rt the right of a military election. They marched towards the
capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of Constantinople,
adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops and treasures of Asia
might have protracted the mischiefs of civil war. But his humanity (by
the ambitious it will be termed his weakness) protested that not a drop
of Christian blood should be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers
presented the conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They
were disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes
were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of solitude and
religion above thirty-two years after he had been stripped of the purple
and separated from his wife.

A rebel, in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate Bardanes,
had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet, who, after
prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of his three principal
officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the Phrygian, and Thomas the
Cappadocian, the successive reigns of the two former, the fruitless and
fatal enterprise of the third. This prediction was verified, or rather
was produced, by the event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp
rejected the husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same
Leo, the first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As
he affected to hesitate, "With this sword," said his companion Michael,
"I will open the gates of Constantinople to your Imperial sway; or
instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you obstinately resist the just
desires of your fellow-soldiers." The compliance of the Armenian was
rewarded with the empire, and he reigned seven years and a half under
the name of Leo the Fifth. Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws
and letters, he introduced into his civil government the rigor and
even cruelty of military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes
dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the guilty. His
religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of Chameleon, but the
Catholics have acknowledged by the voice of a saint and confessors, that
the life of the Iconoclast was useful to the republic. The zeal of his
companion Michael was repaid with riches, honors, and military command;
and his subordinate talents were beneficially employed in the public
service. Yet the Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a
scanty portion of the Imperial prize which he