l armies; and in the anarchy of
the times, had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national esteem.
With a victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from the mouth of
the Danube into the harbor of Constantinople, and was hailed as the
deliverer of the people, and the guardian of the prince. His supreme
office was at first defined by the new appellation of father of
the emperor; but Romanus soon disdained the subordinate powers of a
minister, and assumed with the titles of Caesar and Augustus, the full
independence of royalty, which he held near five-and-twenty years. His
three sons, Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine were successively
adorned with the same honors, and the lawful emperor was degraded from
the first to the fifth rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the
preservation of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own
fortune and the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and
modern history would have excused the ambition of Romanus: the powers
and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth of
Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave or the
monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine. But Lecapenus
does not appear to have possessed either the virtues or the vices of a
tyrant. The spirit and activity of his private life dissolved away in
the sunshine of the throne; and in his licentious pleasures, he forgot
the safety both of the republic and of his family. Of a mild and
religious character, he respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence
of the youth, the memory of his parents, and the attachment of the
people. The studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the
jealousy of power: his books and music, his pen and his pencil, were a
constant source of amusement; and if he could improve a scanty allowance
by the sale of his pictures, if their price was not enhanced by the name
of the artist, he was endowed with a personal talent, which few princes
could employ in the hour of adversity.

The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of his
children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son, the two
surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and conspired against
their father. At the hour of noon, when all strangers were regularly
excluded from the palace, they entered his apartment with an armed
force, and conveyed him, in the habit of a monk, to a small island in
the Propontis, which was peopled