Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites
John Stuart Mill · en
The next inmate of the tower was the Emperor Andronicus Comnenus, of
infamous memory, upon his capture after his flight from the insurrection
which his vices and tyranny had provoked in the capital, in 1185. To
Andronicus imprisonment was no new experience, for already, during the
reign of Manuel Comnenus, he had been imprisoned twice elsewhere. On
both these occasions, however, he had succeeded in effecting his escape.
But the prison of Anemas was to prove his last, and he quitted it, only
to die at the hands of his infuriated subjects. On the eve of his
execution he was bound with chains about the neck and feet, like some
wild animal, and dragged into the presence of his successor, Isaac
Angelus, to be subjected to every indignity. He was reviled, beaten,
struck on the mouth; he had his hair and beard plucked, his teeth
knocked out, his right hand struck off with an axe, and then was sent
back to his cell, and left there without food or water or attention of
any kind for several days. When brought forth for execution, he was
dressed like a slave, blinded of one eye, mounted upon a mangy camel,
and led in mock triumph through the streets of the city to the
Hippodrome, amidst a storm of hatred and insult, seldom, if ever,
witnessed under similar circumstances in a civilized community. At the
Hippodrome he was hung by the feet on the architrave of two short
columns which stood beside the figures of a wolf and a hyena, his
natural associates. But neither his pitiable condition, nor his quiet
endurance of pain, nor his pathetic cry, “Kyrie Eleison, Why dost Thou
break the bruised reed?” excited the slightest commiseration. Additional
and indescribable insults were heaped upon the fallen tyrant, until his
agony was brought to an end by three men who plunged their swords into
his body, to exhibit their dexterity in the use of arms.[546]