Fourteen Byzantine Rulers by Michael Psellus

His reign was seen as a disaster for the Byzantine economy - particularly his policy of cutting taxes for the landed aristocracy and lavishly spending what he could not afford on churches and monasteries. Romanos had not been at all popular with very many other people, either. The emperor was drowned in his bath in 1034 CE. Not at all interested in her father's choice, Zoe conspired with her teenage lover Michael to assassinate Romanos who had taken a mistress of his own and rather unwisely refused Zoe access to the imperial treasury. Constantine had prearranged the marriage of Zoe to the aged Romanos Argyrus, the eparch (in effect, mayor) of Constantinople who, now made emperor, became Romanos III. When her father Constantine VIII died of old age without having produced a male heir, Zoe became empress in 1028 CE, her elder sister having long since taken up residence in a monastery. Her nose was inclined to be aquiline, and her whole body was radiant with the whitness of her skin ( Zoe & Theodora, Chronographia) Romanos III (Husband No. In that she reminded me of sea-waves, now lifting a ship on high and then again plunging it down to the depths…Zoe was openhanded, the sort of woman who could exhaust a sea teaming with gold-dust in one day… confused the trifles of the harem with important matters of state…Her eyes were large, set wide apart with imposing eyebrows. was regal in her ways, a woman of great beauty, most imposing in her manner and commanding respect…was a woman of passionate interests, prepared with equal enthusiasm for both alternatives, death or life, I mean. Instead, Zoe returned home to spend the next 27 years in the seclusion of the Great Palace of Constantinople, but her time would come. It was one of those moments in history of “what might have been?”, if the imperial families of the two great empires of the west had been united.

Zoe, then 23 and said to have been a great beauty, set sail in 1001 CE from Constantinople, but on arrival at Bari, she was given the sad news that Otto had died of fever. 976-1025 CE) promised her in a marriage of alliance to Otto III (r. She first appears on the stage of history when her uncle emperor Basil II (r. 978 CE, one of three daughters of Constantine VIII (r. Zoe is the subject of a colourful and somewhat unflattering biography in the Chronographia of the 11th-century CE Byzantine historian Michael Psellos. In an eventful career, she reigned alongside three husbands, had a hand in the succession of her adopted son, and, in 1042 CE, she was co-ruler with her sister Theodora. Zoe Porphyrogenita was empress of the Byzantine Empire from 1028 CE until her death in 1050 CE.

Fourteen Byzantine Rulers by Michael Psellus