The emperor Alexius, like the greater part of his predecessors, was a prince without virtues or character; when he deposed his brother, he allowed the crime to be committed by his courtiers, and when he was upon the throne he abandoned to them the charge of his authority. He was lavish of the treasures of the state, to secure pardon and oblivion for his usurpation; and, to repair his finances, he sold justice, ruined his subjects, and plundered the merchant ships that traded between Ramisa and Constantinople. The usurper scattered dignities and honours with such profusion, that no one thought himself honoured by them, and there remained in his hands no true reward for merit. Alexius had associated his wife Euphrosyne with himself in the sovereign authority, and she filled the empire with her intrigues, and scandalized the court by the laxity of her morals. Under his reign the empire had been several times menaced by the Bulgarians and the Turks; Alexius occasionally visited the army, but he never faced the enemy. Whilst the Bulgarians were ravaging his frontiers, he employed himself in levelling hills, and tracing gardens on the shores of the Propontis. Abandoned to a shameful effeminacy, he disbanded a part of his army; and fearing to be disturbed in his pleasures by the din of arms, he sold the sacred vases, and plundered the tombs of the Greek emperors, to purchase peace of the emperor of Germany, who had become master of Sicily. The empire had no navy left; the ministers had sold the rigging and equipments of the vessels, and the woods that might have furnished timber for new ships, were reserved for the pleasures of the prince, and guarded as strictly, says Nicetas, as those formerly consecrated to the gods.[85] Such numbers of conspiracies never were heard of; under n, prince who was rarely visible, the government appeared to be in a state of interregnum; the imperial throne was as an empty seat, which every ambitious man aspired to occupy. Devotedness, probity, bravery, were no longer held in esteem by courtiers or citizens. Nothing was deemed worthy of public approbation or reward but the invention of a new pleasure or the fabrication of a fresh impost. Amidst this general depravity, the provinces knew nothing of the emperor but by the exaction of taxes;[86] and the army, without discipline and without pay, had no leaders capable of commanding it. Everything announced an approaching revolution in the empire; and the peril was the greater from no one having the courage to foresee it. The subjects of Alexius never dreamt of obtruding truth upon the imperial ear; birds, taught to repeat satires, alone interrupted the silence of the people, and published from the roofs of houses, and in the high streets, the scandals of the court and the disgrace of the empire.