Nor should the curious tale of his second marriage be left untold. When left a widower he bade the Empress-dowager Euphrosyne assemble at her levée all the most beautiful of the daughters of the East-Roman aristocracy, and came among them to choose a wife, carrying like Paris a golden apple in his hand. His glance was first fixed on the fair Eikasia, but approaching her he found no better topic to commence a conversation than the awkward statement that “most of the evil had come into the world by means of women.” The lady retorted that surely most of the good had also come into the world by their means, a reply which apparently discomposed Theophilus, for he walked on and without a further word gave the golden apple to Theodora, a rival beauty. The choice was hasty and unhappy, for Theodora was a devoted Iconodule, and used all her influence against her husband’s religious opinions. Theophilus died in 842, while still a young man, leaving the throne to his only son Michael, a child of three years, and the regency to the young empress. The moment that her husband’s grave was closed Theodora set to work to undo his policy. Amid the applause of the monks and the populace of Constantinople she proclaimed the end of the persecution, sent for the banished image-worshippers from their places of exile, and deposed John the Grammarian, the Iconoclastic patriarch who had served Theophilus. Within thirty days of the commencement of the new reign the images had appeared once more on the walls of all the churches of Constantinople. The Iconoclasts seem to have been taken by surprise, and made no resistance to the revolution: however the empress did not take any measures to persecute them; it was only power and not security for life and limb that they lost. The sole permanent result of the long struggle which they had kept up was a curious compromise in the Eastern Church on the subject of representation of the human figure. Statues were never again erected in places of worship, but only paintings and mosaics. It was apparently believed that the actual image savoured too much of the heathen idol, but that no offence could possibly be given by the picture, which served as a pious remembrance of the holy personage it represented, but could be nothing more. Nevertheless the veneration of the Byzantines for their holy “Eikons” became almost as grotesque as idol-worship, and led to many quaint and curious forms of superstition.