himself to the throne, for which he was tried and condemned to death. This punishment, on account of his fine person, was commuted for a short exile; after which the imperial widow nominated him to the command of her armies, and in 1067, she married him, and he was proclaimed emperor. He had not occupied the throne more than two months, before he put himself at the head of the few troops he could assemble, and crossed the Hellespont to attack the Turkish sultan, who had made incursions into his territories. He came up with the Turks, who were retiring, loaded with rich spoils. He attacked and routed them with great slaughter, and pursuing his success, recovered Aleppo and Hierapolis. In the two following campaigns, Romanus displayed his military talents to great advantage, and finally drove the Turks across the Euphrates. In the fourth campaign he led a numerous army to the deliverance of Armenia. After this he shared in a defeat, and was, in a general engagement, left alone, almost in the midst of his enemies, and was taken prisoner by the Turkish sultan; who obliged him to sign an humiliating treaty, and then set him at liberty. During his misfortunes, a revolution was effected at Constantinople; Eudocia had been driven from the throne, and shut up in a monastery; and her eldest son Michael Ducas, had been proclaimed emperor. Romanus was dethroned, and his eyes torn out with circumstances of so much cruelty, that he soon died. This happened in 1071, after a reign of three years and eight months.

MICHAEL VII., emperor of the East, of the house of Ducas, surnamed Parapinaces, was the son of Constantine XI. On the defeat and capture of the emperor Romanus Diogenes, who had married Eudocia, the widow of Constantine, Michael was proclaimed emperor in 1071, by the influence of his uncle, the Cæsar John. He had studied philosophy and rhetoric, and possessed, says Gibbon, "the virtues of a monk, and the learning of a sophist," but was unfit for the cares of the empire, which devolved upon his uncle. He was, however, accused of diminishing the measure of corn for his own emolument and that of a rapacious favourite, during a scarcity, which fixed upon him his reproachful surname. The peace of the empire was disturbed soon after his accession by an invasion of the Turks, who made an alarming progress, and more than once defeated the emperor's generals. At length, in the midst of the public confusion, two of his commanders, Botoniates, and Bryennius, raised a revolt, and Michael, finding himself unequal to the task of reducing them, left a clear field to their mutual competition, and retired to a monastery in 1078, after reigning six years and half. He died in the possession of the see of Ephesus.

NICEPHORUS III., Botoniates, emperor of the East, was a general under Constantine Ducas, when he was defeated

He

and taken prisoner in an invasion of the Scythian Uzians. commanded the Asiatic forces of the empire, when the contemptible character of Michael Ducas encouraged him to revolt, and make an alliance with the Turks, whom he had been sent to oppose. Nicephorus Bryennius, the general in Europe, revolted at the same time, and advanced to Constantinople, but was repulsed by the inhabitants, who were exasperated by the licentiousness of his troops. Botoniates soon after approached Chalcedon with a body of Turkish auxiliaries, and, Michael having retired into a monastery, was solemnly recognised as emperor, and crowned by the patriarch in March, 1078. Alexius Comnenus, who had faithfully adhered to Michael till his resignation, offered equal fidelity to Nicephorus III., and was employed by him against three competitors, Ursellius, Bryennius, and Basilacius. All these he successively reduced; and Nicephorus strengthened his authority, by marrying Mary, the widow of the late Michael. He was now advanced in years; and having no male issue, he was persuaded by two favourites to nominate in his testament for his successor, a youth who was his relation. The empress, who had a son married to a daughter of Nicephorus, whom she had destined to the empire, obtaining intelligence of this nomination, communicated it to the brothers, Alexius and Isaac Comnenus, who promised to support her interest. For this purpose they determined upon deposing the emperor; and withdrawing to the army encamped on the Thracian border, they engaged the chief officers in their conspiracy. Alexius was proclaimed by the soldiery, and advanced at their head to Constantinople, into which capital he was privately admitted. Nicephorus, deserted by all his friends, quitted the throne, after a reign of nearly three years, and retreated to a monastery, where he took the habit, and ended his days in peace and obscurity.

ALEXIUS I., COMNENUS, emperor of the East, son of John Comnenus, who was brother of the emperor Isaac, was born at Constantinople, in 1048. After having received an excellent education, he was early employed in military service, and, along with his elder brother Isaac, commanded against the Turks. Alexius, during the reign of Nicephorus, defeated Bryennius and Basilacius, two competitors for the throne. In consequence of some court intrigues, the two brothers, of the Comneni were driven into rebellion, and withdrawing to the army on the borders of Thrace, they obtained its concurrence in the deposition of Nicephorus. Isaac, though the elder, readily consented to the preference of Alexius. He was saluted emperor by the troops, and immediately marched to Constantinople; the capital was betrayed into his hands, and his barbarian soldiers obtained much wealthy spoil from the churches and monasteries. By the influence of George Palæologus, the fleet was induced to declare in his favour; and the resignation

of Botoniates transferred, without bloodshed, the crown to Alexius in 1081.

own.

Robert Guiscard, the famous Norman, invaded the empire on the side of Epirus. Alexius marched at the head of a large army, but was defeated by the Norman with great loss. Alexius entered into an alliance with Henry, emperor of Germany; by whose invasion of Calabria, Robert was recalled home. His son, Bohemond, however, continued the war in Greece with various success; but was, at length, compelled to follow his father. In 1084, Robert invaded Greece a second time, on which Alexius engaged the Venetian fleet to join his Three engagements were fought near Corfu, in the two first of which the Greeks and Venetians had the advantage; in the latter, the Normans obtained a complete victory. The death of Robert, however, caused the Normans to withdraw their troops, and peace was restored. The Scythians now invaded the empire; but Alexius marched against them, and gained a complete victory, in which the enemy was almost annihilated. Wars with the Turks, and a renewed war with the Scythians, kept the empire in almost total agitation, till the period when it was still more seriously endangered by the events of the famous first crusade. Alexius himself originally contributed to rouse this storm of war, which fell so heavily on his own dominions. His ambassadors appeared at the famous council of Placentia, where, by strong representations of the danger of Constantinople from the Turks, and suppliant addresses to the martial princes of western Europe for their aid, they obtained assurances of powerful and speedy succour. But the first expedition, under Peter the hermit, was sufficient to excite the apprehensions of the Greek emperor with respect to such ferocious and dangerous allies; and when Godfrey, of Bouillon, with the other confederate princes, arrived at Constantinople, in 1096, Alexius was rather disposed to regard them as enemies than friends. His daughter, Anna Comnena, has informed us that a French lord had the impudence to sit down by the emperor upon his throne, and carried his insolence so far as to say,-"This Greek is an audacious clown to presume to sit in our presence." The policy of Alexius was, therefore, irresolute and ambiguous; and he has been charged by the Latin writers with the basest treachery, while his intentions seem to have been no more than to guard against the dangers which pressed him on all sides. He made a treaty, in which it was stipulated he should assist them with his forces, and supply them with all necessaries; while on their parts they should restore to the empire all the conquests they should make from the Turks and Saracens. He attached the leaders by presents and flattery, and having induced them all severally to pay him homage, he dismissed them as speedily as possible to the seat of war in Asia. Nice was the first place taken by the crusa

ders; and it was delivered up to the emperor. Afterwards Antioch surrendered to them; but of this metropolis and its territory, they elected Bohemond king, regardless of their stipulations with the emperor; who, they alleged, had failed in his part of the conditions. Alexius, however, reaped some advantage from the successes of the Christian princes, since they enabled him to recover from the Turks several Greek islands, with some maritime towns in Lesser Asia. But he was thereby involved in a war with Bohemond, who took from him Laodicea, as appertaining to his kingdom of Antioch. The emperor then fitted out a great fleet, which defeated that of the crusaders near Rhodes. One of his generals also laid siege to Laodicea, and retook it. Bohemond afterwards having received large reinforcements from Europe, landed in Greece, and besieged Durazzo. It held out however till the war was terminated by a negociation; and soon after, the emperor was relieved from his inveterate foe, by the death of Bohemond. Alexius then marched in person against the Turks, who had made incursions to the gates of Nice, and gave them a signal defeat; but they returned in the following year, and several actions ensued between them and the emperor's lieutenants, till at length, they were brought to sue for peace. Alexius, now grown old, and disabled by the gout, no more left his capital, but spent the latter part of his life in endeavouring to heal the divisions which rent the Greek church. He ingratiated himself with the clergy as a champion of the orthodox faith; and, though not cruel by nature, was led by his zeal to the persecution of heretics. His long reign of thirty-seven years fatigued his subjects, and when he died, in 1118, he had, in a great measure, lost their affection and reverence. On his death-bed he resisted the solicitations of the empress Irene, for disinheriting his son John in favour of the husband of his daughter Anne; and the empress indignantly replied to a pious ejaculation that he made on the vanity of the world, "You die as you have lived, a hypocrite." His character has been painted in the most opposite colours by friends and enemies. His daughter, the celebrated historian, Anna Comnena, represents it as a composition of every royal and private virtue; whilst the Latins paint him as a monster of perfidy. Considering the peculiar difficulties under which he laboured, some craft and duplicity may be excused; and it must be acknowledged that his incessant vigilance and activity were worthy of his station, and that few princes have done more for the benefit of their people. He was bountiful to his friends, and clement to his enemies,-a lover of letters, and equally versed in the arts of government and of war.

NICEPHORUS BRYENNIUS, a prince distinguished by his probity and learning, was born at Orestia, in Macedonia; where his father by rebelling, provoked the emperor to send his general Alexius Comnenus against him, who ordered his

eyes to be put out; but admiring the good figure and character of his son Nicephorus, he married him to his own daughter Anna Comnena, so famous by her writings. When Alexius came to the throne, he gave Bryennius the title of Cæsar; but would not declare him his successor, though solicited by the empress Irene; and was therefore succeeded by his son John Comnenus, to whom Bryennius behaved with the utmost fidelity. Being sent, about A. D. 1137, to besiege Antioch, he fell sick; and, returning, died at Constantinople. He had undertaken to write the life of his father-in-law Alexius; but having commenced his work as far back as the reign of Isaac Comnenus, he only finished four books, containing that reign, and those of the three succeeding emperors, and terminating with the expedition of Nicephorus Botoniates against Nicephorus Meissen. This work was translated into Latin, and with the original, published by the Jesuit Poussines, at Paris, in 1661. The annotations of Du Cange, were added in 1670.

ANNA COMNENA, daughter of the emperor Alexius Comnenus I., has been rendered memorable by her talents as well as her rank. In the midst of a voluptuous and frivolous court, she addicted herself to the study of letters, and cultivated an acquaintance with philosophers. She was married to a young nobleman of distinction, Nicephorus Bryennius; and her philosophy had not so far mortified her ambition, but that, upon the last illness of her father, she joined with the empress Irene, in soliciting him to disinherit his son in favour of her husband. On the failure of this scheme she excited a conspiracy for the deposition of her brother; and when Bryennius impeded its success by his fears or scruples, she lamented that nature had mistaken their sexes, for that he ought to have been the woman. The plot was discovered and defeated; and Anna was punished by the confiscation of her property, which was, however, restored to her by the indulgent emperor; but she appears never more to have possessed any influence at court. She soothed the solitude of her latter years, by composing a minute history of her father's reign; a work still extant, and which forms a conspicuous portion of the collection of Byzantine historians. The authors of the "Journal des Scavans," for 1075, have spoken of this learned and accomplished lady in the following manner. "The elegance," say they, "with which Anna Comnena has described, in fifteen books, the life and actions of her father, and the strong and eloquent manner in which she has set them off, are so much above the ordinary understanding of women, that one is almost ready to doubt, whether indeed she was the author of these books. It is certain one cannot read the description she has given of countries, rivers, mountains, towns, sieges, battles, the reflections she makes upon particular events, the judgment she passes upon imperial 'human actions, and the digressions