ir two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given
in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the
pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited
this alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned
how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation;
but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had
restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law
and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the
virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance
of her country. [64] In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice
was lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by
the stronger argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the North,
Wolodomir, great prince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman
purple; and his claim was enforced by the threats of war, the promise of
conversion, and the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel.
A victim of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn
from the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a
hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighborhood
of the Polar circle. [65] Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and
fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus was recommended by her
Imperial descent; and the king of France, Henry I., sought a wife on the
last borders of Europe and Christendom. [66]

[Footnote 58: The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be
explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of Ducange.]

[Footnote 59: Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid, viii.
688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long line of kings.
Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter to Augustus) an quod
reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in August. c. 69.) Yet I much
question (for I cannot stay to inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared
to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

[Footnote 60: Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in Tito, c.
7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty was at this
time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine has most discreetly
suppressed both her age and her country.]

[Footnote 61: Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with whom
he claimed