of his
danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward; and the free
voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the office of
secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of Anastasius the
Second, and displayed in a short and troubled reign the virtues both of
peace and war. But after the extinction of the Imperial line, the rule
of obedience was violated, and every change diffused the seeds of new
revolutions. In a mutiny of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer
of the revenue was forcibly invested with the purple: after some months
of a naval war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,
Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior ascendant
of Leo, the general and emperor of the Oriental troops. His two
predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical profession:
the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to risk and to lose
his life in a treasonable enterprise; but the last days of Theodosius
were honorable and secure. The single sublime word, "health," which
he inscribed on his tomb, expresses the confidence of philosophy or
religion; and the fame of his miracles was long preserved among the
people of Ephesus. This convenient shelter of the church might sometimes
impose a lesson of clemency; but it may be questioned whether it is for
the public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.

I have dwelt on the fall of a tyrant; I shall briefly represent the
founder of a new dynasty, who is known to posterity by the invectives
of his enemies, and whose public and private life is involved in the
ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in spite of the clamors
of superstition, a favorable prejudice for the character of Leo the
Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from the obscurity of his birth, and
the duration of his reign.--I. In an age of manly spirit, the prospect
of an Imperial reward would have kindled every energy of the mind, and
produced a crowd of competitors as deserving as they were desirous to
reign. Even in the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the
elevation of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society,
supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He would
probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science; and, in the
pursuit of fortune, he might absolve himself from the obligations of
benevolence and justice; but to his character we may ascribe the useful
virtues of pru