With the new Emperor the worst troubles were over. Some sort of hereditary succession reappeared, and the Comnenian dynasty long occupied the throne of the Eastern Empire. But the Empire was reformed on a narrower and less heroic mould. The ability of Alexius was partly seen in his energy; but subtlety and deceit, which often took the shape of self-defeating cunning, were his favourite weapons, and in his dexterous pursuit of personal and family aims, he often lost sight of broader issues. [Sidenote: The Comnenian dynasty and the transition to the last phase of the East Roman Empire.] It was characteristic of the later age of the Byzantine Empire that the founder of the new house should have the dissimilar characteristics of courage and craft, and that Alexius’ literary daughter, Anna Comnena, in eulogising her father’s exploits, regards his courage and craft as equally laudable. With him we enter that latest stage of East Roman history to which the term ‘Byzantine’ may not unreasonably be applied as a term of reproach, and which perhaps justifies the contempt with which Gibbon and the older writers regarded all stages of East Roman history. The Empire became more ‘Greek’ in the narrower sense, and with its restricted limits became in a sense stronger by being more national and less cosmopolitan. But it lived a smaller, meaner life. Henceforth it stood on the defensive, equally afraid of the Turk in the east and the Frank in the west. Its territory gradually fell away, its civilisation became as stereotyped as that of China, its Church more superstitious and ignorant, its people more slavish and degraded. It is no small praise to Alexius and his successors that they had the skill to keep some sluggish life in the inert mass, and, amidst the greatest difficulties, offer a brave and constant resistance for two more centuries to the greatest foes of civilisation that the world has seen in modern days. [Sidenote: Alexius and the East.]