THE race of Leo the Isaurian, which in no inglorious fashion had filled the whole of the eighth and ninth centuries with its iconoclastic struggles, social reforms, and palace intrigues, nominally died out in 867 in the person of a debauched and incapable young Emperor, Michael the Third, known as the Drunkard. The man who in consequence ascended the throne by means of a crime, and founded the Macedonian dynasty, was Basil I. To study the personal character and home policy of the sovereigns directly or indirectly descended from him down to 1057, is, in effect, to depict the leading aspects of the period, save for the ever-present struggle for existence against external foes.
