modillions; the architrave and the frieze were only a painted effect.
The floor was of bricks. Chimneys were not yet used, and the apartment
was warmed by hot air supplied from a hypocaustum, placed within the
walls or below the floor, and admitted through a painted iron grating.

The wall decorations presented an infinite variety of beautifully
executed mouldings and scroll designs of flowers and foliage, common to
the Byzantine style. A prominent feature of the mural decoration was the
numerous figures, in stiff attitudes, draped with garments falling in
meagre folds, and decked with abundant fringes and precious stones,
after the Oriental fashion; close to these figures were placed groups of
Greek letters.

The furniture of the room was sober in style. The bed was shaped and
ornamented somewhat like a modern sofa. The occupant reclined rather
than lay on it, for the cushions were heaped up increasingly toward the
head of the bed. It was customary to sleep without garments, the only
covering being an ample sheet. A curtain on sliding rings was
indispensable; it served to screen from draughts, as well as to separate
beds; moreover, it supplemented the scanty furniture of the room.

Over the bed was a lighted lamp. This was invariably used, for darkness
was dreaded, and it was believed that the light kept off evil spirits
and prevented baleful apparitions. In this room the great lady of our
period received her guests; here intrigues were plotted; here she
partook of her repasts, waited upon by her many serving-maids; here she
passed, indeed, most of her life.

XIV

THE PRINCESSES OF THE COMNENI

With the end of the Macedonian house in 1057, all the elements of
discord in the Byzantine Empire seemed to have been loosed. Civil war
and foreign invasions rapidly succeeded one another, and the empire
hastened to its doom. But the downward progress was for a time checked
by the rise of the Comneni, a prominent family, who controlled the
destinies and exerted a paramount influence over the career of the
Byzantine government for over a century, in fact, until its overthrow by
the Latin Crusaders in 1204. In the chronicles of the Comneni, its
princesses played a notable though not always creditable role; and the
undercurrent of Byzantine history for a century and a half was
determined largely by woman's influence and woman's artifice.

Of the great families whose names appear on every page of the Byzantine
histo