One noble only, the Constantine Delassenus who had so narrowly missed the Empire and the hand of Zoe, rebelled against this division of the Empire among a family of low-born eunuchs and money-changers, and the punishment of Delassenus so well illustrates the world in which Zoe now found herself that it may be briefly recounted. John secured the loyalty of the Senators by a generous distribution of money, and then sent a eunuch to assure Delassenus, who was in Armenia, that his conduct would be overlooked if he disarmed at once. Delassenus required some tremendous security of such a promise on the part of John, and it was left to the clergy to devise a new and particularly ponderous oath. The evolution of the oath in Byzantine life is one of the many ways in which we may trace the degradation of its character; no one had any longer the faintest confidence in oaths on the true cross or the Sacrament. A group of clerics were therefore sent with the most sacred objects in the reliquaries of Constantinople, and they marshalled before the eyes of Delassenus the cross, the napkin bearing a miraculous image of Christ, the original letter of Christ to King Abgar, and the portrait of Mary painted by St Luke. On these portentous relics an oath was taken that no punishment would be inflicted on him. He submitted; and a few months later, when the people of Antioch rose against their oppressive tax-gatherers, the revolt was subtly traced to the distant noble, and he was exiled and ruined. Zoe tolerated the domination of the odious monk for a few years impatiently, and at length made an attempt on his life. She won one of the eunuchs whom John had placed about her, and directed him to offer John’s medical attendant a vast sum of money if he would poison his master. But, by one of those convenient accidents which commonly happen in novels and in Byzantine history, the doctor’s boy discovered the plot and denounced it to John. Her eunuch was drastically punished, and Zoe was treated worse than ever.