The Emperor continued for two years to enjoy his pleasures and hasten his death, leaving the care of the Empire to his very capable ministers and officers. Amongst these officers was a very singular commander named Nicephorus Phocas, whose romantic career still puzzles historians. Whether he was a profound hypocrite, or a deeply religious man fascinated and seduced by Theophano, it is difficult to determine. “God only knows,” says Leo the Deacon, a chronicler of the time to whom we owe most of our knowledge. Nicephorus was a very able general of about fifty years: a dark, robust little man, with black hair and small dark eyes under thick eyebrows, a very stern look, and the chest and arms of a Hercules. He was not at all handsome, but he was one of the greatest soldiers of his time. The singular feature about his life was that, in consequence of a tragic accident of earlier years, he had adopted a very religious and ascetic life. He wore a hair shirt under his armour and linen, abstained from flesh and women as rigidly as a monk, and was understood to have vowed chastity. It appears that, as her husband sickened, Theophano set out to seduce this remarkable soldier-monk and succeeded. The other great power in the State was Joseph Bringas, the leading civilian and statesman; but Joseph was a eunuch, and of no use to Theophano. She would marry Nicephorus. Leo the Deacon says that she admitted, or drew, the ascetic to her arms before the death of her husband, and it is not impossible, as the chief biographer of Nicephorus admits.[22] However that may be, Romanus died in 963, after a giddy reign of four years, at the age of twenty-four. Once more Theophano is charged with poisoning, and once more we must refrain from pressing the charge. The nearest authority, Leo the Deacon, leaves it an open question whether Romanus died of poison or had closed his own life prematurely by debauch; and we may do the same. Historians are too apt to conclude that because Romanus _did_ wear himself out by his excesses, we may dismiss the charge against Theophano. Disease, on the contrary, would furnish a cloak to an artful poisoner, and Theophano certainly wished to get rid of the despotic eunuch Bringas, whom Nicephorus would quickly displace. The chief reason why we must hesitate is because Theophano was prostrate at the time and unable to master the new situation. She had given birth to a second daughter two days before the death of Romanus, and there is reason to think that Bringas and others were anxious to remove her from power. The circumstance is not decisive, as her servants might carry out a plan made at an earlier date.