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victims of such belated justice naturally exclaimed, “ If we had not assisted your father, O Emperor, you would not now be on the throne." There are other versions of the circumstances, and it is possible that the assassins were condemned at a formal silention in the Magnaura. It would be useless to judge this punishment by any ethical standard. Michael II. had not only a guilty knowledge of the conspiracy, but had urged the conspirators to hasten their work. The passion of a doctrinaire for justice will not explain his son's act in calling his father's accomplices to a tardy account; nor is there the least probability in the motive which some image-worshippers assigned, that respect for the memory of Leo as a great iconoclast inspired him to wreak vengeance on the murderers.? The truth, no doubt, is that both Michael II. and Theophilus were acutely conscious that the deed which had raised them to power cast an ugly shadow over their throne; and it is noteworthy that in the letter which they addressed to the Emperor Lewis they stigmatize the conspirators as wicked men 3

Michael, we may be assured, showed them no favour, but he could not bring himself to punish the men whom he had himself encouraged to commit the crime. The conscience of Theophilus was clear, and he could definitely dissociate the Amorian house from the murder by a public act of retribution. It may well be that (as one tradition affirms 4) Michael, when death was approaching, urged his son to this step. In any case, it seems certain that the purpose of Theophilus was to remedy a weakness in his political position, and that he was taking account of public opinion.

The Augusta Euphrosyne, last Imperial descendant of the Isaurian house, retired to a monastery soon after her stepson's accession to the supreme power.

Michael is related to have bound the Senate by a pledge that they would defend the rights of his second wife and her children after his death.5 If this is true, it meant that if she had a son his position should be secured as co-regent of his stepbrother. She had no children, and found perhaps little attraction in the prospect of i Gen. 51.

Add. Georg. 789, that Theophilus 2 Add. Georg., ib.

reigned along with Euphrosyne is a Ep. ad Lud. 418, a quibusdam corollary from the error that she was improbis."

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residing in the Palace and witnessing Court functions in which Theodora would now be the most important figure. There is no reason to suppose that she retired under compulsion.

The first five children born to Theophilus during his father's lifetime were daughters, but just before or soon after his accession Theodora gave birth to a son, who was named Constantine and crowned as Augustus. Constantine, however, did not survive infancy, and the Emperor had to take thought for making some provision for the succession. He selected as a son-in-law Alexios Musele, who belonged to the family of the Krênitai, of Armenian descent, and betrothed him to his eldest daughter, Maria (c. A.D. 831). Alexios (who had been created a patrician and distinguished by the new title of anthypatos, and then elevated to the higher rank of magister) received the dignity of Caesar, which gave him a presumptive expectation of a still higher title. The marriage was celebrated about A.D. 836, but Maria died soon afterwards, and, against the Emperor's wishes, his son-in-law insisted on retiring to a monastery. There was a story that the suspicions of Theophilus had been aroused by jealous tongues against the loyalty of Alexios, who had been sent to fight with the Saracens in Sicily. It is impossible to say how much truth may underlie this report, nor can we be sure whether the Caesar withdrew from the world before or after the birth of a son to Theophilus (in A.D. 839), an event which would in any case have disappointed his hopes of the succession."

1 On the retirement of Euphrosyne, Melioranski, ib. see Melioranski, Viz. Vrem. 8, 32-33. 2 He probably died c. A.D. 835. For The statements of Simeon (Add. Georg. the evidence for Constantine, for the 790) and Cont. Th. 86 contradict each argument that Maria was the eldest other; according to the latter she was daughter, for the chronology, and for (laudably) expelled from the Palace the coins, see Appendix VI. by Theophilus (accepted as true by 3 Mushegh, in Armenian; cp. St. Hirsch, 205). I think Melioranski is Martin apud Lebeau, xiii. 118, who right in following the former (Viz. thinks he was descended from the Vrem. 8, 32-33), but his observations Mamigonians. His namesake, who about the chronology do not hold. held high posts under Irene and ConCont. Th. is undoubtedly, right in stantine VI., may have been his stating that Euphrosyne withdrew to father. the cloister in which she had formerly 4 See Bury, Imp. Administration, been a nun (in the island of Prinkipo ; 28. see above, p. 111); she had nothing to Cp. Appendix VI. ad fin. Theodo with the monastery of Gastria, to philus gave Alexios three monasteries, which Simeon sends her (Add. Georg. one of them at Chrysopolis.

But 790; cp. Vit. Theodorae Aug. p. 6). Alexios wished to found a cloister Gastria belonged to Theoktiste, the himself; and taking a walk northmother-in-law of Theophilus. See ward from Chrysopolis along the shore,

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While he was devoted to the serious business of ruling, and often had little time for the ceremonies and formal processions which occupied many hours in the lives of less active Emperors, Theophilus loved the pageantry of royal magnificence. On two'occasions he celebrated a triumph over the Saracens, and we are so fortunate as 'to possess an official account of the triumphal ceremonies.? When Theophilus (in A.D. 831) reached the Palace of Hieria, near Chalcedon, he was awaited by the Empress, the three ministers —the Praepositus, the chief Magister, and the urban Prefectwho were responsible for the safety of the city during his absence, and by all the resident members of the Senate. At a little distance from the Palace gates, the senators met him and did obeisance; Theodora stood within the rails of the hall which opened on the court, and when her lord dismounted she also did obeisance and kissed him. The train of captives had not yet arrived, and ten days elapsed before the triumphal entry could be held. Seven were spent at Hieria, the senators remaining in ceremonial attendance upon the Emperor, and their wives, who were summoned from the city, upon the Empress. On the seventh day the Court 4 moved to the Palace of St. Mamas, and remained there for three days. On the tenth, Theophilus sailed up the Golden Horn, disembarked at Blachernae, and proceeded on horseback outside the walls to a pavilion which had been pitched in a meadow near the

a Golden Gate. Here he met the captives who had been conveyed across the Propontis from Chrysopolis.

Meanwhile, under the direction of the Prefect, the city had been set in festive array, decorated “like a bridal chamber,"

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with variegated hangings and purple and silver ornaments. The long Middle Street, through which the triumphal train would pass, from the Golden Gate of victory to the place of the Augusteon, was strewn with flowers. The prisoners, the trophies and the spoils of war preceded the Emperor, who rode on a white horse caparisoned with jewelled harness; a tiara was on his head; he wore a sceptre in his hand, and a goldembroidered tunic framed his breastplate.? Beside him, on another white steed similarly equipped, rode the Caesar Alexios, wearing a corslet, sleeves, and gaiters of gold, a helmet and gold headband, and poising a golden spear. At a short distance from the triumphal gate the Emperor dismounted and made three obeisances to the east, and, when he crossed the threshold of the city, the Praepositus, the Magister, and the Prefect, now relieved of their extraordinary authority, presented him with a crown of gold, which he carried on his right arm. The demes then solemnly acclaimed him as victor, and the procession advanced. When it reached the milestone at the gates of the Augusteon, the senators dismounted, except those who, having taken part in the campaign, wore their armour, and, passing through the gates, walked in front of the sovran to the Well of St. Sophia. Here the Emperor himself dismounted, entered the church, and, after a brief devotion, crossed the Augusteon on foot to the Bronze Gate of the Palace, where a pulpit had been set, flanked by a throne of gold, and a golden organ which was known as the Prime Miracle. Between these stood a large cross of gold. When Theophilus had seated himself and made the sign of the cross, the demes cried, “ There is one Holy.” The city community then offered him a pair of golden armlets, and wearing these he acknowledged the gift by a speech, in which he described his military successes. Amid new acclamations he remounted his horse, and riding through the Passages of Achilles and past the Baths of Zeuxippus, entered the Hippodrome and reached the Palace at the door of the Skyla. On the next 1 σκαραμάγγια.

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day, at a reception in the Palace, many honours and dignities were conferred, and horse-races were held in the Hippodrome, where the captives and the trophies were exhibited to the people.

§ 2. Buildings of Theophilus The reign of Theophilus was an epoch in the history of the Great Palace. He enlarged it by a group of handsome and curious buildings, on which immense sums must have been expended, and we may be sure that this architectural enterprise was stimulated, if not suggested, by the reports which reached his ears of the magnificent palaces which the Caliphs had built for themselves at Baghdad.

His own pride and the prestige of the Empire demanded that the residence of the Basileus should not be eclipsed by the splendour of the Caliph's abode.

At the beginning of the ninth century the Great Palace 2 consisted of two groups of buildings—the original Palace, including the Daphne, which Constantine the Great had built adjacent to the Hippodrome and to the Augusteon, and at some distance to the south-east the Chrysotriklinos (with its dependencies), which had been erected by Justin II. and had superseded the Daphne as the centre of Court life and ceremonial. It is probable that the space between the older Palace and the Chrysotriklinos was open ground, free from buildings, perhaps laid out in gardens and terraced (for the ground falls southward). There was no architectural connexion between the two Palaces, but Justinian II. at the end of the seventh century had connected the Chrysotriklinos with the Hippodrome by means of two long halls which opened into one another--the Lausiakos and the Triklinos called after his name. These halls were probably perpendicular to the Hippodrome, and formed a line of building which closed in the principal grounds of the Palace on the southern side.3

1 See below, Chap. VIII. $ 2. of Japan at Kyoto, described by F. 2. Palace suggests to us a single block Brinkley, Japan, its History, Arts, and of building, and is so far misleading, Literature, vol. i. 198-199 (1901). though it can hardly be avoided. The 3 The eastern door of the Lausiakos Byzantine residence resembled the faced the western portico of the oriental “palaces” which consisted of Chrysotriklinos ; its western door many detached halls and buildings in opened into the Triklinos of Justinian, large grounds. Compare, for instance, on the west of which was the Skyla the residence of the Heian Emperors which opened into the Hippodrome.

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