Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/88

66 THE DECLINE AND FALL such an example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom preceded by the forms of trial, and their punish- ment was eml)ittered by the refinements of cruelty : their eyes were j)ierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands and feet were amputated ; some expired under the lash, others in the flames, others again were transfixed with arrows ; and a simple speedy death was mercy which the}- could rarely obtain. The hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs and mangled bodies ; and the com))anions of Phocas were the most sensible that neither his favour nor their services could protect them from a tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the first age of the empire.^ His fall and A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage death ADi -/'O o 610. october'4to the patHclan Crispus,*^"' and the royal images of the bride and bridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of the emperor. The father must desire that his posterity should inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch was offended by this premature and ))opular association ; the tribunes of the green faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were condemned to instant death ; their lives were granted to the prayers of the jieople ; but Crispus might reason- ably doubt whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude of Phocas and the loss of their privileges ; everj- province of the empire was ripe for rebellion ; and Hera- clius, exarch of Africa, persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience to the centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country ; but his ambition was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of Gi'egory his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were armed by the two adventurous youths ; they •>* Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by Theophylact, I. viii. c. 13, 14, 15. George of Pisidia, the poet of Heraclius, styles him (Bell. Abaricum, p. 46 [1. 49]. Rome, i777)Tr';Tvpauvi&o<;oiv<TK6.0iKTu^Kafi<.o<>e6po-;&paKf>v. The latter epithet is just — but the corrupter of life was easily vanquished. ^•' In the writers, and in the copies of those writers, there is such hesitation be- tween the names of Prisci/s and Crispus (Ducange. Fani. Byzant. p. iii), that I have been tempted to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five times victorious over the Avars. pi<mo<; is merely a mistake for npiVKos in Mss. of Nicephorus. The mistake does not occuy in Theophanes.]