In the first council, after the emperor's death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a labored apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by a unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterate enemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and savior of the Romans.

Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of the conspiracy.

On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch were solemnized in the cathedral of Magnesia, [9] an Asiatic city, where he expired, on the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus.
The holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon, his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague, with Michael Palaeologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, of the Greek nobles.

[10] [Footnote 6: A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and Darius the _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son.
But Pachymer (l.i.c.

23) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people.