Stephen Lekapenos

Stephen Lekapenos
Co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire
Miliaresion from 931–944, showing Romanos I's bust on a cross on the obverse and listing the names of Romanos and his co-emperors, Constantine VII, Stephen Lekapenos and Constantine Lekapenos on the reverse.
Reign	924–945
Died	963
Dynasty	Lekapenos
Father	Romanos Lekapenos
Mother	Theodora

Stephen Lekapenos or Lecapenus (Greek: Στέφανος Λακαπηνός; died 18 April 963) was the second son of the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (r. 920–944), and co-emperor from 924 to 945. With his younger brother Constantine, he deposed Romanos I in December 944, but was overthrown and exiled by the legitimate emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) a few weeks later. Stephen lived out his life in exile on the island of Lesbos, where he died on Easter 963.

Stephen was the second son of Romanos I and his wife Theodora. His older siblings were Christopher (co-emperor from 921 until his death in 931) and his sisters Helena, who married Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (r. 913–959), and Agatha, who married Romanos Argyros. His younger brothers were Constantine (co-emperor 924–945) and Theophylact (Patriarch of Constantinople in 933–956). He probably also had at least two unnamed younger sisters, known only because of their marriages to the magistroi Romanos Mosele and Romanos Saronites.

Romanos Lekapenos had risen to power in 919, when he had managed to appoint himself regent over the young Constantine VII and marry his daughter Helena to him. Within a year, he successively rose from basileopator to Caesar, and was eventually crowned senior emperor on 17 December 920. To consolidate his hold on power, and with a view of supplanting the ruling Macedonian dynasty with his own family, he raised his eldest son Christopher to co-emperor in May 921, while Stephen and Constantine were proclaimed co-emperors on 25 December 924.