es compelled him to yield, on the assurance of fair and honorable
treatment; but his enemies were devoid of faith or humanity; and, after
the cruel extinction of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and
corrupt, till in a few days he was relieved from a state of misery.
Under the triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers
were reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the
pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman sceptre;
and his surname of _Parapinaces_ denotes the reproach which he shared
with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the price, and diminished the
measure, of wheat. In the school of Psellus, and after the example of
his mother, the son of Eudocia made some proficiency in philosophy and
rhetoric; but his character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the
virtues of a monk and the learning of a sophist. Strong in the contempt
of their sovereign and their own esteem, two generals, at the head of
the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the purple at Adrianople and
Nice. Their revolt was in the same months; they bore the same name of
Nicephorus; but the two candidates were distinguished by the surnames
of Bryennius and Botaniates; the former in the maturity of wisdom and
courage, the latter conspicuous only by the memory of his past exploits.
While Botaniates advanced with cautious and dilatory steps, his active
competitor stood in arms before the gates of Constantinople. The name
of Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was popular; but his licentious
troops could not be restrained from burning and pillaging a suburb; and
the people, who would have hailed the rebel, rejected and repulsed
the incendiary of his country. This change of the public opinion
was favorable to Botaniates, who at length, with an army of Turks,
approached the shores of Chalcedon. A formal invitation, in the name
of the patriarch, the synod, and the senate, was circulated through the
streets of Constantinople; and the general assembly, in the dome of
St. Sophia, debated, with order and calmness, on the choice of their
sovereign. The guards of Michael would have dispersed this unarmed
multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding his own moderation and
clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was rewarded with the
monastic habit, and the title of Archbishop of Ephesus. He left a son,
a Constantine, born and educated in the purple; and a daughter of the
house of Ducas illustrat