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The Greeks immediately proceeded to the election of a new Monarch; and looking about for a man with courage, energy, and perseverance, they fixed upon Alexius Ducas, who, with almost every bad quality, was possessed of the virtues they needed. He ascended the throne under the name of Murzuphlis.
But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and related the adventures of his fall and flight.
"But what have they heard?" "It seems that Roden isn't an Englishman at all." "That will be as he likes, I take it. He has lived here as an Englishman for five-and-twenty years." "But of course he'll prefer to be an Italian," said Vivian. "It turns out that he is heir to one of the oldest titles in Italy. You have heard of the Ducas di Crinola?" "I have heard of them now."
Under the triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers were reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman sceptre; and his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach which he shared with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the price, and diminished the measure, of wheat.
The Poetics had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac translation of the Greek. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine Rhetores Graeci badly edited by Ducas. Robortelli edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549.
The disturbed conditions in the East, together with the decay of Greek influence and the cowardice and helplessness of the Byzantine emperors, had led Michael Ducas to appeal to Pope Gregory for help. The prize offered Gregory was the submission of the Greek to the Roman Church and the removal of all barriers. From the standpoint of ability, Gregory well deserves the title "Great."
In great anger the people of Constantinople rose, under a man named Alexius Ducas, called “Black-brows,” murdered the two emperors, and set up this new one; but he did not reign long, for the French and Venetians were close at hand.
Having seen Fantasia the previous night and admiring Mickey Mouse's jaunty swagger I hummed the melody of Ducas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice as I swaggered down into the dark tunnel; I stopped abruptly when the fluid was over the tops of my gaiters; my humming stopped and my language was not nice at all.
The soldiers who had been gradually assembled in the capital and the neighborhood, were devoted to the cause of a victorious and injured leader: the ties of common interest and domestic alliance secured the attachment of the house of Ducas; and the generous dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the decisive resolution of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger brother with the name and ensigns of royalty.
The youth was dismissed from the perils of the Turkish war, by the paternal care of the emperor Romanus: but the mother of the Comneni, with her aspiring face, was accused of treason, and banished, by the sons of Ducas, to an island in the Propontis.
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