OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 197 justice arbitrary and cruel. He displayed the banner of the cross against the Saracens ; but his five expeditions were con- cluded bv a signal overthrow ; Amorium, the native city oftAD, sss. •^ " Sept. 23] his ancestors, was levelled with the ground, and from his military toils he derived only the surname of the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign is comprised in the institution of laws and the choice of magistrates, and, while he seems without action, his civil government revolves round his centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But the justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the Oriental despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of authority, consult the reason or passion of the moment, without measuring the sentence by the law or the penalty by the offence. A poor woman threw herself at the emperor's feet, to complain of a powerful neighbour, the brother of the empress, who had raised his palace-wall to such an inconvenient height that her humble dwelling was excluded from light and air ! On the proof of the fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use and benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theo- philus content with this extravagant satisfaction : his zeal con- verted a civil trespass into a criminal act ; and the unfortunate patrician was stripped and scourged in the public place of Constantinople. For some venial offences, some defect of equity or vigilance, the principal ministers, a praefect, a quaestor, a captain of the guards, Vv^ere banished or mutilated, or scalded with boiling pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome : and, as these dreadful examples might be the effects of error or caprice, they must have alienated from his service the best and wisest of the citizens. But the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise of power, or, as he thought, of virtue ; and the people, safe in their obscurity, applauded the danger and debasement of their superiors. This extraordinary rigour was justified, in some measure, by its salutary consequences ; since, after a scrutiny of seventeen days, not ;i complaint or abuse could be found in the court or city ; and it might be alleged that the Greeks could be ruled onl}^ with a rod of iron, and that the public interest is the motive and law of the supi'eme judge. Yet in the crime, or the suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the most credulous and partial. Theo- philus might inflict a tardy vengeance on the assassins of Leo and the saviours of his father ; but he enjoyed the fruits of their crime ; and his jealous tyranny sacrificed a brother and
