Constantine VI
| Constantine VI | |
|---|---|
Constantine VI (right to the cross) presiding over the Second Council of Nicaea. Miniature from early 11th century.
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| Emperor of the Byzantine Empire | |
| Reign | 8 September 780– August 797 |
| Predecessor | Leo IV |
| Successor | Irene |
| Born | 771 |
| Died | before 805 |
| Wives | |
| Issue |
Euphrosyne Irene Leo |
| Dynasty | Isaurian Dynasty |
| Father | Leo IV |
| Mother | Irene |
| Isaurian or Syrian dynasty | |||
| Chronology | |||
| Leo III | 717–741 | ||
| with Constantine V as co-emperor, 720–751 | |||
| Constantine V | 741–775 | ||
| with Leo IV as co-emperor, 751–775 | |||
| Artabasdos' usurpation | 741–743 | ||
| Leo IV | 775–780 | ||
| with Constantine VI as co-emperor, 776–780 | |||
| Constantine VI | 780–797 | ||
| under Irene as regent, 780–790, and with her as co-regent, 792–797 | |||
| Irene as empress regnant | 797–802 | ||
| Succession | |||
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Preceded by Twenty Years' Anarchy |
Followed by Nikephorian dynasty |
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Constantine VI (Ancient Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Ϛ΄, Kōnstantinos VI; 771 – before 805) was Byzantine Emperor from 780 to 797.
Constantine VI was the only child of Emperor Leo IV and Irene. Constantine was crowned co-emperor by his father in 776, and succeeded as sole emperor in 780, at the age of nine. Due to his minority, Irene and her chief minister Staurakios exercised the regency for him.
In 787 Constantine had signed the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea, but he appears to have had iconoclast sympathies. By then Constantine had turned 16 years old, but his mother did not relinquish executive authority to him.
In 788, Irene herself broke off the engagement of Constantine with Rotrude, a daughter of Charlemagne. Turning against Charlemagne, the Byzantines now supported Lombard pretender Adalgis, who had been forced into exile after the Frankish invasion of Italy. Adalgis was given command of a Byzantine expeditionary corps, landing in Calabria towards the end of 788 but was defeated by the united armies of the Lombard dukes Hildeprand of Spoleto and Grimoald III of Benevento as well as Frankish troops under Winiges.
After a conspiracy against Irene was suppressed in the spring of 790 she attempted to get official recognition as empress. This backfired and with military support Constantine finally came to actual power in 790, after the Armeniacs rebelled against Irene. Nevertheless, she was allowed to keep the title of Empress, which was confirmed in 792.
Once in control of the state, Constantine proved incapable of sound governance. His army was defeated by the Arabs, and Constantine himself suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Kardam of Bulgaria in the 792 Battle of Marcellae. A movement developed in favor of his uncle, the Caesar Nikephoros. Constantine had his uncle's eyes put out and the tongues of his father's four other half-brothers cut off. His former Armenian supporters revolted after he had blinded their general Alexios Mosele. He crushed this revolt with extreme cruelty in 793.
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Wikipedia