Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. Robert Walsh
was born in Cappadocia, in 539, and was killed in 602, having reigned twenty years and three months. In his reign Augustine and his monks proceeded to preach Christianity in Britain, and the Saxon heptarchy commenced.
Family of Phocas
Flavius Phocas was crowned in 602; he died in 610, after a reign of eight years. He murdered his predecessor Mauricius, and decapitated him and his five children: he was himself assassinated by his successor Heraclius. He is represented as a monster among the emperors: his person small and deformed; his hair and eyebrows red and shaggy; and his cheeks disfigured with scars; his temper was savage; his pleasures brutal; and he was grossly ignorant, not only of letters, but his own profession−war. From the time of Justinian, the pleadings of the courts had been in Latin, but from the reign of Phocas, they were held in Greek, and the writings formed a barbarous mixture of Greek and Latin characters.
Family of Heraclius
Flavius Heraclius, son of the præfect of Africa, sailed to Constantinople, and having put Phocas to death, was crowned in 610. He died in 641, of dropsy, after a reign of thirty years and five months. He was distinguished for his conquests over the Persians, and for his pilgrimage to Jerusalem to restore the true cross; the ceremony resulting from it is still called “the Elevation of the Cross.” In his reign Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina, and the era of the Hegira commenced.
Flavius Heraclius II. or Constantinus III. was born in 612; and died by poison in 641; having reigned but one hundred and three days. He was associated in the empire with his brother Heracleonas.
Flavius Heraclius Constans II. was born in 630; and was smothered in a bath in 668; after a reign of twenty-seven years.
Flavius Constantinus IV., (Pogonatus,) died in 685; after a reign of seventeen years. He was called Pogonatus, or “the Bearded,” because when he went against the tyrant of Sicily to avenge his brother’s death, he would not suffer his beard to be cut till he had effected his purpose. In his reign the city was besieged by the Saracens, and their fleet destroyed by the Greek fire.
Flavius Justinianus II., (Rhinometus,) was born about the year 670, and was killed in 711; he reigned first ten years. He was called Rhinometus because he was seized by his enemy Leontius, who cut off his nose. After a reign of seven years he was deposed, and then restored, and reigned six more. With him and his young son was extinguished the race of Heraclius, after enjoying the sovereignty for one hundred years.
Filepicus Bardanes, was blinded, and deposed one year and six months after his coronation.
Anastatius II., (Artemius,) was crowned in 713; resigned; and was put to death by Leo Isaurus, when he attempted again to recover the crown.
Theodosius III. was crowned in 715; resigned. His sanctity in retirement was such, that he was reputed to work miracles.
Family of Leo Isaurus
Flavius Leo III., called Conon, died of a dropsy in 741; after a reign of twenty-four years and eleven months. He was called the Isaurian, from the country whence his family came to Constantinople. He began the first reformation in the Greek church, by causing all images to be pulled down, and excluded from places of worship as idolatrous.
Flavius Constantinus V., (Copronimus,) was born, 719; and died, 775; after a reign of thirty-five years and eleven months. He was in derision called Copronimus, because he defiled the font at his baptism. During his long reign he followed up the reformation of his father, and was seconded by the people, who formed themselves into associations, called Iconoclasts or “image breakers,” and destroyed every such idolatrous representation. He also suppressed monasteries. The writers of the Latin church represented Copronimus as “chained with demons in the infernal abyss;” while the Greeks venerated his tomb, and prayed before it as that of a heaven-directed saint. In his reign, historians first dated from, the birth of Christ.
Flavius Leo IV., (Chazarus,) was born at Constantinople in 750; and died of a fever in 780, after a reign of five years. He followed up the reformation, and the Latin writers affirm that he sacrilegiously took a crown with precious stones, from the church of Santa Sophia, and when he placed it on his head, his face burst out into carbuncles, similar to those in the crown, as a punishment for his impiety, and this caused the fever of which he died.
Flavius Leo Constantinus VI. was born at Constantinople in 771; and died in 797; after his eyes had been put out, he reigned seven years. In concert with his mother, Irené, he restored the worship of images, for which he is highly praised by Latin writers.
Flavius Nicephorus I. was born in Seleucia; he was drawn into an ambush by the Bulgarians, and killed in battle in 811; having reigned nine years and nine months.
Flavius Stauricius was presented with the diadem by his father Nicephorus in 803. He was grievously wounded in battle, and, after lingering in hopeless pain, he became a monk, and retired to a monastery, where he died in 812.
Michael I., (Rhangabe Curopalata,) married the daughter of Nicephorus; was proclaimed emperor in 811, on the death of his father-in-law; but was deposed, and died in a monastery, after a reign of one year and ten months.
Family of Leo the Armenian
Flavius Leo V., (Armenus,) was born in Armenia, and crowned in 813; and was assassinated while celebrating divine service in his palace in 820; after a reign of seven years and five months.
Family of Michael Balbus
Flavius Michael II. (the Stammerer,) was born in Phrygia, crowned in 820; and died in 829, of a dysentery, having reigned eight years and nine months. He was named Balbus from a hesitation in his voice. He revived the reformation by expelling images from churches.
Flavius Theophilus, called Augustus by his father, was born in 820, crowned in 829, and died in 842; having reigned twelve years and three months. He vigorously continued the reformation of the church, and is thus described, Is impietatis paternæ æmulus cultores imaginum persecutus est.
Flavius Michael III., (Ebriosus,) was born in 836; crowned in 842; and was assassinated in 867. He acquired the name of Ebriosus, or the Drunken, from his constant intemperance. He suffered his mother, Theodora, to introduce images into churches. The sister of the king of Bulgaria having embraced Christianity, he and all his subjects, by her persuasion, became converts in this reign. Clocks were then first brought from Venice to Constantinople.
Family of Basilius Macedo
Flavius Basilius I., (Cephalos,) was born in Macedonia, crowned in 866, and died in 886. He was called Cephalos from the size of his head. He was a zealous promoter of image worship. In his reign, Alfred king of England died.
Flavius Leo VI., the Philosopher, was crowned by his father at the age of five years in 870; and died in 911. He devoted a long reign of twenty-five years, after his father’s death, to literary pursuits, and composed works which have come down to us: amongst others, a “Treatise on Tactics.”
Flavius Constantinus VII., (Porphyrogenitus,) the son of Leo VI. by his fourth wife, was born in 905; crowned in 913; and died in the year 959, of poison, administered by his own son. He was called Porphyrogenitus, or born in the purple, because an apartment in the palace was lined with that colour, in which his birth took place. It was a title generally given to those whose fathers were on the throne when they were born, a rare distinction in the Lower Empire. He was the first to whom the distinction was applied. His birth was accompanied by the appearance of a comet. He was distinguished for his devotion to literature, and left behind him “the Geography of the Empire,” and other works. In his reign Arabic numerals were first used for the clumsy prolixity of alphabetic letters.
Romanus I., (Lecapenus,) was born in Armenia, crowned in 919; and died in 946. His reign was remarkable by the siege of Constantinople by the Bulgarians.
Romanus II. junior, was born in 937; and crowned in 959. He died of poison in 963; after a reign of four years.
Basilius II., (Bulgarotoctonos,) was born in 955; crowned in 960; and died in 1025. He obtained the name “Bulgarian-killer,” from the cruelty he exercised over them. He took 15,000 prisoners, and ordered the eyes to be scooped