#constantine ix

[igor-kazzc]

A blonde man... (Constantine ix)

My "dtiys" of this very famous mosaic

[dreaming-byzantium]

I'm so deep in my Byzantine Period that I'm drawing Constantine IX Palaiologos and his two wives.

[emperorsofrome-blog]

Emperor Constantine IX

Constantine IX, (circa 1000-1055), surnamed Monomachus, was Roman emperor of the East from 1042 to 1055. He was the third husband of the empress Zoe, the daughter of Constantine VIII. He was personally spendthrift and dissolute, and accelerated the decline of Roman power that set in after the death of Basil II in 1025.

His throne was shaken by revolt and invasion in 1043 and 1047. And he weakly allowed his patriarch Michael Cerularius to complete the schism with the Catholic Church in 1054. He did, however, encourage education and the arts. But he made no preparation against the imminent perils of the Normans and the Seljuk Turks.

Constantine died in Constantinople on January 11, 1055.