nun,

(£216) among the widows of the soldiers who had fallen with her father in Bulgaria. Nor did she forget her sister-in-law,

who, if things had fallen out otherwise, might have been her sovran lady. Theophano had decided to end her life as a

Her triumphant rival enriched her, and, as has been already mentioned, gave her a noble house, which was converted into a cloister. Nor were the poor kinsfolk of Theophano neglected by the new Augusta. It was said at least that in the days of Nicephorus they had lived in pitiable penury, as that parsimonious Emperor would not allow his daughter-in-law to expend money in assisting them; but this inay be only an ill-natured invention.

The following Christmas day was the occasion of another coronation and distribution of presents.' Theophylactus, the eldest son of Michael, was crowned in the ambo of the Great Church. On this auspicious day the Emperor placed in the Sanctuary of St. Sophia il rich offering of golden vessels, inlaid with gems, and antique curtains for the ciborium, woven of gold and purple and embroidered with pictures of sacred subjects. It was a day of great rejoicing in the city, and

? people surely thought that the new sovran was beginning his reign well; he had made up his mind to ask for his son the huud of a daughter of the great Charles, the rival Emperor:S

The note of Michael's policy was reaction, both against the ecclesiastical policy of Nicephorus, as we shall see, and also against the parsimony and careful book-keeping which had rendered that monarch highly unpopular." Procopia and Michael hastened to diminish the sums which Nicephorus had

I To the Patriarch wero givon 25 lbs. of gold, to thu clorgy, 100 (Theoph. 194). According to Philo. theos (136) tho second or subordinato Emperor gave only 50 lbs, altogother to the Church. Soo ubovo, p. 21, 11. 1. Theophanus anys that 'Miclinol crowned his son υπό Νικηφόρου. . Nicephorus assisteil, but Michnol, if present as ho presumably was, placed the crown himself on the head of Theophylactus. Cp. Bury, Const. of Later k. Empire, 10 and 46, n. 11.

? Theso curtuins wero called te. Tpáßnia, and are often montionod in thu Liber pontificalis (ep. I. p. 376). Paul the Siluntiary mentions them

thus (Deser, S. Soph. v. 767):
τετρασι δ' αργυρέησιν επί πλευρήσι

καλύπτρας
ορθοτενείς πετάσαντες.
See Ducango, Const. Christ. B. iii.
Ixv. p. 37.

3 συναλλαγής εις θεοφύλακτον (ιδ.). Theophylactus was only a boy ; he is beardless on the coins on the roverse of which his bust appears (Wroth, ii. 405 sqq.).

• In tomper Michael resembled the parsimonious Annstasius I., who (liko Norva) was called mitissimus ; Michael is yalnuotatos (Theoph.) Cp. Scr. Incert. 335 (a pâos) und 341.

hourded, and much money was scattered abroad in almo.' Churches and monasteries were enriched and endowed ; hiermits who spent useless lives in desert places were sought out to receive of the august bounty; religious hostelries und houses for the poor were not forgotten. The orphan and the widow had their wants supplied; and the fortunes of decayed gentle people were partially resuscitated. All this liberality made the new lord and lady highly popular; complimentary songs were composed by the demes and sung in public in their honour. The stinginess and avarice of . Nicephorus were now blotted out, and amid the general jubilation fow apprehended that the unpopular father-in-law was a far abler ruler than his bountiful successor.

It wils naturally part of the reactionary policy to recull those whom Nicephorus lund bunished and reinstute those whom he had degraded. The most eminent of those who returned was Leo the Armenian, son of Burdus. We have met this man before. We saw how he took part in the revolt of Bardanes against Nicephorus, and then, along with his companion in arms, Michael the Amorian, left his rebellious commander in the lurch. We saw how Nicephorus rewarded

. him by making him Count of the Federates.* He subsequently received a command in the Anatolic Theme, but for gross carelessness and neglect of his duties' he was degruded from his post, whipped, and banished in disgrace. He was recalled by Michael, who appointed him General of the Anatolic Theme, with the dignity of Patrician- little guessing that he was arming one who would dethrone himself and deal ruthlessly with his children. Afterwards when the General of the Anatolies had become Emperor of the Romans,

See Theoph. 494, and Ser. lucert. 335, 338.

nothing of his disgrace, which we learn from the Fragment of the Scriptor Incertus and Cont. Th., and (2) omits to mention in this passage that Michael made him otpatryds TV 'Ανατολικών.

it was said that signs and predictions of the event were not wanting. Among the tales that were told was one of a little slave-girl of the Emperor, who was subject to visitations of “ the spirit of Pytho."! On one occasion when she was thus seized she went down from the Palace to the seashore below, near the harbour of Bucoleon, and cried with a loud voice, addressing the Emperor, “Come down, come down, resign what is not thine !” These words she repeated again and again. The attention of those in the Palace above was attracted; the Emperor heard the futal cry, and attempted to discover what it meant. He bude his intimate friend Theodotos Kassiteras to see that when the damsel was next seized she should be confined within doors, ind to investignto the meaning of her words. To whom did the Paluco belong, if not to its present lord ? Theodotos way too curious himself to fuil to carry out his master's order, and the girl inade an interesting coinmunication. She told him the name and mark of the true Lord of the Palace, and urged him to visit the acropolis at a certain time, where he would meet two men, one of them riding on a mule. This man, she said, was destined to sit on the Imperial throne. The cunning spatharocandidate took good care not to reveal his discovery to his master. Questioned by Michael, he pretended that he could inake nothing of the ravinys of the possessed girl. But he did not fail to watch in the prescribed place at the prescribed time for the man who was to come riding on it mule. It fell out us thu damsel suid; Leo the Armeninn appeared on

| This story is told by Goncsios Bucoleon (from a marble group of a (10, 11), but I doubt whether he lion und bull). Genesios hero (10) had the tale from popular hearsay, says that the girl stood ev xwpivo which he mentions as one of his λιθίνη και προσαγορεύεται Βουκολέων. 8ources (3) έκ τε φήμης δήθεν δραμούσης Perhaps this was a preved place round NK OUTLOMÉVos. Sce Hirsch, 124. Tho tho

group I think it may be inferred story of the possessed woman who from this passage that in the timo of brought forth in monstor, in thu Epist. the writer from whom (enesios derived Synol. Oricnt. aul Theoph. 307, is the story Bucoleon had not yet been regarded by Hirsch as a variant; but applied to the port and palace. it is quite different; this l’ythoness He belonged to the important was consulted by Leo.

family of Melissenos, His father, Millingen (iValls, 269 sqq.) shows Michael, was stratégos of the Anatolics that Hammer was right in identifying under Constantine V., and married a the port of Bucoleon with Chatlady sister of that Emperor's third wife Kapu (a water-gate on the level Eudocia (orygaußpos, Scr. Incert. 360). ground below the Hippodrome), and He afterwards became Patriarch. For that the port and palace of Hormisdas the family of the Melissenoi, sce were tho older names for the port and Ducange, Fam. Byz. 1:15. palace called by tenth-century writers

2

a mule; and the faithless Theodotos hastened to tell him the secret and secure his favour. This story, noised abroad at the time and remembered long afterwards, is highly characteristic of the epoch, and the behaviour of Theodotos is thoroughly in the character of a Byzantine palace official.

In matters that touched the Church the pliant Emperor was obedient to the counsels of the Patriarch. In matters that touched the State he seems also to have been under the influence of a counsellor, and one perhaps whose views were not always in harmony with those of the head of the Church. No single man had done more to compass the elevation of Jichael than the Magister Theoktistos. This minister had helped in the deposition of Irene, and he was probably influential, though he played no prominent part, in the reign of Nicephorus. Nicephorus was not one who stood in need of counsellors, except in warfare ; but in Michael's reign Theoktistos stood near the helm and was held responsible by his contemporaries for the mistakes of the helmsinan. The adınirers of the orthodox Emperor were forced to admit that, notwithstanding his piety and his clemency, he was a bad pilot for a state, and they threw the blame of the false course on Theoktistos among others.' It was Theoktistos, we may suspect, who induced Michael to abandon the policy, advocated by the Patriarch, of putting to death the Paulician heretics.”

But Michael's reigu was destined to be brief. The struggle of the Empire with the powerful and ambitious Bulgarian kingilom was fatal to his throne, as it had been fatal to the throne of Nicephorus. In the spring, A.D. 813, Michael took the field at the head of a great army which included the Asiatic as well as the European troops. Michael was no general, but the overwhelming defeat which he experienced at Versinicia (June 22) was probably due to the treachery of the Anatolic regiments under the command of Leo the Arinenian.

Michael himself escaped. Whether he understood the import of what had happened or not, it is impossible to

man" i

decide; but one would think that he must have scented treachery. Certain it is that he committed the charge of the whole army to the man who had either played him false or been the unwitting cause of the false play. A contemporary

. author, states that he chose Leo as "a pious and most valiant

A chronicler writing at the beginning of Leo's reign might put it thus. But two explanations are possible : Michael may have been really blind, and believed his general's specious representations; or he may have understood the situation perfectly and consigned the power to Leo in order to save his own life. Of the alternatives the latter perhaps is the more likely. In any case, the Emperor soon foreon w what the end must bo, and if he did not see it for himself, there was one to point it out to him when he reached Constantinople two days after the battle. A certain man, named Johın Hexabulios, to whom the care of the city wall had been committed, met Michael on his arrival, and cominiserating with him, inquireil whom he had left in charge of the army. On hearing the name of Leo, Hexabulios exclaimed at the imprudence of his master: Why did he give such an opportunity to such a dangerous man? The Emperor feigned to be secure, but he secretly resolved to ubdicate the throne.

The Empress Procopia was not so ready to resign the position of the greatest lady in the Empire to “ Barca," as she sneeringly

” called the wife of Leo, and the ministers of Michael were not all prepared for a change of master. Theoktistos and Stephanos consoled him and urged him not to abdicate. ." Michael thought, or feigned to think, that the disaster was a divine punishinent, and indeed this supposition was the only alternative to the theory of treachery.

“ The Christians

i Thcoph. 602.

? This alternativo did not occur to Hirsch. He regards the fact that Michael charged Leo with tho command as a proof of Leo's innocence. The story of Hexabulios is told in. dependently by Genesios and Cont.

Emprosses (perhaps the sumo as the Tuunavior, sco Ducange, Gloss., 8.v.), so called from its shape. Compare the hat worn by Thcodora, wifo ot' Michael VIII., shown in Ducange, Fam. Bys. 191 (from & MS. of Pachymeres). The bronze Tycho in the Forum of Constantine had something of this kind on her head (metà modiov, Patria C'pl. p. 205).

Theoph. ib. Manuel the protostrator is specially mentioned in Cont. Th., ib., as opposed to Michael's resig. nation.

Th.

3 Theophanes, ib., inentions her un. willingness, but in Cont. Th. 18 her jealousy of “Barca is mentioned. She was furious at the idea that Leo's wife should place the modiolon on her head. This was a head-dress worn by