December 25, 820: Assassination of Leo V the Armenian, Byzantine Emperor

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Arsaber, Assassination, Battle of Versinikia, Byzantine Emperor Leo V the Armenian, Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, Emperor Michael II, Emperor Nikephoros I, Roman Empire, Theodosia

Leo V the Armenian (c. 775 – December 25, 820) was the Byzantine Emperor from 813 to 820. A senior general, he forced his predecessor, Michael I Rangabe, to abdicate and assumed the throne. He ended the decade-long war with the Bulgars, and initiated the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. He was assassinated by supporters of Michael the Amorian, one of his most trusted generals, who succeeded him on the throne.

Leo was the son of the patrician Bardas, who was of Armenian descent (according to Theophanes Continuatus, Leo was also of Assyrian that is Syrian descent). Leo served in 803 under the rebel general Bardanes Tourkos, whom he deserted in favor of Emperor Nikephoros I.

The Emperor rewarded Leo with two palaces, but later exiled him for marrying the daughter of another rebel, the patrician Arsaber. On the other hand, a contemporary source says that one general Leo of the Armeniakon theme was punished for his humiliating defeat by the Arabs during which he also lost the salaries of his thematic units (a modern scholar suggests that this Leo is not the same as the emperor). Punishment also included deprivation of his military rank, beating and hair cutting.

Recalled by Michael I Rangabe in 811, Leo became governor of the Anatolic theme and conducted himself well in a war against the Arabs in 812, defeating the forces of the Cilician thughur under Thabit ibn Nasr. Leo survived the Battle of Versinikia in 813 by abandoning the battlefield, but nevertheless took advantage of this defeat to force the abdication of Michael I in his favor on 11 July 813.

In a diplomatic move, he wrote a letter to Patriarch Nikephoros in order to reassure him of his orthodoxy (Nikephoros being obviously afraid of a possible iconoclast revival). One month later, during his entrance to the Palace quarter, he kneeled before the icon of Christ at the Chalke Gate. A further step in preventing future usurpations was the castration of Michael’s sons.

With Krum of Bulgaria blockading Constantinople by land, Emperor Leo V had inherited a precarious situation. He offered to negotiate in person with the invader and attempted to have him killed in an ambush.

The stratagem failed, and although Krum abandoned his siege of the capital, he captured and depopulated Adrianople and Arcadiopolis. When Krum died in spring 814, Leo V defeated the Bulgarians in the environs of Mesembria (Nesebar) and the two states concluded a 30-year peace in 815. According to some sources, Krum participated in the battle and abandoned the battlefield heavily injured.

With the iconodule policy of his predecessors associated with defeats at the hands of Bulgarians and Arabs, Leo V reinstituted Iconoclasm after deposing patriarch Nikephoros and convoking a synod at Constantinople in 815.

The Emperor used his rather moderate iconoclast policy to seize the properties of iconodules and monasteries, such as the rich Stoudios Monastery, whose influential iconodule abbot, Theodore the Studite, he exiled. Leo V appointed competent military commanders from among his own comrades-in-arms, including Michael the Amorian and Thomas the Slav. He also persecuted the Paulicians.

When Leo jailed Michael for suspicion of conspiracy, the latter organized the assassination of the Emperor in the palace chapel of St. Stephen on Christmas Eve, 820. Leo was attending the matins service when a group of assassins disguised as members of the choir due to sing in the service suddenly threw off their robes and drew their weapons.

In the dim light they mistook the officiating priest for the Emperor and the confusion allowed Leo to snatch a heavy cross from the altar and defend himself. He called for his guards, but the conspirators had barred the doors and within a few moments a sword stroke had severed his arm, and he fell before the communion-table, where his body was hewed in pieces. His remains were dumped unceremoniously in the snow and the assassins hurried to the dungeons to free Michael II.

Unfortunately for them Leo had hidden the key on his person, and since it was too early in the morning to find a blacksmith Michael was hastily crowned as emperor with the iron clasps still around his legs. Leo’s family (including his mother and his wife, Theodosia) was exiled to monasteries in the Princes’ Islands. His four sons (including ex co-emperor Symbatios) were castrated, a procedure so brutally carried out that one of them died during the “operation”.

All known children of Leo V are traditionally attributed to his wife Theodosia, a daughter of the patrician Arsaber.

Theodosia was the daughter of Arsaber, a Byzantine patrician. The name and rank of her father were recorded by both Genesius and Theophanes Continuatus, the continuer to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. The name of her mother is unknown.

Genesius records four sons:

1. Symbatios, renamed Constantine, co-emperor from 814 to 820. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father.

2. Basil. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.

3. Gregory. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.

4. Theodosios (died in 820). Died soon after his castration.

5. Anna, who married Hmayeak, a Mamikonian prince (died c. 797), by whom she had Konstantinos, an officer at the court of Emperor Michael III.

April 14, 972: Marriage of Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor and Byzantine Princess Theophanu

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Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Princess Theophanu, Eastern Roman Empire, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, John I Tzimiskes, Macedonian Dynasty, Otto I the Great, Otto II, Pope John XIII, Regent

Otto II (955 – December 7, 983), called the Red was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983.

Otto II was born in 955, the third son of the King of Germany Otto I (Crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962) and his second wife Adelaide of Burgundy the daughter of Rudolf II of Burgundy and Bertha of Swabia.

By 957, Otto II’s older brothers Henry (born 952) and Bruno (born 953) had died, as well as Otto I’s son from his first wife Eadgyth, the Crown Prince Liudolf, Duke of Swabia.

Otto II was made joint-ruler of the Empire in 961, at an early age, and his father named him co-Emperor in 967 to secure his succession to the throne. His father also arranged for Otto II to marry the Byzantine Princess Theophanu.

Theophanu (c. AD 955 – June 15, 991) According to the marriage certificate issued on April 14, 972 Theophanu is identified as the niece or granddaughter of Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes (925–976, reigned 969–976) who was of Armenian and Byzantine Greek descent.

Recent research tends to concur that she was most probably the daughter of Tzimiskes’ brother-in-law (from his first marriage) Constantine Skleros (c. 920–989) and cousin Sophia Phokas, the daughter of Kouropalatēs Leo Phokas, brother of Emperor Nikephoros II (c. 912–969).

Marriage

Theophanu was not born “in the purple” as the Ottonians would have preferred. The Saxon chronicler Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg writes that the Ottonian preference was for Anna Porphyrogenita, a daughter of late Byzantine Emperor Romanos II. Theophanu’s uncle John I Tzimiskes had overthrown his predecessor Nikephoros II Phokas in 969.

Theophanu was escorted back to Rome for her wedding by a delegation of German and Italian churchmen and nobles. When the Ottonian court discovered Theophanu was not a scion of the Macedonian dynasty, as had been assumed, Otto I was told by some to send Theophanu away.

Otto’s advisors believed that Theophanu’s relation to the usurper John Tzimiskes would invalidate the marriage as a confirmation of Otto I as Holy Roman Emperor.

He was persuaded to allow her to stay when it was pointed out that John Tzimiskes had wed Theodora, a member of the Macedonian dynasty and sister to Emperor Romanos II. John was therefore a Macedonian, by marriage if not by birth.

A reference by Pope John XIII to Emperor Nikephoros II as “Emperor of the Greeks” in a letter while Otto’s ambassador, Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, was at the Byzantine court, had destroyed the first round of marriage negotiations.

With the ascension of John I Tzimiskes, who had not been personally referred to other than as Roman Emperor, the treaty negotiations were able to resume. However, not until a third delegation led by Archbishop Gero of Cologne arrived in Constantinople, were they successfully completed.

After the marriage negotiations completed, Theophanu and Otto II were married by Pope John XIII on April 14, 972.

According to Karl Leysers’ book Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: Carolingian and Ottonian, Otto I’s choice was not “to be searched for in the parlance of high politics” as his decision was ultimately made on the basis of securing his dynasty with the birth of the next Ottonian emperor.

Empress

Otto II succeeded his father on May 8, 973. Theophanu accompanied her husband on all his journeys, and she is mentioned in approximately one quarter of the emperor’s formal documents – evidence of her privileged position, influence and interest in affairs of the empire.

It is known that she was frequently at odds with her mother-in-law, Adelaide of Italy, which caused an estrangement between Otto II and Adelaide. According to Abbot Odilo of Cluny, Adelaide was very happy when “that Greek woman” died.

The Benedictine chronicler Alpert of Metz describes Theophanu as being an unpleasant and chattery woman. Theophanu was also criticized for having introduced new luxurious garments and jewelry into France and the Holy Roman Empire.

The theologian Peter Damian even asserts that Theophanu had a love affair with John Philagathos, a Greek monk who briefly reigned as Antipope John XVI.

Otto II died suddenly on December 7, 983 at the age of 28, probably from malaria. His three-year-old son, Otto III, had already been appointed King of the Romans during a diet held on Pentecost of that year at Verona.

At Christmas, Theophanu had him crowned by the Mainz archbishop Willigis at Aachen Cathedral, with herself ruling as Empress Regent on his behalf.

Upon the death of Emperor Otto II, Bishop Folcmar of Utrecht released his cousin, the Bavarian duke Heinrich the Quarrelsome from custody. Duke Heinrich allied with Archbishop Warin of Cologne and seized his nephew Otto III in spring 984, while Theophanu was still in Italy. Nevertheless he was forced to surrender the child to his mother, who was backed by Archbishop Willigis of Mainz and Bishop Hildebald of Worms.

Regency

Theophanu ruled the Holy Roman Empire as regent for a span of five years, from May 985 to her death in 991, despite early opposition by the Ottonian court.

Her first act as regent was in securing her son, Otto III, as the heir to the Holy Roman Empire. Theophanu also placed her daughters in power by giving them high positions in influential nunneries all around the Ottonian-ruled west, securing power for all her children. She welcomed ambassadors, declaring herself “imperator” or “imperatrix”, as did her relative contemporaries Irene of Athens and Theodora; the starting date for her reign being 972, the year of her marriage to the late Otto II.

Theophanu brought from her native east, a culture of royal women at the helm of a small amount of political power, something that the West—of which she was in rule of—had remained generally opposed to for centuries before her regency.

Theophanu and her mother-in-law, Adelaide, are known during the empress’ regency to have butted heads frequently–Adelaide of of Burgundy is even quoted as referring to her as “that Greek empress.” Theophanu’s rivalry with her mother-in-law, according to historian and author Simon Maclean, is overstated. Theophanu’s “Greekness” was not an overall issue. Moreover, there was a grand fascination with the culture surrounding Byzantine court in the west that slighted most criticisms to her Greek origin.

Theophanu did not remain merely as an image of the Ottonian empire, but as an influence within the Holy Roman Empire. She intervened within the governing of the empire a total of seventy-six times during the reign of her husband Otto II—perhaps a foreshadowing of her regency.

Though never donning any armor, she also waged war and sought peace agreements throughout her regency. Theophanu’s regency is a time of considerable peace, as the years 985-991 passed without major crises. Though the myth of Theophanu’s prowess as imperator could be an overstatement, according to historian Gerd Althoff, royal charters present evidence that magnates were at the core of governing the empire.

Althoff highlights this as unusual, since kings or emperors in the middle ages rarely shared such a large beacon of empirical power with nobility.

Due to illness beginning in 988, Theophanu eventually died at Nijmegen and was buried in the Church of St. Pantaleon near her wittum in Cologne in 991.

The chronicler Thietmar eulogized her as follows: “Though [Theophanu] was of the weak sex she possessed moderation, trustworthiness, and good manners. In this way she protected with male vigilance the royal power for her son, friendly with all those who were honest, but with terrifying superiority against rebels.”

Because Otto III was still a child, his grandmother Adelaide of Burgundy took over the regency until Otto III became old enough to rule on his own.

September 4, 476: Fall of the Western Roman Empire

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Diocletian, Eastern Roman Empire, Julius Nepos, King of Italy, Odoacer, Romulus Augustus, The Roman Empire, Theodosius, Visigoths, Western Roman Empire

By the time of Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305), the idea that the Roman Empire had grown so large that it would be better managed by two co-ruling emperors, rather than one, had become established. After various divisions were made throughout the 4th century, the empire was firmly and permanently divided into a western and eastern sphere of imperial administration from the death of emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) in 395 onwards.

Though modern historians typically use the terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire to describe the new political situation, the Romans themselves never considered the empire to have been formally divided, still viewing it as a single unit, although most often having two rulers rather than one. Over the course of the 5th century, the western empire experienced a period of catastrophic decline. Not only were many of the rulers in the west generally lacking in competence, but they also faced enormous problems. In comparison with the eastern provinces, much of the west was more rural, with fewer people and a less stable economy. An increasing number of Germanic barbarian invasions and settlements throughout the west only added to these issues.

In 410, the Visigoths under Alaric I had sacked Rome and in 455, the last western emperor of Theodosius’ dynasty, Valentinian III (r. 425–455), was deposed and murdered. That same year, Rome was sacked again for the second time in less than fifty years, this time by the Vandals. The Roman army became increasingly reliant on barbarian mercenaries and after Valentinian’s murder, the most powerful barbarian generals, such as Ricimer (c. 418–472), became politically dominant, ruling through proclaiming puppet emperors. In the twenty years between the death of Valentinian and the accession of Romulus Augustus, eight different emperors ruled in the west. By 475, the western empire was in critical condition. Outside of Italy, authority was only exercised in Raetia and some regions of Gaul.

The ruling emperor in 475 was Julius Nepos, who had been in power for less than a year. Nepos had been appointed western emperor in 474 by the eastern emperors Leo I (r. 457–474) and Zeno (r. 474–491), but had little real support in the west. In 475, Nepos named Orestes as a patrician and magister militum (‘master of soldiers’; effectively commander-in-chief), replacing the previous holder of that office, Ecdicius.

Romulus Augustus (c. 465 – after 511?), commonly known by the nickname Augustulus, was Roman emperor of the West from October 31, 475 until September 4, 476. Romulus was placed on the imperial throne by his father, the magister militum Orestes, and, at that time still a minor, was little more than a figurehead for his father. After Romulus ruled for just ten months, the barbarian general Odoacer defeated and killed Orestes and deposed Romulus. As Odoacer did not proclaim any successor, Romulus is typically regarded as the last western Roman emperor, his deposition marking the end of the Western Roman Empire as a political entity. The deposition of Romulus Augustulus is also sometimes used by historians to mark the transition from antiquity to the medieval period.

Very few records survive of Romulus’ reign. There are no known policies, laws or inscriptions of significance of the emperor, which leaves the impression that he was a shadowy and relatively inconsequential figure. The nickname ‘Augustulus’ means “little Augustus” and was a derisive nickname referencing his young age. Romulus’ immediate family, including his father and possibly his mother, and maybe both his paternal and maternal grandparents, were from the Roman province of Pannonia, and many of his family members had military backgrounds.
Romulus came to power through usurpation of his predecessor, Julius Nepos (r. 474–475 in Italy) in 475.

Nepos fled to Dalmatia and continued to claim the imperial title in exile, which hampered Romulus’ legitimacy and ensured that he was never recognised by the eastern Roman emperor Zeno. In 476, the barbarian foederati (ally troops) in Italy demanded Italian lands to settle on, which was refused by Orestes. Under their leader Odoacer, the foederati defeated and killed Orestes and deposed Romulus, whereafter Odoacer became the first king of Italy and accepted emperor Zeno as his nominal suzerain.

Romulus’s life was spared by Odoacer, and he was allowed to retire to the castellum Lucullanum, a great fortress in Campania, near Naples. Little certain information is known concerning Romulus’s life in exile. He might have played a role in founding a monastery at castellum Lucullanum in the 480s or 490s, dedicated to Saint Severinus of Noricum. Romulus could have been alive as late as 507 or 511, when Theodoric the Great, Odoacer’s successor, wrote a letter to a “Romulus” concerning a pension. Romulus was likely dead before the mid-530s, as accounts of the eastern Roman invasion of Italy at that time do not mention him.