ion was commanded to extirpate the remains of the
proscribed colony. In the short interval, the Chersonites had returned
to their city, and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars
had renounced the cause of his odious brother; the exiles of every
province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name
of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial troops,
unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of Justinian, escaped
his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance: the fleet, under their
new sovereign, steered back a more auspicious course to the harbors of
Sinope and Constantinople; and every tongue was prompt to pronounce,
every hand to execute, the death of the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he
was deserted by his Barbarian guards; and the stroke of the assassin was
praised as an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius had
taken refuge in a church; his aged grandmother guarded the door; and the
innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most formidable relics,
embraced with one hand the altar, with the other the wood of the true
cross. But the popular fury that dares to trample on superstition,
is deaf to the cries of humanity; and the race of Heraclius was
extinguished after a reign of one hundred years.

Between the fall of the Heraclian and the rise of the Isaurian dynasty,
a short interval of six years is divided into three reigns. Bardanes,
or Philippicus, was hailed at Constantinople as a hero who had delivered
his country from a tyrant; and he might taste some moments of happiness
in the first transports of sincere and universal joy. Justinian had left
behind him an ample treasure, the fruit of cruelty and rapine: but
this useful fund was soon and idly dissipated by his successor. On the
festival of his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the
games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the streets with
a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets; refreshed himself in the
baths of Zeuxippus, and returning to the palace, entertained his nobles
with a sumptuous banquet. At the meridian hour he withdrew to his
chamber, intoxicated with flattery and wine, and forgetful that his
example had made every subject ambitious, and that every ambitious
subject was his secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced
themselves in the disorder of the feast; and the slumbering monarch was
surprised, bound, blinded, and deposed, before he was sensible