Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/233

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 211 herald proclaimed this awful admonition : " Arise, O king of the world, and obey the summons of the King of kings ! " The death of Constantine was imputed to poison ; and his son Romans n. Romanus, who derived that name from his maternal grandfather, ?j9, nov. 15 ascended the throne of Constantinople. A prince who, at the age of twenty, could be suspected of anticipating his inherit- ance must liave been already lost in the public esteem ; yet Romanus was rather weak than wicked ; and the largest share of the guilt was transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of base origin, masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of personal glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were unknown to the son of Constantine ; and, while the two brothers, Nicephorus and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which the emperor owed to his people were consumed in strenuous idleness. In the morning he visited the circus ; at noon he feasted the senators ; the greater part of the afternoon he sj)ent in the splucrislcrium, or tennis-court, tlie only theatre of his victories ; from thence he passed over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild boars of the largest size, and returned to the palace, proudly content with the labours of the day. In strength and beauty he was conspicuous above his equals ; tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion was fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his nose long and aquiline. Yet even these perfections were insuflicient to fix the love of Theophano ; and, after a reign of four years, she mingled for her husband the [March is, same deadly draught which she had composed for his father. %his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the Nicephorus younger left two sons, Basil the Second, and Constantine theA.D. sgs, Ninth, and two daughters, Theophano and Anne. The eldest sister was given to Otho the Second,*^ emperor of the West ; the younger became the wife of Wolodomir, great duke and apostle of Russia ; and, by the marriage of her grand-daughter with Henry the First, king of France, the blood of the Mace- the daughter of Romanus and sister of Basil II. (not another lady palmed off upon the Emperor of the West), notwithstanding Thictmar (the historian of the Emperor Henry II.), Chron. ii. 15, and the silence of the Greek authorities. (Cp. J. Moltmann, Theophano Die Gcmahlin Ottos ii., 1878; Giescbrecht, Gcsch. der deutschen Kaiserzcit, i. 844; Schlumberger, L'epopee byzantine a la fin du dixieme siecle, p. 193-4.) Moltmann, followed by Giesebrecht, argued against the genuine- ness of Theophano. She as refused to Otto by Nicephorus, but granted by John Tzimisces, who became her step-uncle by marriage with the sister of Romanus.]
 * " [There can be little doubt that Theophano the wife of Otto II. was really