Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/120

 102 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. form of government from an absolute monarchy to an oligar- ch j of nobles and merchant princes. The will of the people of the capital, when led by a popular noble and expressed by popular riot, and not even in a regularly constituted fashion, had come to be regarded as the sole source of authority, and the emperor thus easily appointed could be as easily deposed. Wlien, as in the case of Isaac, the sovereign had little to rec- ommend him to the favor of the populace, it is not surprising that many attempts should have been made to supplant him. The old machinery for learning the popular will through a college of senators and a representation of the artisans only existed in form. The modern devices of representative gov- ernment were unknown. At a time when even in the New Rome the soldier readily became a peaceful citizen, and the peaceful citizen a soldier, a popular tumult was sufficient to change the ruler. Isaac himself was idle, or rather was willing that the labor of government should be on his ministers. We chTraaeVo? may SCO how diminished the authority of the em- ^^^''^' peror had become in the fact that one of these ministers, Theodore Castamonites, allowed himself to be called lord and emperor' by the Hatterers who hung about his court. So long as Isaac could be free to visit his palace on the shores of the IMarmora and his houses in the islands, could be attended with his mistresses and his buffoons, could be dressed in what his subjects regarded as the magnificence of Solomon, and have everywhere and always a luxurious table, he was content that his favorite of the hour should bear the burden of government. His laziness and extravagance, his meanness and rapacity, had already alienated the sym- pathy of the populace, while his misgovernment contrasted • Nicctaa, p. 575. ^eaTrorrjc Kal (SaTLXevg. Despot had formerly been a title exclusively belonging to the emperor. At a later period it -svas con- ferred on other members of the imperial family. Sthastocrator was a title ■which, during the twelfth century, seems to have been the highest given to a minister. Cmar was in that century the title next in rank below the sebastocrator, but it had been given to several persons at the same time. Protoscbastos iudicatcd a rank below each of these.