170 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Eustathius already referred to, there were upwards of 60,000 Latins living in Constantinople in 1180, of whom by far the greater number were Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese. It was on the death of this emperor that the dynastic struggles com- menced which so greatly weakened the empire. The mutual jealousies of the Latin colonists soon broke out. The colo- nists, as we have seen, joined the protosebastos Alexis, who opposed the usurper Andronicos. Indeed, the army of Alexis was largely composed of Latins. In the words of Nicetas, which sound familiar, Alexis had the ships, the men, and money too. The treasury of the empire was in his hands. He had galleys and Latin soldiers clad in mail. It was in 1182, on the triumph of Andronicos, that the inhabitants of Con- stantinople rose against the Latins, murdered a great number, and committed the outrages already described. Three years later the Latins had apparently fallen upon better times. The new emperor, the weak Isaac Angelos, had been raised to the purple by a popular revolution. We have seen that Branas, after he had suppressed the Wallach and Bulgarian rising, took the opportunity, seeing the unpopularity of the sovereign, of declaring himself emperor, and that, being an able man, he would probably have succeeded if Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, had not happened to be in Constan- tinople. With the assistance of a hundred and fifty Latin knights and a body of Latin adventurers, mostly Pisans, found in Con- stantinople, Conrad put the army of Branas to flight. As the country immediately round Constantinople had been generally on the side of the rebel, the emperor gave the Latins and those who had been on his side permission to pillage and plunder it, as well as the houses of Greek nobles whose loyalty was suspected. But these nobles were naturally not without supporters. The Latins, who boasted they had saved the emperor, were attacked by the Greeks. Many were killed, and the Latin quarters were attacked and plun- dered. Isaac was probably glad to be able to make his peace with Venice, and confirm the former privileges of the Venetians on condition that they should come to his aid with
