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, that her avarice had degraded the character of an empress
into that of a merchant. Yet his last choice intrusted her with the
guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who was left an orphan
in the fifth year of his age. The restoration of images, and the final
extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has endeared her name to the devotion of
the Greeks; but in the fervor of religious zeal, Theodora entertained
a grateful regard for the memory and salvation of her husband. After
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 and 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 labored 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 age of eighteen, he rejected her authority, without feeling his
own incapacity to govern the empire and 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 favor of the
emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been accumulated
for the service of the state, wer