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Rh was being examined he presented himself, with the other bishops, at Ignatius's consecration. Ignatius then told him to stand back, and not to show himself until his own affairs were set to rights. Some of the reasons given are quite absurd. Whatever the cause may have been, Gregory and two other bishops who had taken his side organized an opposition to the Patriarch, and continually tried to work up the Court and the people against him. Ignatius had several times summoned them to a synod to be tried, when at last, in 854, he excommunicated them for insubordination and schism. Gregory Asbestas and his friends would not have been able to do much harm to the Patriarch had not the Government at the same time fallen foul of him.

The Court was then in an indescribable state of corruption. Theodora retired from public affairs in 856. Her son, Michael III, was still very young, and so her brother Bardas became a sort of regent with the title Cæsar. Michael was as vicious a young man as any that reigned at Constantinople, and to him the Imperial throne was just a means for enjoying himself. It is said that Bardas encouraged him so as to keep all the power in his own hands. Most of the Emperors had a surname given to them. This one has gone down to history as Michael the Drunkard. Bardas was no better. His chief offence was that he put away his lawful wife and lived in open and shameless incest with his daughter-in-law, Eudokia. Ignatius then did what every bishop would be bound to do. He had already borne much from the Court. The drunken boy who stood at its head had found a suitable way of diverting himself by laughing at his religion. He had appointed a clown from the circus to be "his Patriarch." Dressed up in a caricature of bishop's vestments this man used to hold mock services, mimicking Ignatius, amid the shouts of laughter of Michael, his mistresses, and his companions. Ignatius had protested to no purpose, but this incest of the Cæsar could not be passed over. It was a