Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/220

198 THE DECLINE AND FALL a prince to the future safety of his life. A Persian of the race of the Sassanides died in poverty and exile at Constantinople, leaving an only son, the issue of a plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years, the royal birth of Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not unworthy of his birth. He was educated in the Byzantine palace, a Christian and a soldier ; advanced with rapid steps in the career of fortune and glory ; received the hand of the emperor's sister ; and was promoted to the command of thirty thousand Persians, who, like his father, had fled from the Mahometan conquerors. These troops, doubly in- fected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were desirous of re- volting against their benefactor and erecting the standard of their native king ; but the loyal Theophobus rejected their offers, disconcerted their schemes, and escaped from their hands to the camp or palace of his royal brother. A generous con- fidence might have secured a faithful and able guardian for his wife and his infant son, to whom Theophilus, in the flower of his age, was compelled to leave the inheritance of the empire. But his jealousy was exasperated by envy and disease ; he feared the dangerous virtues which might either support or oppress their infancy and weakness ; and the dying emperor demanded the head of the Persian prince. With savage de- light, he recognised the familiar features of his brother : "Thou art no longer Theophobus," he said ; and sinking on his couch [AD. 842] he added, with a faltering voice, " Soon, too soon, I shall be no more Theophilus ! " The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part of their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the last century, a singular institution in the man'iage of the Czar. They collected, not the virgins of every rank and of every province, a vain and romantic idea, but the daughters of the principal nobles, who awaited in the palace the choice of their sovereign. It is affirmed that a similar method was adopted in the nuptials of Theophilus.^^ With a golden apple in his hand, he slowly walked between two lines of contending ^[A similar brideshow was held to select a wife for I.eo VI., son of Basil and Eudocia, See the .Voyos- of Nicephorus Gregoras on Theophano, who was chosen on this occasion ; in Hergenrother's Monuin. Grace, ad I'hotiuni eiusque his- toriam pertinentia, p. 74. In this connexion compare also the life of .St. Irene, who came from Cappadocia to Constantinople in consequence of letters sent through the Empire (Kara iraaav yrjr) by Theodora, wife of Theophilus, seeking a wife for her son (Acta Sett., July 28, vol. vi. , c. 5 S(jj.). Cp. Th. Uspenski, Ocherki po istorii vizantiskoi obrazovannosti, p. 57.]