8. The prize-money for the soldiers and the revenues devoted to army expenditure were quite unnecessarily diverted and put aside for the use of other persons — a crowd of sycophants and those who at that time were deputed to guard the empresses — as if the emperor Basil had filled the imperial treasuries with wealth for this very purpose.
9. Most men are convinced that the nations around us have made their sudden incursions against our borders, these wild unexpected inroads, for the first time in our day, but I myself hold a different view. I believe the house is doomed when the mortar that binds its bricks together becomes loose, and although the start of the trouble passed unnoticed by the majority, there is no doubt that it developed and gathered strength from that first cause. In fact, the gathering of the clouds in those days presaged the mighty deluge we are suffering today. But I must not speak of that yet.
The Augusta Zoe Deliberates whom to Promote to the Throne
10. In the description of the events that follow I will speak with greater authority and more personal knowledge. The affairs of state urgently demanded vigorous and skilful direction. The country needed a man’s supervision — a man at once strong-handed and very experienced in government, one who not only understood the present situation, but also any mistakes that had been made in the past, with their probable results.
We wanted a man who would make provision for the future and prepare long beforehand against all possible attacks or likely invasions from abroad. But the love of power, or the lack of power, the apparent freedom and the absence of supervision and the desire for ever greater power — these were the things that made the emperor’s apartment into a gynaeconitis.
11. Even so, most people had no settled convictions. One rumour after another was bruited abroad, either favourable or otherwise to Zoe (for there were some who thought that Theodora should rightly be empress, on the ground that she had championed the cause of the people; moreover, they said, she had never married; others, again, believed the elder sister was more suited to rule, because she had previous experience of power, and power exercised a peculiar fascination on her).
While these rumours were spreading, first one way, then another, among the people, Zoe anticipated their decision and seized all power for herself a second time. The next move was to search for and decide on the man of the most illustrious descent and of the most distinguished fortune, whether he held a seat in the senate or served in the army.
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