he city; but
Porphyrogenitus alone, the true and lawful emperor, was the object
of the public care; and the sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy
experience, that they had achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise
for the benefit of their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of
Constantine, revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of
assassinating her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were
alarmed, and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded from
the purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery where their
father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met them on the beach
with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just reproach of their folly and
ingratitude, presented his Imperial colleagues with an equal share
of his water and vegetable diet. In the fortieth year of his reign,
Constantine the Seventh obtained the possession of the Eastern world,
which he ruled or seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid
of that energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and
glory; and the studies, which had amused and dignified his leisure,
were incompatible with the serious duties of a sovereign. The emperor
neglected the practice to instruct his son Romanus in the theory of
government; while he indulged the habits of intemperance and sloth, he
dropped the reins of the administration into the hands of Helena his
wife; and, in the shifting scene of her favor and caprice, each minister
was regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the
birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the Greeks;
they excused his failings; they respected his learning, his innocence,
and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony of his funeral was
mourned with the unfeigned tears of his subjects. The body, according
to ancient custom, lay in state in the vestibule of the palace; and the
civil and military officers, the patricians, the senate, and the clergy
approached in due order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their
sovereign. Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre,
a herald proclaimed this awful admonition: "Arise, O king of the world,
and obey the summons of the King of kings!"

The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son Romanus, who
derived that name from his maternal grandfather, ascended the throne of
Constantinople. A prince who, at the age of twenty, could be suspected
of anticipating his inherit