connected with the city. His uncle Alexander assumed the regency, but died within a year. The Empress Zoe became regent. Then began the customary revolts and intrigues of generals ambitious to become colleagues on the imperial throne. Constantine Ducas took the lead. He repaired secretly to Constantinople, where the revolt had been already prepared: he was immediately proclaimed emperor, and with such troops as his friends could raise, he hastened to the palace of Chalke, intending to seize on the young emperor. But the faithful English guards were true to their duty, and the rebels were repulsed after a sanguinary fight, in which 3,000 were slain, including Constantine Ducas himself. Then the Bulgarians gave trouble, their king marching up even to the very gates of Constantinople[1] without opposition. Zoe sent one of the finest armies which ever left Constantinople to carry the struggle into the Bulgarian territory. It was cut all to pieces. Then followed a sort of race between Leo Phocas, the general who lost this battle, and Romanus, the admiral who helped to lose it, for the dignity of co-emperor. It was won by Romanus, whose daughter the young emperor married. Romanus, thus arrived at the object of his ambition, proceeded to name his three sons as joint emperors with himself, putting Constantine in the fifth place. Unfortunately for Romanus, his strength was not equal to his ambition. One of the sons died; the other two, dreading that their father would restore Constantine to the first place,
- ↑ This demonstration has been called a siege. Simeon, the King of the Bulgarians, appeared before the city twice again, in 921 and 923.
