appointed in her chance of empire, Kasia resolved to renounce the world, and a letter of Theodore, the abbot of Studion, is preserved in which he approves of her design, and compliments her on the learning and skill of some literary compositions which she had sent him."

The pleasing story of the bride-show of Theophilus, in which Kasia is the heroine, did not find favour with the monk who wrote an edifying biography of the sainted Theodora. He would not allow that she owed her elevation to the too realy tongue of her rival who had presumed to measure wits with the Emperor, and he invented a different story in which Kasia is ignored. According to this frigid fiction, Theophilus selected seven of the maidens, gave cach of them an apple, and summoned them again on the morrow. He asked each of them for her apple, but the apples were not forthcoming. Theodora alune produced hers, and along with it offered a second to the Emperor. "This first apple, which I have kept safe,” she said, “ is the emblem of my maiden hood; the second, do not decline it, is the fees of the son which shall be born to us.” When Theophilus, in amazement, asked her to explain this “oracle,” she told him that at Nicomedia, on her way to Constantinople, she had visited a holy man who lived in a tower, and that he had prophesied her elevation to the throne and had given her the apple." Christ and laranikas, Anth. Graccu είδει, της τε κανονας και στίχους ποιη. carm. Christianorum, 103-104 ; another σάσης εν τοις χρόνοις θεοφίλου και του in Krumbacher, 347 894. Krumbacher vioù autoû. The couvent seems to has shown that her name was Kasia, have becu somewhere on the Seventh not Eikasia or Ikasia as the chronicle Hill, near the Constantinian Wall (op. has, and ho conjectures that Eixaoia van Millingen, Walls, 22-2:3). aroso from ý kaola (317). Accepting ? Vita Thewlorae, 4. Melioranski the date of the bride-sliow as c. 830, characterises this narrative as “a he places her birth c. 810; but the polemical pendant" to the story of truo date of the marriage of Taco. kusia (l: sem. ist. 12). llo thinks philus shows that the year , her iliat tlie use of αμφοτέρας, 3, is an birth must have been in the sigh. allusion to Kasia's rivalry; but bourhood of 800. She was still a dudorépas here means all. very young girl when she decided to becomo a mun (see next noto), so The beauty of Theodora was celethat we might conjecture the date to brated in Spain by the poet Yahya be c. 804.

al-Ghazzal, who was sent by Abd arEp. 270, Cozza · Luzi (cp. A. Rahman as an envoy to the Court of Gardner, Thcolore, 266 899.). The Theophilus (A. 1. 839-810). He was tonth-century author of tho llárpia conversing with the Emperor when Królews (cd. Preger, 276) notices the Thcolora ontered “dressed in all her convent founded by Kasia und describes linery- a rising sun in beauty. Al. her 19 της μοναχής, ευπρεπούς και ευ. Ghazzal was so surprised that lie could λαβους και σεβασμιας γυναικός, ωραίας τη not tiske his eyes from her," and

και δηνάριον.

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§ 2. The Civil War (A.D. 821-823) Of the three actors in the historical drama which was said to have been shadowed forth by the soothsayer of l'hilomelion, one has passed finally from the scene. The last uct is to take the form of a conflict between the two survivor's, Michael of Ainorion and Thomas of Gaziura. This conflict is gonerally known as the rebellion of Thomus, but it assumed the dimensions and the dignity of a civil war. Two rivals fought for a crown, which one of them had seized, but could not yet be said to havo firmly grasped. Michuel had been regularly elected, acclaimed, and crowned in the capital, and he had the advantage of possessing the Imperial city. His iulversary and the support of most of the Asiatio provinces; he was only il rebel because he failed.

We have seen how Thomus clung to his master and patron Dardanes whom others had deserted (A.1), 803). When the cause of Burdanes was lost, he probably saved himself by llecing to Syrint and taking up his abode among the Sarucens, with whour: he had lived before. For in the reign of Irene he had envered the service of a patrician," and, having been discovered in an attempt to commit adultery with his master's wife, he was constrained to seek i refuge in the dominions of the Caliph, where he seems to have lived for a considerable time.

His second sojourn there lasted for

ceased to attend to the conversation. reign (this is incorrect). Michael II., Theophilusi ox poressed astonishment at in Ep. aut Luul. 417, says that ho aboclo his rudeness, and the poet said to the among tho unbelievers until the reign interpreter, "Toll thy master that I of Leo, and during that timo bocamo am so captivated by the charms of this a Moliammadan in order to gain in. queen ihat I am provented from fluence with the Saracens. listening. Suy that I never saw in ? For a discussion of the dificultios, my lify a handsomer wornan." "Hle see Bury, B.2. i. 55 899., whero it is thion becali to describe one by ono all shown that the patrician was not lier charms, and to print his amaze. Bardanes, as Genesios alleges (35). ment at her incomparabic beauty, and Michael (Ep. aul Lud., il.) does not concluded by saying that she had name the juatrician. The fact scoms to capitivated him with her black eyes" be that Thomas first fled c. A.D. 788, (Makkari, ii. 115).

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about ten years (A.D. 803-813). We saw how he received a military command from his old fellow-officer, Leo the Armenian, and he rose in arms shortly before that Emperor's death.'

If he was tempted to rise against Leo, much more was he tempted to dispute the crown with Michael, with whom he seems to have had a rivalry of old standing. Thomas was much the elder of the two; at the time of his rising he was an old inan. One of his legs was maimed; but his age and lumeness did not impair his activity. The lame man was personally more popular than the lisper; for, while Michael's manners were course and brusque, Thomas wus courteous and urbane. His Slavonic origin hardly counted against him ;* men were by this time becoming familiar with Romaeized Sluvs.

But Thomas did not come forward as himself; and this is a strange feature of the rebellion which it is difficult to understand. He did not offer himself to the inhabitants of Asia Minor as Thomas of Gaziura, but he pretended that he was really one who was generally supposed to be dead, a crowned Augustus, no other than Constantine the Sixth, son of Irene. That unfortunate Emperor, blinded by the orders of his mother, had died, if not before her dethronement, at all cvents in the first years of Nicephorus. The operation of blinding had not been performed in public, and a pretender might construct a tale that another had been substituted, and that the true Constantine had escaped. But it is hard to see how the fraud could have been successful even for a time in the case of Thomas. He might easily enough have palmed himself off among barbarian neighbours as the deposed Emperor. Or if he had produced an obscure stranger and given out that this was Constantine who for more than twenty years had lurked in some safe hiding-place, we could understand that the fiction might have imposed on the Theines of Asia. But we cannot easily conceive how one who had been recently before the eye of the world as Thomas, Commander Seo above, p. 46 and p. 48.

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of the Federates, and whose earlier career must have been more or less known liy his contemporaries, could suddenly persuade people that all this time he was not himself. One almost suspects that some link in the chain of events is lost which inight have explained the feasibility of the deceit. If Thomas had withdrawn for some years to Syria, he might have returned in the new character of an Augustus who was supposed to be dead. And indeed in one account of the rebellion it is implied that ho sturted from Syrin, perhaps with some Saracen support at his back.'

The pretender was not contont with being Constantine, Son of Irene; he resolved, like Constantine the Greut, to have al non bumed Constantins. Accordingly he iulopted u mun of

. anongrel me, whose true name is unknown, and called him Constantius. Our record describes this wopted son in terms of the utmost contempt.-—118 base and ugly manikin.” But he must have had some ability, for his "father” trusted him with the command of armies.

It is impossible to distinguish with certainty the early stages of the insurrection of Thomas, or to determine how far it had spread at the time of Michael's accession. He established his power by winning the clistrict of Chaldin, in estern lontus, lle also secured some strong places in the Armeniac Theme, in which Caziura, his native town, was situated, but the soldiers of this Theme did not espouse his cause. It was to the ciastern provinces that he chictly looked for support at first, but his power presently extended to the west. The false Constantine and his son could soon reckon the greater part of Asia Minor, from the borders of Armenia to the shores of the Aegean Acret, ily their dominion. The l'aulician heretics, who were persecuted by leo, tlocked to their standard. They intercepted the taxes which should have been conveyed to Constantinoplo and used the money for winning adherents to their cause.

The cities which would not voluntarily have acknowledged them were constrained by fear. Soon they could boust that only two urmies in Asia had not joined them, the Opsikian and the Armeniac. The patrician Katakylas, Count of Opsikion, was a nephew of Michael, and remained true to his uncle. Olbianos, stratêgos of the Armeniacs, espoused the

But the meayre and disorderly accounts of the wur which have reached us do not inform us what Olbianos und Kntukylna did, or whether they did anything, to stein the torrent of rebellion. No dates are given, and even the order of events is obscure.

But if Michael and his supporters made no signal effort to oppose the progress of the danger, the attention of Thomas wus diverted to another enemy. The civil war in the Empire wils an opportunity for the Caliph, and the Saracens began to make excursions in the Roman lands which were left

lost insufliciently protected, as the regulur defenders had abandoned their posts to swell the army of Thomas. Perhaps the murmurs of his soldiers' convinced Thomas that he must relinquish for a time his war against his countrymen to repel the common foe. But if he was yielding to the wishes of his follower's, in taking inensures to protect their homes, ho malo u skilful use of the danger and turnod it completely to his own advantage. His long sojourns among the Moslems stool him in good stead now. lliy first movement way to invade Syrin - and display his immense forces to the astonished cyes of the Saracens. Perhaps such a large Roman army had seldom pussed the Taurus since Syria had become a Saracen possession. But the object of this invasion was not to lurry or hurm the invaded lunds, but rather to frighten the enemy into making a trenty with such a powerful commander. The design was crowned with success. The Caliph Mamun empowered persons in authority to meet the pretender, and a compact of alliance was arranged. Thomas or Constantine Wils recognised as Emperor of the Romans by the Commander of the Faithful, who undertook to help him to dethrone his rival. In return for this service, Thomas is said to have