tude to his
benefactors, the eunuch and the empress. The disgrace of the former was
pleasing to the public: but the murmurs, and at length the clamors,
of Constantinople deplored the exile of Zoe, the daughter of so many
emperors; her vices were forgotten, and Michael was taught, that there
is a period in which the patience of the tamest slaves rises into fury
and revenge. The citizens of every degree assembled in a formidable
tumult which lasted three days; they besieged the palace, forced the
gates, recalled their mothers, Zoe from her prison, Theodora from her
monastery, and condemned the son of Calaphates to the loss of his eyes
or of his life. For the first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the
two royal sisters seated on the same throne, presiding in the senate,
and giving audience to the ambassadors of the nations. But the singular
union subsisted no more than two months; the two sovereigns, their
tempers, interests, and adherents, were secretly hostile to each other;
and as Theodora was still averse to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe,
at the age of sixty, consented, for the public good, to sustain the
embraces of a third husband, and the censures of the Greek church.
His name and number were Constantine the Tenth, and the epithet of
Monomachus, the single combatant, must have been expressive of his valor
and victory in some public or private quarrel. But his health was broken
by the tortures of the gout, and his dissolute reign was spent in
the alternative of sickness and pleasure. A fair and noble widow had
accompanied Constantine in his exile to the Isle of Lesbos, and Sclerena
gloried in the appellation of his mistress. After his marriage and
elevation, she was invested with the title and pomp of Augusta, and
occupied a contiguous apartment in the palace. The lawful consort (such
was the delicacy or corruption of Zoe) consented to this strange and
scandalous partition; and the emperor appeared in public between his
wife and his concubine. He survived them both; but the last measures of
Constantine to change the order of succession were prevented by the more
vigilant friends of Theodora; and after his decease, she resumed, with
the general consent, the possession of her inheritance. In her name,
and by the influence of four eunuchs, the Eastern world was peaceably
governed about nineteen months; and as they wished to prolong their
dominion, they persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her successor
Micha