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 OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 223 to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable attempt had exposed him to the severity of the laws : his beauty and valour absolved him in the eyes of the empress; and Romanus/-' from a mild exile, Avas recalled on the second day to the command of the Oriental armies. Her roj'al choice was yet unknown to the public, and the promise which would have betrayed her false- hood and levity was stolen by a dexterous emissary from the ambition of the patriarch. Xiphilin at first alleged the sanctity of oaths and the sacred nature of a trust ; but a whisper that his brother was the future emperor relaxed his scruples, and forced him to confess that the public safety was the supreme law. He resigned the important paper; and, when his hopes Romanus ni. II'' 1 X)i076n68. were confounded by the nomination of Romanus, he could no ad. iki. longer regain his security, retract his declarations, nor oppose [Ceceirber] the second nuptials of the empress. Yet a murmur was heard in the palace ; and the barbarian guards had raised their battle- axes in the cause of the house of Ducas, till the young princes were soothed by the tears of their mother and the solemn assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled the Imperial station with dignity and honour. Hereafter I shall relate his valiant but unsuccessful efforts to resist the progress [see chap, of the Turks. His defeat and captivity inflicted a deadly wound on the Byzantine monarchy of the East ; and, after he was released from the chains of the sultan, he vainly sought his wife and his subjects. His wife had been thrust into a monastery, and the subjects of Romanus had embraced the rigid maxim of the civil law that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy is deprived, as by the stroke of death, of all the public and private rights of a citizen. In the general consternation Michael vn, the Caesar John asserted the indefeasible right of his three AndronJcuB i., nephews : Constantinople listened to his voice ; and the Turkish xn!" ^a.d"° captive was proclaimed in the capital, and received on the ' "^^ frontier, as an enemy of the republic. Romanus was not more fortunate in domestic than in foreign war : the loss of two battles compelled him to yield, on the assurance of fair and honourable treatment ; but his enemies were devoid of faith or humanity ; and, after the cruel extinction of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and corrupt, till in a few days he was relieved from a state of misery. Under the triple reign of the house of Uucas, the two j^ounger brothers were reduced to the vain honours of the purple ; but the eldest, the pusillanimous '''•* [He was strategos of Triaditza (Sofia).]