ied with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate
on the ground, he deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his past
rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some faithful subject
would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an iron chain with which he
had secretly encircled his neck. This extraordinary penance excited the
wonder and pity of the assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church
and state; but the just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a
distance from the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with
rich vineyards, and situate on the coast of the Euxine. The death of
Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon opened the fairest field
to his ambition. The emperor was a boy of twelve or fourteen years of
age, without vigor, or wisdom, or experience: his mother, the empress
Mary, abandoned her person and government to a favorite of the Comnenian
name; and his sister, another Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was
decorated with the title of Caesar, excited a conspiracy, and at length
an insurrection, against her odious step-mother. The provinces were
forgotten, the capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order
was overthrown in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war was
kindled in Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody battle in
the square of the palace, and the rebels sustained a regular siege in
the cathedral of St. Sophia. The patriarch labored with honest zeal to
heal the wounds of the republic, the most respectable patriots called
aloud for a guardian and avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise
of the talents and even the virtues of Andronicus. In his retirement,
he affected to revolve the solemn duties of his oath: "If the safety or
honor of the Imperial family be threatened, I will reveal and oppose
the mischief to the utmost of my power." His correspondence with the
patriarch and patricians was seasoned with apt quotations from the
Psalms of David and the epistles of St. Paul; and he patiently waited
till he was called to her deliverance by the voice of his country. In
his march from Oenoe to Constantinople, his slender train insensibly
swelled to a crowd and an army: his professions of religion and loyalty
were mistaken for the language of his heart; and the simplicity of a
foreign dress, which showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed
a lively image of his poverty and exile. All opposition sunk before him;
he reached