vol.i.p.

104, &c .-- M.] [Footnote 9: See Nicephorus Gregoras, l.viii.c.6.The younger Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his household, (Cantacuzen l.i.c.

48.) Yet he would have remitted the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of the revenue.] Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the final situation of the principal actors.

[10] The age of Andronicus was consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and treaty, his power and reputation continually decayed, till the fatal night in which the gates of the city and palace were opened without resistance to his grandson.

His principal commander scorned the repeated warnings of danger; and retiring to rest in the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch, with some priests and pages, to the terrors of a sleepless night.