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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 377 ship. 28 While Isaac in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple by the unanimous suffrage of the camp ; the capital and the clergy subscribed to their choice ; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted the language of contempt ; and can only add that in a reign of eight years the baser Alexius ^^ was supported by the masculine vices of his wife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was con- veyed to the late emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer his own ; he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra in Macedonia ; but the fugitive, without [stagira] an object or a follower^ was arrested, brought back to Constanti- nople, deprived of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age.^" He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war ; but, as the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated the escape of the royal youth ; and, in the disguise of a common sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land ; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father's restora- tion. About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the The fourth nobles of France were again summoned to the holy war by the iiss* ^' voice of a third prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter 28 The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkish captivity. This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and Zara ; but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians. 29 See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the three books of Nicetas, p. 291-352. ™ [Alexius is generally said to be the son of Margaret of Hungary, Isaac's second wife. But this is doubtful. Cp. Pears, Fall of Constantinople, p. 268, note 2.]