Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/826

 ''der hist. Cl. der k. bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaften (1896, pp. 583–625; and 1897, pp. 371–399); Gibbon's Decline and Fall'' (cd. Bury), v. p. 500.

THEOPHANO (c. 956–991), wife of the Roman emperor Otto II., was a daughter of the Eastern emperor Romanus II., and passed her early years amid the tragic and changing fortunes which beset the court of Constantinople. Otto the Great having procured her betrothal to his son Otto II., she was married to him and crowned empress at Rome by Pope John XIII. on the 14th of April 972. In return for costly gifts brought by her to her husband, she was granted extensive estates in all parts of the empire. She appears to have been a woman of great beauty and considerable intelligence, and after the death of Otto the Great in 973 gradually superseded his widow Adelaide as the chief adviser of the new emperor, whom she accompanied on several military expeditions. She introduced many Byzantine customs into the German court. After the death of Otto in December 983 she returned to Germany, which she governed with conspicuous success in the name of her son, Otto III. In 989 she visited Rome, where she exercised as imperatrix the imperial prerogatives, and probably compelled the Romans to swear to acknowledge her son. Theophano died at Nimwegen on the 15th of June 991, and was buried in the church of St Pantaléon at Cologne.

THÉOPHILE, the name by which Théophile de Viau (or Viaud), French poet (1591–1626), is more commonly called. He was born in 1591, at Clairac, near Agen, and spent his early years at Bousseres de Mazeres, his father's property. He was educated at the Protestant college of Saumur, and he went to Paris in his twentieth year. In 1612 he met Balzac, with whom he made an expedition to the Netherlands, which ended in a serious quarrel. On his return he seems to have been for two years a regular playwright to the actors at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. In 1615 he attached himself to the ill-fated Henry, duke of Montmorency (1595–1632), under whose protection he produced with success the tragedy of Pyrame et Thisbé, acted probably about 1617 and printed in 1623, although placed later by some critics. This piece, written in the extravagant Spanish-Italian manner, which was fashionable in the interval between the P1éiade model and the innovations of Corneille, was ridiculed by Boileau (Preface to his Œuvres, 1701). Théophile was the acknowledged leader of a set of Parisian libertines, whose excesses seem to have been chiefly dictated by a general hatred of restraint. He himself was not only a Huguenot, but a free-thinker, and had made unsparing use of his sharp wit in epigrams on the Church and on the government. In 1619 he was accused of blasphemous and indecent writings, and was banished from Paris. He took refuge in the south of France, where he found protection with many friends. He was allowed to return in the next year, and effected a partial reconciliation with one of his most powerful enemies, the duc de Luynes. He served in that year in the campaign against the Huguenots, but in the autumn was again in exile, this time in England. He was re-called in 1621, and began to be instructed in the Roman Catholic religion, though his abjuration of Protestantism was deferred until the end of 1622. There is nothing to show that this conversion was purely political; in any case it did little to mollify his enemies. In 1622 he had contributed four pieces to the Nouveau Parnasse Satirique, a miscellany of verse by many hands. In the next year a new edition appeared, with the addition of some licentious verse, and the inscription par le sieur Théophile on the title-page. Contemporary opinion justified Théophile's denial of this ascription, but the Jesuit father, Francois Garasse, published a tract against him entitled La Doctrine curieuse (1623). Théophile was again prosecuted. This time he fled from Paris, to the court of Montmorency; and was condemned in his absence (19th of August 1623) to death. On his flight to the border he was arrested, and imprisoned in the Conciergerie in Paris. He defended himself in an Apologie au roi (1625), and was liberated in September, his sentence being commuted to banishment for life. Under Montmorency's protection he was able to hide in Paris for some time, and he subsequently accompanied his friend and patron to the south. He died in Paris on the 25th of September 1626.

THEOPHILUS, East Roman emperor (820–842), the second of the "Phrygian" dynasty. Unlike his father Michael II., he declared himself a pronounced iconoclast. In 832 he issued an edict strictly forbidding the worship of images; but the stories of his cruel treatment of recalcitrants are probably exaggerated. At the time of his accession, the Sicilians were still engaged in hostilities with the Saracens, but Theophilus was obliged to devote all his energies to the war against the caliphs of Bagdad (see, especially sect. C, § 8). This war was caused by Theophilus, who afforded an asylum to a number of Persian refugees, one of whom, called Theophobus after his conversion to Christianity, married the emperor's sister Helena, and became one of his generals. The Roman arms were at first successful; in 837 Samosata and Zapetra (Zibatra, Sozopetra), the birthplace of Motasim, were taken and destroyed. Eager for revenge, Motasim assembled a vast army, one division of which defeated Theophilus, who commanded in person, at Dasymon, while the other advanced against Amorium, the cradle of the Phrygian dynasty. After a brave resistance of fifty-five days, the city fell into Motasim's hands through treachery (23rd of September 838). Thirty thousand of the inhabitants were slain, the rest sold as slaves, and the city razed to the ground. Theophilus never recovered from the blow, his health gradually failed, and he died at the beginning of 842. His character has been the subject of considerable discussion, some regarding him as one of the ablest of the Byzantine emperors, others as an ordinary oriental despot, an overrated and insignificant ruler. There is no doubt that he did his best to check corruption and oppression on the part of his officials, and administered justice with strict impartiality, although his punishments did not always fit the crime. In spite of the drain of the war in Asia and the large sums spent by Theophilus on building, commerce, industry, and the finances of the empire were in a most flourishing condition, the credit of which was in great measure due to the highly efficient administration of the department. Theophilus, who had received an excellent education from John Hylilas, the grammarian, was a great admirer of music and a lover of art, although his taste was not of the highest. He strengthened the walls of Constantinople, and built a hospital, which continued in existence till the latest times of the Byzantine Empire.

See Zonaras, xv. 25–29; Cedrenus, pp. 513–533; Theophanes continuatus, iii.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chaps. 48 and 52-, F. G. Schlosser, Geschichte der bUderslurmcnden Kaiser (1812); G. Finlay, History of Greece, ii. (1877) p. 142; G. F. Hertzberg, Geschichte der Byzantiner und des osmanischen Retches, bk. i. (Berlin, 1883); H. Gelzer, "Abriss der byzantinischen Kaisergeschichte" in C. Krumbachcr's Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (2nd ed.