Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part

I.

Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin Conquest.

I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine
to Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and
faithfully exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their
reigns. Five centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have
already elapsed; but a period of more than eight hundred years
still separates me from the term of my labors, the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks. Should I persevere in the same
course, should I observe the same measure, a prolix and slender
thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would the patient
reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement. At
every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose
a more ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue
to repeat a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the
natural connection of causes and events would be broken by
frequent and hasty transitions, and a minute accumulation of
circumstances must destroy the light and effect of those general
pictures which compose the use and ornament of a remote history.
From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is contracted
and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by the
laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all
sides from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our
inquiries, is reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely
suburbs of Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has
been compared to that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the
sands, before its waters can mingle with the ocean. The scale of
dominion is diminished to our view by the distance of time and
place; nor is the loss of external splendor compensated by the
nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the last moments of her
decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and populous
than Athens at her most flourishing aera, when a scanty sum of
six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling
was possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult
age. But each of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to
assert the liberty of his thoughts, words, and actions, whose
person and property were guarded by equal law; and who exercised
his independent vote in the government of the republic. Their
numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and various
discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on the
wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level
of the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some
chosen spirits soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the
chances of superior merit in a great and populous kingdom, as
they are proved by experience, would excuse the computation of
imaginary millions. The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their
allies, do not exceed a moderate province of France or England;
but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea, they expand in our
fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been trampled under
the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of the
Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of
Greeks and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices,
which are neither softened by the weakness of humanity, nor
animated by the vigor of memorable crimes. The freemen of
antiquity might repeat with generous enthusiasm the sentence of
Homer, “that on the first day of his servitude, the captive is
deprived of one half of his manly virtue.” But the poet had only
seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor could he
foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated by
the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but
even the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke,
the Greeks were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the
tyrant, a law of eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of
his subjects; and on the throne, in the camp, in the schools, we
search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, the names and
characters that may deserve to be rescued from oblivion. Nor are
the defects of the subject compensated by the skill and variety
of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four
first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some
faint and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the
emperors, from Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone
been the theme of a separate work; and the absence, or loss, or
imperfection of contemporary evidence, must be poorly supplied by
the doubtful authority of more recent compilers. The four last
centuries are exempt from the reproach of penury; and with the
Comnenian family, the historic muse of Constantinople again
revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are without
elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads
in each other’s footsteps in the same path of servitude and
superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or
corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still
ignorant of the causes of events, the characters of the actors,
and the manners of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The
observation which has been applied to a man, may be extended to a
whole people, that the energy of the sword is communicated to the
pen; and it will be found by experience, that the tone of history
will rise or fall with the spirit of the age.

From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret
the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not
reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively
connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which
have changed the state of the world. The space of the lost
provinces was immediately replenished with new colonies and
rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war deserted
from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in their
origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we
must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of
the Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches
and variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of
design and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman
of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca,
the historian’s eye shall be always fixed on the city of
Constantinople. The excursive line may embrace the wilds of
Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be ultimately reduced to
the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.

On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two
volumes of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a
regular series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during
a period of six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the
Latin conquest; a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a
general appeal to the order and text of the original historians.
In this introduction, I shall confine myself to the revolutions
of the throne, the succession of families, the personal
characters of the Greek princes, the mode of their life and
death, the maxims and influence of their domestic government, and
the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the downfall
of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve to
illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and
each circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will
adapt itself in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The
internal state of the empire, and the dangerous heresy of the
Paulicians, which shook the East and enlightened the West, will
be the subject of two separate chapters; but these inquiries must
be postponed till our further progress shall have opened the view
of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian
area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the following
nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the space
to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree
of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The
Franks; a general appellation which includes all the Barbarians
of France, Italy, and Germany, who were united by the sword and
sceptre of Charlemagne. The persecution of images and their
votaries separated Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and
prepared the restoration of the Roman empire in the West. II. The
Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will be devoted to this
curious and interesting object. In the first, after a picture of
the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate the
character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the
prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of
Syria, Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor
can I check their victorious career till they have overthrown the
monarchies of Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how
Constantinople and Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the
division and decay, of the empire of the caliphs. A single
chapter will include, III. The Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and,
V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by land the provinces and
the capital; but the last of these, so important in their present
greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin and
infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of
that warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and
Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the
trophies of chivalry, and almost realized the wonders of romance.

VII. The Latins; the subjects of the pope, the nations of the
West, who enlisted under the banner of the cross for the recovery
or relief of the holy sepulchre. The Greek emperors were
terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to
Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers of Christendom.
The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of the first:
Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred
years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and
finally expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these
memorable crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were
diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the
capital, they subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of
Latin princes was seated near threescore years on the throne of
Constantine. VII. The Greeks themselves, during this period of
captivity and exile, must be considered as a foreign nation; the
enemies, and again the sovereigns of Constantinople. Misfortune
had rekindled a spark of national virtue; and the Imperial series
may be continued with some dignity from their restoration to the
Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the arms of
Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to
Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell,
and the Caesars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour
suspended above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine
empire. X. I have already noticed the first appearance of the
Turks; and the names of the fathers, of Seljuk and Othman,
discriminate the two successive dynasties of the nation, which
emerged in the eleventh century from the Scythian wilderness. The
former established a splendid and potent kingdom from the banks
of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first crusade was
provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of
Constantinople. From an humble origin, the Ottomans arose, the
scourge and terror of Christendom. Constantinople was besieged
and taken by Mahomet II., and his triumph annihilates the
remnant, the image, the title, of the Roman empire in the East.
The schism of the Greeks will be connected with their last
calamities, and the restoration of learning in the Western world.

I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the ruins of
ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme, will
shed a ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.

The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his
throne; and the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the
transient conquest, and irreparable loss, of the Eastern
provinces. After the death of Eudocia, his first wife, he
disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by his second
marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the
Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the
father and the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an
illegitimate birth is sufficient to distract the choice, and
loosen the obedience, of the people: the ambition of Martina was
quickened by maternal love, and perhaps by the envy of a
step-mother; and the aged husband was too feeble to withstand the
arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine, his eldest son,
enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the weakness
of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and he
yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire.
The senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the
association of Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of
the diadem was consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the
patriarch; the senators and patricians adored the majesty of the
great emperor and the partners of his reign; and as soon as the
doors were thrown open, they were hailed by the tumultuary but
important voice of the soldiers. After an interval of five
months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the essence of the
Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the
hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly
displayed by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the
name of Martina was mingled in the reluctant or venal
acclamations of the people. Heraclius survived this association
about two years: his last testimony declared his two sons the
equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and commanded them to honor
his widow Martina as their mother and their sovereign.

When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and
attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though
respectful, opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were
kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. “We reverence,”
exclaimed the voice of a citizen, “we reverence the mother of our
princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and
Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain, in his
own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by
nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how
could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly
intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from
the Roman republic this national disgrace, which would provoke
the patience of the slaves of Persia!” Martina descended from the
throne with indignation, and sought a refuge in the female
apartment of the palace. The reign of Constantine the Third
lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired in the
thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long
malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means,
and his cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate.
Martina reaped indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the
government in the name of the surviving emperor; but the
incestuous widow of Heraclius was universally abhorred; the
jealousy of the people was awakened, and the two orphans whom
Constantine had left became the objects of the public care. It
was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than fifteen
years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his
nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it
was in vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to
defend them against all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late
emperor had despatched a trusty servant to arm the troops and
provinces of the East in the defence of his helpless children:
the eloquence and liberality of Valentin had been successful, and
from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly demanded the punishment of
the assassins, and the restoration of the lawful heir. The
license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and drank the
wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of
Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities,
and the dome of St. Sophia reechoed, not with prayers and hymns,
but with the clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At
their imperious command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with
the eldest of the royal orphans; Constans alone was saluted as
emperor of the Romans, and a crown of gold, which had been taken
from the tomb of Heraclius, was placed on his head, with the
solemn benediction of the patriarch.

But in the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was
pillaged, the sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of
Jews and Barbarians; and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of
the empress, after dropping a protestation on the altar, escaped
by a prudent flight from the zeal of the Catholics. A more
serious and bloody task was reserved for the senate, who derived
a temporary strength from the consent of the soldiers and people.

The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient and awful
examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of
Constantine. But the severity of the conscript fathers was
stained by the indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the
guilty: Martina and Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation,
the former of her tongue, the latter of his nose; and after this
cruel execution, they consumed the remainder of their days in
exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were capable of reflection
might find some consolation for their servitude, by observing the
abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the hands of an
aristocracy.

We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years
backwards to the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the
oration which Constans II. pronounced in the twelfth year of his
age before the Byzantine senate. After returning his thanks for
the just punishment of the assassins, who had intercepted the
fairest hopes of his father’s reign, “By the divine Providence,”
said the young emperor, “and by your righteous decree, Martina
and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state
from degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and
beseech you to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the
common safety.” The senators were gratified by the respectful
address and liberal donative of their sovereign; but these
servile Greeks were unworthy and regardless of freedom; and in
his mind, the lesson of an hour was quickly erased by the
prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism. He retained
only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother
Theodosius on an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders,
the grandson of Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but
this ceremony, which seemed to profane the sacraments of the
church, was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant,
and the death of the deacon Theodosius could alone expiate the
crime of his royal birth. 1111 His murder was avenged by the
imprecations of the people, and the assassin, in the fullness of
power, was driven from his capital into voluntary and perpetual
exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant to retort
the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After
passing the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy,
visited Rome, 1112 and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace
and sacrilegious rapine, by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But
if Constans could fly from his people, he could not fly from
himself. The remorse of his conscience created a phantom who
pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night; and the
visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
said, or seemed to say, “Drink, brother, drink;” a sure emblem of
the aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the
hands of the deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious
to himself and to mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps
by episcopal, treason, in the capital of Sicily. A servant who
waited in the bath, after pouring warm water on his head, struck
him violently with the vase. He fell, stunned by the blow, and
suffocated by the water; and his attendants, who wondered at the
tedious delay, beheld with indifference the corpse of their
lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested with the purple
an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it might
easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of
the age.

1111 (return) [ His soldiers (according to Abulfaradji. Chron.
Syr. p. 112) called him another Cain. St. Martin, t. xi. p.
379.—M.]

1112 (return) [ He was received in Rome, and pillaged the
churches. He carried off the brass roof of the Pantheon to
Syracuse, or, as Schlosser conceives, to Constantinople Schlosser
Geschichte der bilder-sturmenden Kaiser p. 80—M.]

Constans had left in the Byzantine palace three sons, the eldest
of whom had been clothed in his infancy with the purple. When the
father summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these
precious hostages were detained by the Greeks, and a firm refusal
informed him that they were the children of the state. The news
of his murder was conveyed with almost supernatural speed from
Syracuse to Constantinople; and Constantine, the eldest of his
sons, inherited his throne without being the heir of the public
hatred. His subjects contributed, with zeal and alacrity, to
chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had
usurped the rights of the senate and people; the young emperor
sailed from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet; and the legions
of Rome and Carthage were assembled under his standard in the
harbor of Syracuse. The defeat of the Sicilian tyrant was easy,
his punishment just, and his beauteous head was exposed in the
hippodrome: but I cannot applaud the clemency of a prince, who,
among a crowd of victims, condemned the son of a patrician, for
deploring with some bitterness the execution of a virtuous
father. The youth was castrated: he survived the operation, and
the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation
of Germanus to the rank of a patriarch and saint. After pouring
this bloody libation on his father’s tomb, Constantine returned
to his capital; and the growth of his young beard during the
Sicilian voyage was announced, by the familiar surname of
Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his reign, like that of his
predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two
brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title of
Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without
trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret
instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province
approached the city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal
brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported
their seditious claim by a theological argument. They were
Christians, (they cried,) and orthodox Catholics; the sincere
votaries of the holy and undivided Trinity. Since there are three
equal persons in heaven, it is reasonable there should be three
equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned
divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose
their arguments to the senate: they obeyed the summons, but the
prospect of their bodies hanging on the gibbet in the suburb of
Galata reconciled their companions to the unity of the reign of
Constantine. He pardoned his brothers, and their names were still
pronounced in the public acclamations: but on the repetition or
suspicion of a similar offence, the obnoxious princes were
deprived of their titles and noses, 1113 in the presence of the
Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in the
sixth general synod. In the close of his life, Pogonatus was
anxious only to establish the right of primogeniture: the heir of
his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, was offered on the shrine
of St. Peter, as a symbol of their spiritual adoption by the
pope; but the elder was alone exalted to the rank of Augustus,
and the assurance of the empire.

1113 (return) [ Schlosser (Geschichte der bilder sturmenden
Kaiser, p. 90) supposed that the young princes were mutilated
after the first insurrection; that after this the acts were still
inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in
the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed
against Gibbon’s want of authority for his statement.—M.]

After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the Roman
world devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of a triumphant
lawgiver was dishonored by the vices of a boy, who imitated his
namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions
were strong; his understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated
with a foolish pride, that his birth had given him the command of
millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen
him for their local magistrate. His favorite ministers were two
beings the least susceptible of human sympathy, a eunuch and a
monk: to the one he abandoned the palace, to the other the
finances; the former corrected the emperor’s mother with a
scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with
their heads downwards, over a slow and smoky fire. Since the days
of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had
most commonly been the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who
possessed some vigor of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and
braved the revenge, of his subjects, about ten years, till the
measure was full, of his crimes and of their patience. In a dark
dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation, had groaned above
three years, with some of the noblest and most deserving of the
patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government
of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of the
contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was
followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius
observed, with a sigh, that he was a victim adorned for
sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps.
They ventured to reply, that glory and empire might be the
recompense of a generous resolution; that every order of men
abhorred the reign of a monster; and that the hands of two
hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader.
The night was chosen for their deliverance; and in the first
effort of the conspirators, the præfect was slain, and the
prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed
in every street, “Christians, to St. Sophia!” and the seasonable
text of the patriarch, “This is the day of the Lord!” was the
prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church the people
adjourned to the hippodrome: Justinian, in whose cause not a
sword had been drawn, was dragged before these tumultuary judges,
and their clamors demanded the instant death of the tyrant. But
Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast an eye of
pity on the prostrate son of his own benefactor and of so many
emperors. The life of Justinian was spared; the amputation of his
nose, perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy
flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of
Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonae
in Crim-Tartary, a lonely settlement, where corn, wine, and oil,
were imported as foreign luxuries.

On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished
the pride of his birth, and the hope of his restoration. After
three years’ exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that
his injury was avenged by a second revolution, and that Leontius
in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel
Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable name of Tiberius. But
the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian
usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and
charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the tyrant in
the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to
his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from
the inhospitable shore to the horde of the Chozars, who pitched
their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan
entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant:
Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the Asiatic side of the lake
Moeotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman
prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the
Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have
received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was
soon tempted by the gold of Constantinople: and had not the
design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her
husband must have been assassinated or betrayed into the power of
his enemies. After strangling, with his own hands, the two
emissaries of the khan, Justinian sent back his wife to her
brother, and embarked on the Euxine in search of new and more
faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent tempest;
and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve the mercy
of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored
to the throne. “Of forgiveness?” replied the intrepid tyrant:
“may I perish this instant—may the Almighty whelm me in the
waves—if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies!” He
survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the
Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the
Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of Terbelis, a pagan conqueror,
by the promise of his daughter and a fair partition of the
treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the
confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople
at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by
the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had
been promised by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet
ignorant. After an absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian
were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their
hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever
discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence
of his adherents, he was introduced into the city and palace of
Constantine.