Constantine VII

Constantine VII
Emperor of the Byzantine Empire
Constantine and his mother Zoë.
Reign	Junior co-emperor 908–913 and 920–945, sole emperor 913–920 (under regency) and 945–959
Full name	Constantine Porphyrogennetos ("the purple-born")
Born	September 2, 905
Birthplace	Constantinople
Died	November 9, 959 (aged 54)
Place of death	Constantinople
Predecessor	Alexander
Successor	Romanos II
Wife	Helena Lekapene
Offspring	Romanos II Theodora
Dynasty	Macedonian dynasty
Father	Leo VI
Mother	Zoe Karbonopsina

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Ζ΄ Πορφυρογέννητος, Kōnstantinos VII Porphyrogennētos; September 2, 905 – November 9, 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959. He was the son of the emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife Zoe Karbonopsina, and the nephew of his predecessor, the emperor Alexander.

Most of his reign was dominated by other co-regents: from 913 until 919, he was under the regency of his mother, while from 920 until 945, he shared his throne with Romanos Lekapenos, whose daughter Helena he married, and his sons. Constantine VII is best known for his four books, De Administrando Imperio, De Ceremoniis, De Thematibus and Vita Basilii.

His nickname alludes to the Purple Room of the Imperial palace, decorated with porphyry, where legitimate children of reigning emperors were normally born. Constantine was also born in this room, although his mother Zoe had not been married to Leo at that time. Nevertheless, the epithet allowed him to underline his position as the legitimized son, as opposed to all others who claimed the throne during his lifetime. Sons born to a reigning Emperor held precedence in the Eastern Roman line of succession over elder sons not born "in the purple".

Reign

Christ Crowning Constantine VII (945).

Constantine was born at Constantinople, an illegitimate son born before an uncanonical fourth marriage. To help legitimize him, his mother gave birth to him in the Purple Room of the imperial palace, hence his nickname Porphyrogennetos. He was symbolically elevated to the throne as a two-year-old child by his father and uncle on May 15, 908. After the death of his uncle Alexander in 913 and the failure of the usurpation of Constantine Doukas, he succeeded to the throne at the age of seven, under the regency of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nicholas Mystikos.

Constantine and Simeon dining

Gold solidus of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, 913–959.

His regent was presently forced to make peace with Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, whom he reluctantly recognized as Bulgarian emperor. Because of this unpopular concession, Patriarch Nicholas was driven out of the regency by Constantine's mother Zoe.

Zoe was no more successful with the Bulgarians, by whom her main supporter, the general Leo Phokas, was defeated in 917, and in 919 she was replaced as regent by the admiral Romanos Lekapenos, who married his daughter Helena Lekapene to Constantine. Romanos used his position to advance to the ranks of basileopatōr in May 919, kaisar (Caesar) in September 920, and finally co-emperor in December of the same year. Thus, just short of reaching nominal majority, Constantine was eclipsed by a senior emperor.

Constantine's youth had been a sad one for his unpleasant appearance, his taciturn nature and his relegation at the third level of succession behind Christopher Lekapenos, the eldest son of Romanos I Lekapenos. Nevertheless, he was a very intelligent young man with a large range of interests, and dedicated those years to study the court's ceremonial.

Romanos kept power for himself and maintained it until 944, when he was deposed by his sons, the co-emperors Stephen and Constantine. Romanos spent the last years of his life in exile on the Island of Prote as a monk and died on June 15, 948.^[1] With the help of his wife, Constantine VII succeeded in removing his brothers-in-law and on January 27, 945, Constantine VII was once again sole emperor at the age of 39, after a life spent in the shadow. Several months later, Constantine VII crowned his own son Romanos II co-emperor. Having never exercised executive authority, Constantine remained primarily devoted to his scholarly pursuits and relegated his authority to bureaucrats and generals, as well as his energetic wife Helena Lekapene.

In 949 Constantine launched a new fleet of 100 ships (20 dromons, 64 chelandia, and 10 galleys) against the Arab corsairs hiding in Crete, but like his father's attempt to retake the island in 911, this attempt also failed. On the Eastern frontier things went better, even if with alternate success: in 949 the Byzantines conquered Germanicea, repeatedly defeated the enemy armies and in 952 crossed the upper Euphrates. But in 953 the Arab amir Sayf al-Daula retook Germanicea and entered the imperial territory. The land in the east was eventually recovered by Nikephoros Phokas, who conquered Hadath, in northern Syria, in 958, and by the Armenian general John Tzimiskes, who one year later captured Samosata, in northern Mesopotamia. An Arab fleet was also destroyed by Greek fire in 957. Constantine's efforts to retake themes lost to the Arabs were the first such efforts to have any real success.

Constantine had active diplomatic relationships with foreign courts, including those of the caliph of Cordoba Abd ar-Rahman III and of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. In the autumn of 957 Constantine was visited by Olga of Kiev, regent of the Kievan Rus'. The reasons for this voyage have never been clarified; but she was baptised a Christian with the name Helena, and sought Christian missionaries to encourage her people to adopt Christianity. According to legends, Constantine VII fell in love with Olga, however she find the way to refuse him by tricking him to become her godfather. When she was baptized, she said it was inappropriate for a godfather to marry his goddaughter.

Constantine VII died at Constantinople in November 959 and was succeeded by his son Romanos II. It was rumored that Constantine had been poisoned by his son or his daughter-in-law Theophano.

Literary and political activity

The Madrid Skylitzes' depiction of Constantine on his deathbed

Constantine VII was renowned for his abilities as a writer and scholar. He wrote, or had commissioned, the works De Ceremoniis ("On Ceremonies"), describing the kinds of court ceremonies (also described later in a more negative light by Liutprand of Cremona); De Administrando Imperio ("On the Administration of the Empire"), giving advice on running the Empire internally and on fighting external enemies; and a history of the Empire covering events following the death of the chronographer Theophanes the Confessor in 817. Amongst his historical works was a history eulogising the reign and achievements of his grandfather, Basil I. These books are insightful, and are of interest to the historian, sociologist and anthropologist as a source of information about nations neighbouring the Empire. They also offer a fine insight into the Emperor himself.

In his book, A Short History of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich refers to Constantine VII as "The Scholar Emperor" (180). Norwich states, “He was, we are told, a passionate collector—not only of books and manuscripts but works of art of every kind; more remarkable still for a man of his class, he seems to have been an excellent painter. He was the most generous of patrons—to writers and scholars, artists and craftsmen. Finally, he was an excellent Emperor: a competent, conscientious and hard-working administrator and an inspired picker of men, whose appointments to military, naval, ecclesiastical, civil and academic posts were both imaginative and successful. He did much to develop higher education and took a special interest in the administration of justice (181). In 947, Constantine VII ordered the immediate restitution, without compensation, of all peasant lands, thus, by the end of [his] reign, the condition of the landed peasantry—which formed the foundation of the whole economic and military strength of the Empire—was better off than it had been for a century" (182–3).

The manuscript tradition of Polybius by John Michael Moore (CUP, 1965) provides a useful summary of Porphyrogenitus' commission of the Constantine Excerpts: "He felt that the historical studies were being seriously neglected, mainly because of the bulk of the histories. He therefore decided that a selection under fifty-three titles should be made from all the important historians extant in Constantinople; thus he hoped to assemble in a more managable compass the most valuable parts of each author. ... Of the fifty-three titles into which the excerpts were divided, only six have survived: de Virtutibus et Vitiis; de Sententiis; de Insidiis; de Strategematis; de Legationibus Gentium ad Romanos; de Legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes. The titles of only about half the remaining forty-seven sections are known." (p. 127)

Family

Gold solidus of Leo VI and Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, 908–912.

By his wife Helena Lekapene, the daughter of Emperor Romanos I, Constantine VII had several children, including:

• Leo, who died young.
• Romanos II.
• Zoe. Sent to a convent.
• Theodora, who married Emperor John I Tzimiskes.
• Agatha. Sent to a convent.
• Theophano. Sent to a convent.
• Anna. Sent to a convent.

Notes

1. ^ Ostrogorsky, George (1969). History of the Byzantine State. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 278. ISBN 0813505992. 

Further reading

• Constantine VII, De ceremoniis, ed. J. Reisky (2 vols., 1829, 1830)
• Constantine VII, De administrando imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik, tr. R.J.H. Jenkins (1967)
• Constantine VII, 'Story of the Image of Edessa', tr. B. Slater, J. Jackson, in I. Wilson, The Turin Shroud (1978), p. 235-51
• Constantine VII, Three treatises on Imperial military expeditions, ed. tr. J.F. Haldon (1990).

References

• Kazhdan, Alexander, ed (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. 
• Norwich, John Julius (1997). A Short History of Byzantium. London: Viking. ISBN 0679450882. 
• Runciman, Steven (1990) [1929]. The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and his Reign. Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 0521357225. 
• Toynbee, Arnold (1973). Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his world. Oxford. ISBN 019215253X. 

External links

• Listing of Constantine VII and his family in "Medieval Lands"
• Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
• De administrando Imperio chapters 29–36 at the Internet Archive

Constantine VII Macedonian Dynasty Born: September 905 Died: 9 November 959
Regnal titles
Preceded by Alexander	Byzantine Emperor 913–959 with Romanos I (920–944) Christopher Lekapenos (921–931) Stephen Lekapenos (924–945) Constantine Lekapenos (924–945)	Succeeded by Romanos II

Persondata
Name	Constantine VII
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	905
Place of birth	Constantinople
Date of death	959
Place of death	Constantinople