of December, had been fixed for the execution ; she urged that the anniversary of the Saviour's birth would be profaned by this inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented with reluctance tc a decent respite. But on the vigil of the feast his sleepless 27 [Leo's reign was marked by a Bulgarian siege of the capital, and the tempor- ary loss of Hadrianople. The death of the Bulgarian king Crumn (a.d. 815) rescued the empire from a serious danger ; and Leo, after winning a hard-fought battle, concluded a thirty years' peace with his successor Oniortag (A.D. 817). Under this reign the empire had peace from the Saracens.]