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 240 THE DECLINE AND FALL and impatience the artful and yielding resistance of the bai'- barians. In this desultory and fruitless combat, he wasted the greater part of a summer's day, till prudence and fatigue com- pelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is always perilous in the face of an active foe ; and no sooner had the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the Caesars.'^^ The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on this moment of confusion and lassitude ; and the horns of their formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be needless to nnention the number of the slain or captives. The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl : they forget to mention that, in this fatal day, the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed. Captivity and As loncT as a liope survivcd, Romanus attempted to rally and the emperor savc the rclics of liis army. When the centre, the Imperial station, was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him ; his horse was slain ; the emperor was wounded ; yet he stood alone and intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a slave and a soldier : a slave who had seen him on the throne of Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been excused on the promise of some signal service. Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a disorderly crowd of the meaner barbarians. In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his fortune, till the identity of the person Avas ascertained by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was led into the Turkish divan, and com- manded to kiss the ground before the lord of Asia. He ''o He was the son of the Cfesar John Ducas, brother of the emperor Constan- tine (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165). Nicephorus Bryennius applauds his virtues, and extenuates his faults (1. i. p. 30, 38, 1. ii. p. 53 [p. 41, 54, 76, ed. B.]). Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus, ou Trdni 5e (^(Ai'iuv fo)i' ir-pos pamea. Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason,