the native city of his
ancestors, was levelled with the ground and from his military toils he
derived only the surname of the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign
is comprised in the institution of laws and the choice of magistrates,
and while he seems without action, his civil government revolves round
his centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But
the justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the Oriental
despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of authority, consult the
reason or passion of the moment, without measuring the sentence by the
law, or the penalty by the offense. A poor woman threw herself at the
emperor's feet to complain of a powerful neighbor, the brother of the
empress, who had raised his palace-wall to such an inconvenient height,
that her humble dwelling was excluded from light and air! On the proof
of the fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or
ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use and
benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theophilus content with this
extravagant satisfaction: his zeal converted a civil trespass into a
criminal act; and the unfortunate patrician was stripped and scourged
in the public place of Constantinople. For some venial offenses, some
defect of equity or vigilance, the principal ministers, a praefect,
a quaestor, a captain of the guards, were banished or mutilated, or
scalded with boiling pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome; and as
these dreadful examples might be the effects of error or caprice,
they must have alienated from his service the best and wisest of the
citizens. But the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise
of power, or, as he thought, of virtue; and the people, safe in their
obscurity, applauded the danger and debasement of their superiors. This
extraordinary rigor was justified, in some measure, by its salutary
consequences; since, after a scrutiny of seventeen days, not a complaint
or abuse could be found in the court or city; and it might be alleged
that the Greeks could be ruled only with a rod of iron, and that the
public interest is the motive and law of the supreme judge. Yet in the
crime, or the suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the
most credulous and partial. Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance
on the assassins of Leo and the saviors of his father; but he enjoyed
the fruits of their crime; and his jealous tyranny sacrificed