ISAAC I., CONINENUS, Emperor of Constantinople, was the first of the family of the Comneni who attained to that dignity. His father Manuel, his brother John, and himself were employed in important military and civil capacities by Basil II. (976-1025); but during the reign of the latter's imbecile and tyrannical successors, in whose eyes it was criminal for any one to excel in wisdom and ability, Isaac was exposed to consid erable danger. Such, however, was his prudence, and the affection of the people for him, that the emperors unwillingly suffered him to live unmolested; 'and on the depo sition of Michael VI. (1036-1057), Isaac was elevated to the vacant throne. On his accession lie found the affairs of the empire in what was by this Lime their normal con dition; rebellion within, without, and the treasury exhausted. He succeeded in establishing a system of great economy in all branches of the administration, and in order still further to lighten the taxes on the people, called upon the clergy to contribute their share. But the clergy, then as now, refused to endure the imposition of any such burdens, and the patriarch Michael is reported to have even threatened him with depo sition. But death delivered Isaac of this formidable opponent, and the clergy were
compelled to submit. In 1059 he repelled the Hungarians, who had encroached upon his possessions in the n.w.; but soon afterwards, to the great grief of his subjects, he was attacked by a violent fever, and believing his dissolution approaching, appointed his famous general, Constantine Ducas, as his successor. He, however, recovered from his illness, but resigning the crown. retired to a convent, where lie lived for two years in the odor of sanctity, and died in 1061. He was one of the most virtuous emperors of the east, and to great learning, wisdom, and prudence, united an administrative ability and energy, that would, had his reign been of longer duration, have gone far to regenerate the effete Byzantine empire. Nor deficient in literary attainments. We still possess by him Scholia—hitherto unedited—on Homer, his favorite author; further, a work, Characteristics, sell., of the Greek and Trojan chiefs mentioned in the Iliad; and finally, a treatise On the Works of Homer.