Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

Leo had never really been happy with the woman Basil had forced him to marry as a teenager, and he had found comfort instead in the arms of his longtime mistress, Zöe. Not surprisingly, the imperial couple failed to produce an heir, and when the empress died in 898, Leo had happily summoned Zöe to the capital. There was the small obstacle of Zöe’s husband, but he rather conveniently died, and the two lovers were hastily married. Their idyll, however, proved to be short-lived. After presenting her husband with a daughter, Zöe died of a fever only two years into the marriage. Leo was devastated with grief. Not only was his love gone, but he still hadn’t managed to produce an heir, and the ramifications of that were terrible indeed. His brother Alexander was a hopeless reprobate by now, thoroughly incapable of progeny, and if Leo died it would be the end of the dynasty. The empire seemed destined to be subjected to all the horrors of a civil war.

Third marriages—at least in the East—were strictly forbidden by the church, but since the future of the empire was at stake, the patriarch reluctantly decided to allow Leo to choose another wife.^* A stunningly beautiful woman by the name of Eudocia was selected, and within a year she was pregnant. The court astrologers assured the emperor that it was a boy, and he was overjoyed when they proved to be correct. Leo VI, however, seemed destined for tragedy, and his uneasy subjects could only shake their heads when Eudocia died in childbirth and the baby expired a few days later. Canon law, it seemed, could not be flouted so easily.

Leo was now in an awkward position. He was desperate to have a son, but he himself had written the law forbidding multiple marriages. Now deeply regretting the thundering sermons he had given against those who “wallowed in the filth” of a fourth union, he gingerly sounded out the new patriarch, Nicholas, but was sternly informed that a fourth marriage would be “worse than fornication.” Deciding that if this was the case he might as well enjoy some fornication, he found a devastatingly beautiful mistress named Zoë Carbonopsina.^* Leo was a resourceful man, and he knew that with a bit of arm-twisting he could probably arrange for another marriage, but since this would unquestionably be his last chance, there was no reason to try unless she produced a son. That fall Zoë became pregnant with a son, and the overjoyed emperor had her moved into a special room in the palace. Decorated with porphyry columns and hung with purple silks—a color specifically reserved for emperors—it was known as the Porphyra, or Purple Room. Only imperial children could be born there, and from that day on Leo’s son would bear the proud nickname “Por-phyrogenitus,” the Purple-born. Leo clearly intended to have the boy follow him on the throne, and just in case anyone missed the point, he named him Constantine VII to further strengthen his prestige.†

Leo finally had his heir, but since he wasn’t married, the boy was illegitimate, and no amount of clever naming could change that. For all the purple draped around him, Constantine VII was unbaptized, and, ironically enough, the very laws that Leo had written specifically forbade baptism for any child of a fourth marriage. If the emperor couldn’t get Constantine recognized in his lifetime, then it would all be for nothing, and the empire would be doomed to a disputed succession. Summoning Patriarch Nicholas, Leo pulled out all the stops, and with a good deal of begging and a dash of blackmail he managed to force an agreement. He would eject Zoë from the palace and submit to never seeing her again, and in return Nicholas would baptize Constantine in the Hagia Sophia. Zoë had her bags hastily packed and the ceremony was duly carried out, but Leo had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain. Three days after the baptism, Zoë was smuggled back into the palace, and an obliging parish priest married her to the emperor.

The church exploded in controversy when word of Leo’s actions became public. The furious patriarch refused to recognize the marriage and barred the doors when the emperor tried to enter the Hagia Sophia. Once again, however, Leo outmaneuvered his opponents. When the church doors were slammed in his face, he calmly returned to the palace and wrote an appeal to the pope. He was well aware that in the barbarian West, where death was an all-too-common event, church fathers took a more pragmatic view of widowers and remarriage. Moreover, by cleverly submitting the question to the pope when his own patriarch had vocally made his position known, Leo was giving the pontiff a golden opportunity to reinforce papal supremacy. The pope, he rightly guessed, wouldn’t miss such a chance.