CHA P. of the Persian prince. With savage delight, he XLVIII. recognised the familiar features of his brother:

"Thou art no longer Theophobus,” he said; and sinking on his couch, he added, with a faultering voice, "Soon, too soon, I shall be no "more Theophilus !"

The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part of their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the last century, a singular institution in the marriage of the Czar. They collected, not the virgins of every rank and of every province, a vain and romantic idea, but the daughters of the principal nobles, who awaited in the palace the choice of their sovereign. It is affirmed, that a similar method was adopted in the nuptials of Theophilus. With a golden apple in his hand, he slowly walked between two lines of contending beauties; his eye was detained by the charms of Icasia, and, in the awkwardness of a first declaration, the prince could only observe, that, in this world, women had been the cause of much evil: "And surely, Sir," she pertly replied," they "have likewise been the occasion of much good." This affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the Imperial lover; he turned aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her mortification in a convent; and the modest silence of Theodora was rewarded with the golden apple. She deserved the love, but did not escape the severity of her lord. From the palace garden he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the port; on the discovery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a sharp

reproach,

After

Michael

reproach, that her avarice had degraded the cha- c H A P. racter of an empress into that of a merchant. Yet XLVIII. his last choice entrusted her with the guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who was left III. an orphan in the fifth year of his age. The resto- A. D. 842, January ration of images, and the final extirpation of the 20. Iconoclasts, has endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks; but in the fervour of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a grateful regard for the memory and salvation of her husband. thirteen years of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the decline of her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or government of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though not without a murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the worthless youth.

Among the successors of Nero Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. Whatever might have been the maternal care of Theodora in the education of Michael the third, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a man. If the ambitious mother laboured to check the progress of reason, she could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish policy was justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the headstrong youth. At the of eighteen, he rejected her authority, without

age

feeling

CHA P. feeling his own incapacity to govern the empire and XLVIII. himself. With Theodora, all gravity and wisdom

retired from the court; their place was supplied by the alternate dominion of vice and folly; and it was impossible, without forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or preserve the favour of the emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been ` accumulated for the service of the state, were lavished on the vilest of men, who flattered his passions and shared his pleasures; and in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of sovereigns was compelled to strip the palace and the churches of their precious furniture. Like Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the accomplishments, in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the idleness of the capital: For himself, the emperor assumed the blue livery; the three rival colours were distributed to his favourites, and in the vile, though eager contention, he forgot the dignity of his person and the safety of his dominions. He silenced the messenger of an invasion, who presumed to divert his attention in the most critical moment of the race; and by his command, the importunate beacons were extinguished, that too frequently spread the alarm from Tarsus to Constantinople. The most skilful charioteers obtained the first place in his confidence

and

and esteem; their merit was profusely rewarded; c H A P. the emperor feasted in their houses, and presented XLVIII. their children at the baptismal font; and while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the cold and stately reserve of his predecessors. The unnatural lusts which had degraded even the manhood of Nero, were banished from the world; yet the strength of Michael was consumed by the indulgence of love and intemperance. In his midnight revels, when his passions were inflamed by wine, he was provoked to issue the most sanguinary commands; and if any feelings of humanity were left, he was reduced, with the return of sense, to approve the salutary disobedience of his servants. But the most extraordinary feature in the character of Michael, is the profane mockery of the religion of his country. The superstition of the Greeks might, indeed, excite the smile of a philosopher; but his smile would have been rational and temperate, and he must have condemned the ignorant folly of a youth, who insulted the objects of public veneration. A buffoon of the court was invested in the robes of the patriarch; his twelve metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments; they used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and in their bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day of a solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch

at

CHA P. at the head of his clergy; and by their licentious XLVIII. shouts and obscene gestures, disordered the gravi

ty of the Christian procession. The devotion of Michael appeared only in some offence to reason or piety: He received his theatrical crowns from the statue of the Virgin; and an Imperial tomb was violated for the sake of burning the bones of Constantine the Iconoclast. By this extravagant conduct, the son of Theophilus became as contemptible as he was odious: Every citizen was impatient for the deliverance of his country; and even the favourites of the moment were apprehensive that a caprice might snatch away what a caprice had bestowed. In the thirtieth year of his age, and in the hour of intoxication and sleep, Michael the third was murdered in his chamber, by the founder of a new dynasty, whom the emperor had raised to an equality of rank and power. The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian (if it the Mace- be not the spurious offspring of pride and flattery) donian, A.D. 867, exhibits a genuine picture of the revolution of the Sept. 24. most illustrious families. The Arsacides, the rivals of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near four hundred years: A younger branch of these Parthian kings continued to reign in Armenia; and their royal descendants survived the partition and servitude of that ancient monarchy. Two of these, Artabanus and Chlienes, escaped or retired to the court of Leo the first: His bounty seated them in a safe and hospitable exile, in the province of Macedonia: Adrianople was their final settlement. During several generations, they maintained

Basil I.

the