A stunningly beautiful orphan from Athens chosen as wife for Leo IV, Irene proved to be one of the most grasping and ambitious women ever to be made empress. A fierce iconodule, she served as regent for her son Constantine VI and ultimately had him blinded so brutally that he died, becoming the first woman to rule the Byzantine Empire not as regent or empress but as emperor in her own right. Her reign was economically and militarily disastrous, and she was eventually deposed and exiled to Lesbos, where she died less than a year later; she is nonetheless venerated as a saint by the Orthodox Church with a feast day of August 9th.
Also known as: Irene the Athenian · Eirene
What each episode says
Episode 11 (18 mentions)
A stunningly beautiful orphan from Athens chosen as wife for Leo IV, Irene proved to be one of the most grasping and ambitious women ever to be made empress. A fierce iconodule, she served as regent for her son Constantine VI and ultimately had him blinded so brutally that he died, becoming the first woman to rule the Byzantine Empire not as regent or empress but as emperor in her own right. Her reign was economically and militarily disastrous, and she was eventually deposed and exiled to Lesbos, where she died less than a year later; she is nonetheless venerated as a saint by the Orthodox Church with a feast day of August 9th.
“The rising was quickly suppressed, the brothers tonsured and sent to a monastery, and Irene,”
“Irene was banished from the city and placed under house arrest in one of her palaces.”
“of Michael III, when his mother, Theodora, like Irene the Regent, proclaimed the restoration”
Episode 12 (1 mention)
Brownworth references Irene as the subject of the previous episode, characterizing her reign as disastrous — marked by the virtual collapse of Byzantine prestige in the West, the creation of a rival empire, and the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans, a direct insult to the Eastern Empire.
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