despite basil's return, the factional strife continued. according to george finlay, the great officers and principal nobles had become petty sovereigns, reducing the countryside to anarchy. the "scholarioi", the militia of capital, became so insubordinate that basil had to hire foreign mercenaries to protect his person, but through their arrogance and corruption they rapidly made themselves and their master hated. such was his unpopularity with the people of the city, that when a solar eclipse took place they took it for a sign of divine wrath and forced the emperor to seek refuge in the citadel and tried to pelt him with stones.