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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 199 beauties ; his eye was detained by the charms of Icasia,-*- and, in the awkwardness of a first declaration, the prince could only observe that, in this Avorld, women had been the cause of much evil : " And surely, Sir," she pertly replied, " they have like- wise been the occasion of much good". This affectation of un- seasonable wit displeased the Imperial lover ; he turned aside in disgust ; Icasia concealed her mortification in a convent ; and the modest silence of Theodora was rewarded with the golden apple. She deserved the love, but did not escape the severity, of her lord. From the palace garden he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the port ; on the dis- covery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a sharp reproach that her avarice had degraded the character of an empress into that of a merchant. Yet his last choice entrusted lier with the guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, Michael ra. AD 812 who was left an orphan in the fifth year of his age. The resto- January' 20 ration of images, and the final extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks ; but in the fervour of religious zeal Theodora entertained a grateful regard for the memory and salvation of her husband. After thirteen years ^■^ of a prudent and frugal adininistration, she perceived the decline of her influence ; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues of her predecessor. Instead of con- spiring against the life or government of her son, she retired, a.d. 856] without a struggle, though not without a murmur, to the soli- tude of private life, deploring the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin of the worthless youth. Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the character of a "2 [This Icasia, or rather Casia, was the only poetess of any merit throughout the whole "Byzantine" period, since the famous Athenais. All that is known of her and her writings (chiefly epigrams) will be found in the recent monograph (Kasia, 1897) of Krumbacher, who suggests that /casia is a corruption of i? Kaaia. It was probably owing to her reputation for poetical talent that Theophilus ad- dressed her ; his remark was (we may conjecture) couched in a metrical form ; and her reply was likewise a " political" verse. The metrical form has been dis- arranged in the chronicling, but a slight change (the addition of a syllable, and the transposition of one word) restores it. Theophilus said : — " - *' Sia yui'tttKO? (ti(7)sppi!r) ra </)aOAa, and Casia's improvised reply was : — aWa Kal fita yuratKOS to. Kptt7Tora jTrjyd^ei (Symeon Mag., p. 625, ed. Bonn).] "■'[Fourteen ye.irs ; Vita Theodorae, p. 14, in Regel's Analecta Byzantino- Russica (also cp. Finlay, ii., p. 172, n. 3). For this Life of Theodora, a con- temporary work, cp. Appendix i.]