The talents and heroism of the venerable Dandolo had won for the doges of Venice the splendid and accurate title of dukes of three-eighths of the Roman Empire; he died at Constantinople almost immediately after the Latin conquest, full of years and glory; and bequeathed to the republic the difficult office of governing a greater extent of dominion than had ever fallen to the inhabitants of a single city. All the islands of the Ionian, and most of those in the Ægean seas, great part of the shores of continental Greece, many of the ports in the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, the city of Adrianople, and one-fourth of the eastern capital itself were all embraced in her allotment, and the large and valuable island of Candia was added to her possessions by purchase from the marquis of Montferrat to whom it had been assigned. But the prudence of her senate awakened Venice to a just sense of her own want of intrinsic strength to preserve these immense dependencies; and it was wisely resolved to retain under the public government of the state only the colony at Constantinople, with the island of Candia and those in the Ionian Sea. The subjects of the republic were not required to imitate the forbearance of the senate, and many of the great Venetian families were encouraged, or at least permitted, to found principalities among the ruins of the Eastern Empire, with a reservation of feudal allegiance to their country. In this manner most of the islands of the Ægean Archipelago were granted in fief to ten noble houses of Venice, and continued for several centuries subject to their insular princes.[o]