160. As her life drew to its appointed close, when she was on the point of dying, slight changes made their appearance in her normal state of health, signs that the end was near. She lost her appetite and as the lack of nourishment made itself felt more and more, she caught a fever, which proved fatal. It was obvious from the pining away of her body — one might almost say its decay — that death was at hand. Her first thought was for those in prison. Debts were remitted, and an amnesty granted to condemned criminals. She opened up the imperial treasury and allowed the gold kept there to pour forth like a river. So the gold was squandered with all the uncontrolled profusion of a flood, and Zoe, after a short and painful illness, but little change in her outward appearance, departed this life at the age of seventy-two.**135
Contribute a host of compliments to my eulogy
161. Having completed my account of the empress, I will return to Constantine. First, however, I have this observation to make. It was not my desire to write a history, or to acquire a reputation for veracity in that sphere. What I wanted to do was to compose a panegyric in honour of this ruler. Certainly I should have been able to contribute a host of compliments to my eulogy, for he afforded abundant justification for them. The encomiast, you see, passes over all that is unworthy in his hero, and concentrates on his nobler deeds. Where the bad deeds are in the majority, the orator needs to find only one incident where his subject conducted himself in a noble fashion, and he will produce a passable eulogy. By clever handling even mean exploits can be misinterpreted so as to become an excuse for praise.
But the man who writes a history is like a judge, no respecter of persons and incorruptible. In his description of events he is biassed in favour of neither side, but adepts in his account a policy of strict impartiality. He brings forward no subtle arguments on behalf of the good, or of the bad, but purely and simply tells what happened. Where two persons are involved in the history, and of them one (a virtuous man) had previously treated the author with boundless contempt, while the other (a man of quite a different stamp) used to confer on him certain favours, the historian will not be influenced by the behaviour of either man towards himself, and each will be represented in his true character.
Read More about Zoe and Theodora part 81
