Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, born on 17 May 905, was the fourth emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, ruling from 6 June 913 until his death on 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, and the nephew of his predecessor, Alexander. For most of his reign, he was overshadowed by co-regents: his mother served as regent from 913 to 919, and from 920 to 945 he shared the throne with Romanos Lekapenos—whose daughter Helena he married—and Romanos’s sons. Constantine is chiefly remembered for the Geoponika, an agricultural handbook compiled under his direction, and for three or possibly four books: De Administrando Imperio, De Ceremoniis, De Thematibus, and the Vita Basilii (though his authorship of the latter is uncertain).

The epithet "Porphyrogenitus" refers to the Purple Chamber of the imperial palace, decorated with porphyry, where legitimate children of reigning emperors were normally born. Constantine was born there too, even though his mother Zoe was not yet married to Leo at the time. The title helped him assert his legitimacy as the rightful son, in contrast to other claimants to the throne. Sons born to a reigning emperor held precedence in the Eastern Roman line of succession over elder sons not born "in the purple."

Regency

Constantine was born in Constantinople on 17 or 18 May 905, an illegitimate child from Leo’s uncanonical fourth marriage. To bolster his legitimacy, his mother gave birth in the Purple Room. He was elevated to the throne as a two-year-old by his father and uncle on 15 May 908, which was Whitsunday. In early 913, as his uncle Alexander lay dying, a seven-man regency council was appointed for Constantine, headed by Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos.

After Alexander’s death on 6 June, the new regime survived an attempted usurpation by Constantine Doukas, and Patriarch Nicholas quickly became the dominant regent. He was forced to make peace with Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, recognizing him as Bulgarian emperor—an unpopular concession that led to his removal from the regency by Constantine’s mother, Zoe. She fared no better against the Bulgarians, who defeated her main general, Leo Phokas, in 917.

In March 919, Zoe was replaced as regent by the admiral Romanos Lekapenos, who married his daughter Helena to Constantine. Romanos used his position to rise to basileopatōr in April 919, kaisar (Caesar) on 24 September 920, and finally co-emperor on 17 December 920.

Just before reaching nominal majority, Constantine was eclipsed by a senior emperor. His youth was unhappy due to his unpleasant appearance, his quiet nature, and his relegation to third in line for the throne, behind Christopher Lekapenos, Romanos’s eldest son. Nevertheless, Constantine was highly intelligent and devoted those years to studying court ceremony.

Romanos held power until 16 or 20 December 944, when he was deposed by his own sons, the co-emperors Stephen and Constantine. He spent his last years in exile on the Island of Prote as a monk, dying on 15 June 948.

Senior emperor

With his wife’s help, Constantine VII removed his brothers-in-law and became sole emperor on 27 January 945 at age 39, after a life in the shadows. Several months later, on Easter (6 April), he crowned his son Romanos II as co-emperor. Having never exercised executive authority, Constantine remained devoted to his scholarly work and delegated power to bureaucrats, generals, and his energetic wife Helena.

In 947, Constantine ordered the immediate restitution of all peasant lands without compensation; by the end of his reign, the condition of the landed peasantry—the foundation of the empire’s economic and military strength—was better than it had been for a century. In 949, he launched a fleet of 100 ships (20 dromons, 64 chelandia, and 10 galleys) against Arab corsairs in Crete, but like his father’s attempt in 911, it failed. On the eastern frontier, things went better, though with mixed success. In 949, the Byzantines conquered Germanicea and repeatedly defeated enemy armies; in 952 they crossed the upper Euphrates.

But in 953, the Hamdanid amir Sayf al-Dawla retook Germanicea and invaded imperial territory. The east was eventually recovered by Nikephoros Phokas, who conquered Adata in northern Syria in 958, and by General John Tzimiskes, who captured Samosata in northern Mesopotamia a year later. An Arab fleet was destroyed by Greek fire in 957.

Constantine maintained active diplomatic relations with foreign courts, including those of Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III of Cordoba and Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. In autumn 957, he was visited by Olga of Kiev, regent of the Kievan Rus’. The reasons for her voyage remain unclear; she was baptized as a Christian under the name Helena and sought Christian missionaries for her people. According to legend, Constantine fell in love with Olga, but she tricked him into refusing her.