Moravcsik Gyula (szerk.): Constantine Porphyrogenitus De administrando imperio - Magyar-görög tanulmányok 29. (1949)

General Introduction

GENERAL INTRODUCTION The emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus1 (905—959) was the second and only surviving son2 of the emperor Leo VI, surnamed the Wise, (866—912) by his mistress and later fourth wife, Zoe Carbunopsina.3 Constantine’s early life was clouded by a series of misfortunes for which he himself was in no way responsible. His constitution was sickly, and he was indeed invalid throughout his life.4 His father’s birth was doubtful; and he was himself born out of regular wedlock, although his legitimacy was afterwards grudgingly recognized. From his eighth to his sixteenth year he was the pawn by turns of his malignant uncle Alexander, of his mother, of the patriarch Nicholas and of the lord admiral Romanus Lecapenus. After the seizure of power by the last of these in the year 920, he was for the next twenty four years held in a degrading tutelage, cut off from all power and patronage, and, though married to the usurper’s daughter Helen, demoted successively to second, third and even fifth place in the hierarchy of co-emperors. It was not until January of the year 945, at the age of nearly forty, that, with the aid of a clique of guards officers devoted to his house, he was able to expel the Lecapenid usurpers and seat himself in sole majesty on the throne that was rightfully his. For the next fourteen years he governed, or seemed to govern : for the substance of power appears to have been in the hands of the Augusta Helen, of the hetaeriarch Basil Peteinos, of the eparch Theo­­philus, of the sacellarius Joseph Bringas, and of the protovestiary Basil, 1 Sources in Rambaud, VEmpire grec au dixiéme siécle, (Paris, 1870), pp. 1—4. For date of birth, see Vita Euthymii, (ed. de Boor, Berlin, 1888), pp. 116—118. 2 His elder brother, Basil, son of his father’s third wife Eudocia, died in in­fancy ; see de Cer., (ed. Bonn.), I, p. 643. 3 For her family, see Theoph. Cont., (ed. Bonn.), p. 370 ; D. A. 2279 ; Vita Euthymii, p. 58 ; and Kolias, Léon Choerosphactés, (Athens, 1939) p. 18. 4 Theoph. Cont., pp. 212, 379, 459, 464, 465.

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