of a usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the success of his own
flattery, when he beheld the Byzantine priest assuming the state
and temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. ^26 Between three
persons so different in their situation and character, a private
league was concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the
senate; and the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By
this powerful confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at
first with clandestine, at length with open, arms. His
prerogatives were disputed; his opinions slighted; his friends
persecuted; and his safety was threatened both in the camp and
city. In his absence on the public service, he was accused of
treason; proscribed as an enemy of the church and state; and
delivered with all his adherents to the sword of justice, the
vengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes
were confiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; ^* all
his past services were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by
injustice to perpetrate the crime of which he was accused. ^27
From the review of his preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to
have been guiltless of any treasonable designs; and the only
suspicion of his innocence must arise from the vehemence of his
protestations, and the sublime purity which he ascribes to his
own virtue. While the empress and the patriarch still affected
the appearances of harmony, he repeatedly solicited the
permission of retiring to a private, and even a monastic, life.
After he had been declared a public enemy, it was his fervent
wish to throw himself at the feet of the young emperor, and to
receive without a murmur the stroke of the executioner: it was
not without reluctance that he listened to the voice of reason,
which inculcated the sacred duty of saving his family and
friends, and proved that he could only save them by drawing the