Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/102

 84 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. or a hand cut off, or an eye put out. After reducing TJlubat, where he blinded the bishop, he returned in triumph to Con- stantinople. The nephew of Andronicos, Isaac Sebastocrator, the son of Isaac seizes ^^^ ompcror's sister, seeing the unpopularity of his Cyprus. uncle, made an effort to obtain the crown. He made his way to Cyprus, assumed the government of the island, and seemed to believe that a policy of cruelty and severe punish- ment towards all who opposed him was the likeliest to insure his safety. The emperor, being unable to seize and punish Isaac, vented his spite on two of his relations who had become sureties for his good behavior. One of these had been a vio- lent partisan of Andronicos : neither of them had been in a position where he could control the movements or influence the conduct of Isaac. According to custom, all the nobility attended the emperor on the feast of the Ascension. The two nobles in question were present, and were, in fact, taken to court against their will. One of the wretched instruments of the tyrant, a certain Hagiochristophorides, whom the peo- ple not inappropriately called Antichristophorides, took up a large stone in presence of the nobles, invited the bystanders to follow his example, and threatened those who neglected to His sureties ^^ ^^ ^^^^^ *^^^J thcmsclves would bc stoned. The aremmdered. ^^y^ sureties wcro stoucd to death ; one of them was buried in the Jewish cemetery, and the other thrown into the Golden Horn. The tide of popular sentiment had now begun to turn. An- dronicos was reco2:nized in his true character as a Reaction iii/»i -r tti asainsi An- brutal and selnsli tyrant. It was observed that he dronicos. . "^ • i r- i -i i i was now as anxious to get rid or those who had helped him to obtain the throne as he had formerly been to remove the partisans of the boy emperor. In spite of the tears of the old hypocrite, his regret that the laws should be so severe — for in most cases his victims were duly condemned according to regular process of law — his protests that the de- cisions of the judges had overridden his own desires, the peo- ple justly attributed the unusual cruelties to him alone. These cruelties marked almost every day of his reign, and were the