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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 239 putation and inflaming against her the passions of the multitude, the tyrant accused and tried the empress for a treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary. His own son, a youth of honour and humanity, avowed his abhorrence of this flagitious act, and three of the judges had the merit of prefer- ring their conscience to their safety ; but the obsequious tribunal, without requiring any proof or hearing any defence, condemned the widow of Manuel ; and her unfortunate son subscribed the sentence of her death. Maria was strangled, her corpse was buried in the sea, and her memory was wounded by the insult most offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly representation of her beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long deferred ; he was strangled with a bowstring, and the tyrant, insensible to pity or remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth, struck it rudely with his foot : "Thy father,'' he cried, "was a knave, thy mother a whore, and thyself a fool!" The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by Andronicus Andronicus about three years and a half, as the guardian or a.d^iSs"'"' sovereign of the empire. His government exhibited a singular contrast of vice and virtue. When he listened to his passions, he was the scourge, when he consulted his reason, the father, of his people. '^^ In the exercise of private justice, he was equitable and rigorous ; a shameful and pernicious venality was abolished, and the offices were filled with the most deserving candidates, by a prince who had sense to choose and severity to punish. He prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and persons of shipwrecked mariners ; the provinces, so long the objects of oppression or neglect, revived in prosperity and plenty ; and millions applauded the distant blessings of his reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of his daily cruelties. The ancient proverb, that bloodthirsty is the man who retui'ns from banishment to power, had been applied with too much truth to Marius and Tiberius ; and was now verified for the third time in the life of Andronicus. His memory was '"'^ [To Fallmerayer belongs the credit of having given a just estimate of the administration of Andronicus (Geschichte das Kaisertums Trapezunts, p. 29). He showed that Andronicus made a serious and resolute attempt to rescue the empire from its decline, on the lines which had been followed by Basil II. and abandoned since his death. The objects of Andronicus were to purify the administration and to remedy the great economical evil which was ruining the empire — the growth of vast estates. He was consequently detested by the aristocratic and official classes, and it was men of these classes who wrote his history.]