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 272 CONSTANTINE IV. CONSTANTINE VII. wife Fausta, born at Aries in Gaul, Aug. 7, 312 (according to Gibbon in 316), killed near Aquileia, Italy, early in 340. He was named Caesar and consul when still a little child, and in 335 was appointed governor of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. On the death of his father in 337 the empire was divided between his three sur- viving sons, each of whom received from the senate the title of Augustus; but a kind of supremacy was accorded to Constantine, the eldest, and he is therefore reckoned as a Roman emperor. In the partition Oonstantine received Constantinople, Gaul, Spain, Britain, and a small part of Africa ; Thrace and the countries of the East were allotted to Constantius ; and Constans was acknowledged as sovereign of Italy, Africa, and western Illyricum. Constan- tine became dissatisfied with the division, and demanded from Constans the cession of Africa. This being refused, he crossed the Julian Alps in 340, and invaded Italy. With a few atten- dants he was drawn into an ambuscade and killed. His body was found in the little river Alsa, and honored with an imperial funeral. Constans refused to share with Constantius any part of the dominions of Constantine, and thus became master of more than two thirds of the former Roman empire. CONSTANTINE IV., surnamed Pogonatus (the Bearded), emperor of the East, born in 648, died in 685. He was the son of Constans II., who in 654 crowned him Augustus, and whom he succeeded in 668. In the following year he conducted a successful expedition into Sicily, but he was hard pressed both by the Saracens and the Bulgarians. To his two brothers he gave the title of Augustus, but allowed them no share in the government. Some of their adherents demanded that they should share the actual sovereignty, urging that as there were three equal persons in the Godhead, so there should be three equal sovereigns on earth. Con- stantine hung some of the theologians who ad- vanced this argument, and the others agreed to acknowledge his supremacy. The brothers were pardoned ; but their claims being again re- newed, he caused their noses to be cut off in the presence of the bishops assembled in the sixth general synod of Constantinople. He gained the favor of the church by remitting the pay- ment made on the election of a new pope ; and offered the hair of his two sons on the shrine of St. Peter as a symbol of their adoption by the pope. He was succeeded by his son Jus- tinian II. CONSTANTINE V., surnamed Copronymus, em- peror of the East, born at Constantinople in 719, died off Selymbria, Sept. 14, 775. He was the son of Leo III., was crowned by his father in 720, and in 733 married a Khazar princess, who took the name of Irene. He became emperor in 741. His reign in the interior was a long succession of atrocious crimes and excesses, if the accounts of his contemporaries, mainly re- ligious adversaries, are to be believed. In his wars he was successful, defeating in turn the j Saracens, Slavic invaders, and the Bulgarians. But he is best known by his opposition to the use of images in the churches, and to the in- crease of monasteries. In 754 he summoned a council at Constantinople, which after six months' deliberation unanimously declared that all visible symbols of the Saviour, except in the eucharist, were either blasphemous or hereti- cal ; that image worship was a corruption of Christianity and a renewal of paganism ; and that all images should be destroyed. He laid claim to the exarchate of Ravenna, and courted the favor of Pepin, to whom he is said to have sent the first organ ever known in France. CONSTANTINE VI., emperor of the East, born in 771, died about 797. He was the son of Leo IV. In 780 he was crowned emperor, his mother Irene acting as regent. The five sons of his grandfather Constantine Copronymus by his second marriage repeatedly conspired against him. For the first offence they were pardoned; for the second they were con- demned to the ecclesiastical state; for the third the eldest was deprived of his eyes, and the tongues of the others were cut off by order of Irene. Constantine was affianced by his mother to Rotrudis, a daughter of Charlemagne, but was afterward forced by her to marry Maria, a Paphlagonian princess, whom he disliked. In 790, by the aid of his Armenian guards, he removed Irene from the regency, put her minister Stauracius to death, divorced Maria, and married Theodota, one of her attendants. His divorce and second mar- riage were denounced by the clergy, while by his rigor he alienated his Armenian guards, and a conspiracy was formed in favor of Irene. The emperor fled from Constantinople, but was captured and brought back to the imperial palace, where his eyes were put out by order of his mother in 797. According to one state- ment, he died on the same day; according to others, he survived some years in obscurity. He was the last of the Isaurian line, which had held the empire for 80 years. (See IEENE.) CONSTANTINE VII., surnamed Porphyrogeni- tus (" born in the purple, " or properly, in the im- perial apartment called Porphyra), emperor of the East, born in 905, died Nov. 15, 959. He was the son of Leo VI., and in 911 succeeded him, his uncle Alexander being his acting colleague. On the death of Alexander in 912 Constantine became emperor under a council of regency. He had a great fondness for literature, which he cultivated, while his father-in-law, the usurp- ing Romanus Lecapenus, who was proclaimed emperor Dec. 17, 919, administered the affairs of the empire. In 945 he became sole empe- ror, but he still devoted himself to literature, leaving the cares of state to his wife Helena. He is said to have been poisoned by his son Romanus, who succeeded him. Constantine occupies an important position in literature. His own works treat of subjects relating to his times, of which without them we should be in almost entire ignorance. They are all written