cient to provoke an
insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to justice:
but the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her safety: a
monastery was allotted for her prison, and the widow of Maurice accepted
and abused the lenity of his assassin. The discovery or the suspicion of
a second conspiracy, dissolved the engagements, and rekindled the fury,
of Phocas. A matron who commanded the respect and pity of mankind, the
daughter, wife, and mother of emperors, was tortured like the vilest
malefactor, to force a confession of her designs and associates; and the
empress Constantina, with her three innocent daughters, was beheaded at
Chalcedon, on the same ground which had been stained with the blood
of her husband and five sons. After such an example, it would be
superfluous to enumerate the names and sufferings of meaner victims.
Their condemnation was seldom preceded by the forms of trial, and their
punishment was embittered by the refinements of cruelty: their eyes were
pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands and feet were
amputated; some expired under the lash, others in the flames; others
again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple speedy death was mercy
which they could rarely obtain. The hippodrome, the sacred asylum of
the pleasures and the liberty of the Romans, was polluted with heads and
limbs, and mangled bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most
sensible, that neither his favor, nor their services, could protect them
from a tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the
first age of the empire. [51]

[Footnote 48: Gregor. l. xi. epist. 38, indict. vi. Benignitatem vestrae
pietatis ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus. Laetentur coeli
et exultet terra, et de vestris benignis actibus universae republicae
populus nunc usque vehementer afflictus hilarescat, &c. This base
flattery, the topic of Protestant invective, is justly censured by the
philosopher Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire I. Not. H. tom. ii.
p. 597 598.) Cardinal Baronius justifies the pope at the expense of the
fallen emperor.]

[Footnote 49: The images of Phocas were destroyed; but even the malice
of his enemies would suffer one copy of such a portrait or caricature
(Cedrenus, p. 404) to escape the flames.]

[Footnote 50: The family of Maurice is represented by Ducange, (Familiae
By zantinae, p. 106, 107, 108;) his eldest son Theodosius had been
crowned emperor, when