The miserable end of the wickedest of the Emperors, as it is told by a recent writer from the pages of Nicetas, may well serve to illustrate the horrors with which the Empire in its fall was only too familiar. He was confined in the prison called after the Cretan Anemas, who was first imprisoned there by Alexius Comnenus. "He quitted it only to die at the hands of his infuriated subjects. On the eve of his execution he was bound with chains about the neck and feet, like some wild animal, and dragged into the presence of his successor, Isaac Angelus, to be subjected to every indignity. He was reviled, beaten, struck on the mouth; he had his hair and beard plucked, his teeth knocked out, his right hand struck off with an axe, and then was sent back to his cell, and left there without food or water or attention of any kind for several days. When brought forth for execution, he was dressed like a slave, blinded of one eye, mounted upon a mangy camel, and led in mock triumph through the streets of the city to the Hippodrome, amidst a storm of hatred and insult, seldom, if ever, witnessed under similar circumstances in a civilised community. At the Hippodrome he was hung by the feet on the architrave of two short columns which stood beside the figures of a wolf and a hyena, his natural associates. But neither his pitiable condition, nor his quiet endurance of pain, nor his pathetic cry, "Kyrie eleison, why dost Thou break the bruised reed?" excited the slightest commiseration. Additional and indescribable insults were heaped upon the fallen tyrant, until his agony was brought to an end by three men who plunged their swords into his body, to exhibit their dexterity in the use of arms."[24] Isaac Angelus was little more worthy of his position than the man whom he displaced. He gave himself to enjoyment, to building, to luxury of every kind. He lost Bulgaria and Cyprus, and when his own general, Alexis Branas, turned against him and led his troops to besiege Constantinople, it was saved only by Conrad of Montferrat, the husband of the Emperor's sister Theodora, who was then in the city on his way to the East. The troops of Branas assembled outside the walls and attacked, but were driven back from the gate of Charisius (Edirnè Kapoussi): the famous icon of the Blessed Virgin, believed to have been painted by S. Luke, was carried round the walls: then a sortie led by Conrad scattered the rebels and brought the revolt to an end. But Isaac was incapable of ruling. He retained his throne with difficulty for ten years. At length in 1195, when he was on the way to the Bulgarian war, he was betrayed by his brother Alexius. He was not, as would have happened two centuries before, made a monk: he was imprisoned in a monastery, blinded, and left to die in peace. No one foresaw his restoration.