Constantine V (Byzantium)

Solidus Constantine V with his father Leo III.

Constantine V ( Κωνσταντῖνος Ε ′ , * 718 ; † 14 September 775 ) was Byzantine emperor from 741 until his death. He was the son and successor of Emperor Leo III. , the founder of the Syrian dynasty .

Constantine V, who was militarily very successful, for a long time had the reputation of having been a merciless iconoclast and persecuting and killing numerous monks due to hostile sources . Opposing sources gave him from the 9th century the name of abuse Kopronymos (ο Κοπρώνυμος, for example: the manure name ), with which he was listed in reference books of the 20th century. Modern research, on the other hand, judges the emperor in a far more differentiated manner and regards him as one of the most capable Byzantine rulers.

Life

Early years and taking office

Constantine was the (probably only) son of Leo III. and his wife Maria; he was born in September 718. There are in fact no reliable reports about his early years or his private life. In the sources there are many defamatory reports about Constantine, so he is said to have inclined to debauchery, but these reports are hardly credible; but he seems to have been enthusiastic about hunting, riding and driving chariots. In 732/33 he married a Khazar princess for obvious political reasons , which further strengthened the good relations between Byzantium and the Khazars. His wife, who took the Greek name Irene, gave birth to Constantine, his son and successor, Leo IV . After Irene's death, Constantine married twice: Maria, who died a year after the marriage in 750, and Eudokia. With Eudokia he had five other sons, including the Caesars Christophoros and Nicephoros , and a daughter. Little else is known about the second and third wives of Constantine, but the marriage to Eudokia evidently met with some resistance, as the sources polemicized against the emperor in this regard.

Constantine was crowned co-emperor as early as 720. After Leo died in June 741, he succeeded his father as emperor. However, when Constantine was on a campaign against the Arabs with the army in Anatolia , he was attacked by his brother-in-law Artabasdos , his father's chamberlain . Artabasdos then declared that Constantine had died in this battle and ascended the throne himself in Constantinople , where he actually reigned for two or three years (the statements in the sources differ on this). Constantine fled to Isauria , gathered his supporters and defeated the forces of Artabasdos in 743. At the beginning of November 743 Constantinople was recaptured; Artabasdos and his sons Nikephorus and Nicetas were, as is quite common in Byzantium, blinded , but were allowed to go into exile. The usurpation of the experienced Artabasdos, which represented a serious danger for Constantine, had thus suppressed the latter and had been able to conduct the business of government regularly since the end of 743.

Domestic politics

Domestically, Constantine was a reformer. He reorganized the existing themes , the military districts of the empire, and set up new army units, the so-called tagmata (guard units). These were distributed in such a way that it was more difficult for ambitious officers to use them in conspiracies. Apparently Constantine also used the guard units to suppress domestic political opponents; due to the military successes of the emperor (see below), the well-trained units also remained loyal.

Constantine carried out numerous resettlements. Slavs in particular were resettled to Asia Minor , as were Greek residents in the Peloponnese to the capital after a population decline there as a result of a severe plague epidemic (746/48). In the latter case, however, this weakened the already shrinking Greek population in Greece, where the Slavs increasingly invaded (see also slave lines ), but for Constantine the capital and Asia Minor obviously had priority. In Constantinople, Constantine also had quite extensive construction work carried out. Residents from Syria were also relocated, presumably to Thrace .

The emperor's economic policy was probably relatively successful, as it is mentioned in the sources that goods in the capital were plentiful and available at low prices. On the other hand, there are reports of a high tax burden, and the population of the capital seems to have been better off compared to the rural population. Tax registration was probably improved under Constantine and, in this context, higher taxes were levied; to what extent is unclear, especially since Constantine was apparently not a spendthrift, but used the money to finance the state (like the army). As a result of his actions against political opponents, there were certainly also confiscations. Of course, the image of a ruler plundering the rural population, who allegedly accumulated money greedily like Midas , fits the portrayal in the image-friendly sources in which polemics against the emperor were made.

Religious politics

In terms of religious policy, Constantine set the so-called " iconoclasm " (see Byzantine iconoclasm ) of his father Leo III. away. According to the picture-friendly sources (the works of the "picture enemies" are in fact lost), the emperor actively persecuted iconophiles ("picture friends") and monks and had icons destroyed. In 765 he is said to have murdered a picture-friendly hermit named Stephanos . In addition, he is said to have closed churches and monasteries and confiscated church property.

This apparently distorted image of the emperor in the sources (hostile to Constantine) is countered by modern research with a much more differentiated view. First of all, it must remain questionable whether the religious policy had the meaning for Constantine as suggested by the tendentious sources. It is also controversial which alleged statements of the emperor in this regard are true, since the sources that are hostile to images were later destroyed and we only know the point of view of the ultimately victorious, image-friendly side. Although the emperor was interested in theology, all in all he seemed to have been more interested in securing the foreign policy of the empire than in a possible complete implementation of the iconoclastic religious policy. Even in the photo-friendly sources, alleged attacks by Constantine are only documented since 752/53.

The emperor probably had some monks persecuted, but the probable reason was completely different, as many men tried in this way to bypass military service, which in view of the tense foreign policy situation could not be tolerated. Stephen's martyrdom is more likely to be related to his propaganda for monasticism. The emperor apparently tried to break the political resistance of several monks, but his aim was not, as is sometimes assumed, to destroy them. Reports that several officers and officers were allegedly executed for their image-friendly views are also doubtful, as the respective sources (such as Theophanes ) are clearly biased. Overall, it can be assumed that several (political) opponents of the emperor were only later transfigured into victims of the iconoclasm and thus a gloomy picture of the emperor was drawn that hardly corresponds to reality. Whether large parts of the population were really fundamentally opposed to this policy cannot be determined with absolute certainty from the tendentious sources and is at least doubtful, since other sources indicate that Constantine was quite popular (see below). Rather, it can be assumed that Constantine took rigorous action against political opponents, but that this has nothing to do with any persecution for religious reasons, for which there is no reliable evidence. On the whole, Constantine's iconoclastic policy was rather moderate. Only the discovery of the 765/66 conspiracy instigated by Constantine and Strategios Podopaguros , which thereby threatened his authority, seems to have induced some tougher measures. Otherwise he seems to have endeavored to return to a Christian teaching of the Church Fathers .

What is certain is that the emperor was a pious Christian and was therefore convinced that the “divine essence” of Jesus could not be captured in pictures. Constantine, who also wrote several theological writings (such as the Peuseis ), therefore, like his father, used the sign of the cross instead of icons (which in any case did not play such a prominent role in the Orthodox Church of that time as they do today). In 754 he called the Council of Hiereia , an assembly of 338 bishops (but there were no representatives from Rome or the East), to declare the worship of images heresy . The resolutions are only indirectly obtained from a later “refutation”. The bishops present avoided extreme positions, but the emperor still had important theological guidelines. But then Constantine did nothing to enforce the creed; It was not until 765/66 that he asked his subjects to swear not to venerate any more pictures. As already mentioned, this can be attributed to domestic political reasons.

Foreign policy

Constantine was a militarily extremely successful emperor who took the safeguarding of the empire's foreign policy very seriously. Of course, the main opponent remained the caliphate in the east, after Byzantium had fought an almost permanent defensive battle for more than a century and lost most of its territories in the 7th century (see Islamic expansion ). Even in the time of Constantine V there were almost every year Arab raids on Byzantine territory, but the troops of the caliphate could hardly celebrate any major successes. To counteract the raids, Constantine deliberately depopulated the border region, but settled other people at strategically important points to strengthen the border defense and established new military districts.

With the reorganized army , Constantine attacked Arab territory from 743 onwards. Gradually the Byzantines recaptured territories from the Arabs, while the latter were briefly involved in a civil war, triggered by the change from the Umayyad dynasty to the Abbasids in 750. In 745/46, Germanikeia in Syria was conquered, the birthplace of Constantine's father Leo. In 747 an Arab fleet was also destroyed near Cyprus . 750/51 was Melitene and 754/55 Theodosiopolis recaptured in Armenia. In 757 Byzantine troops penetrated far into Cilicia , in 759/60 Byzantine landings took place in what is now Lebanon , where Christian revolts against the Arab rule took place. In the early 770s, Byzantine troops gained further successes in Armenia and Cilicia. The eastern border could thus be considered largely secure. Despite these fighting, Byzantium also maintained diplomatic relations with the Caliphate, which led to the exchange of prisoners, for example.

The Byzantine-Bulgarian battles under Constantine V.

The second main foreign policy opponent of Byzantium were the Bulgarians and the Slavs in the Balkans and Greece. Although the two Byzantines were not equivalent, securing these regions, which were largely beyond the control of the government, required additional resources. As already mentioned several times, there were resettlements, which also affected Slavs; that's why people from Syria came to the Balkan Peninsula. Between 756 and 775 Constantine organized several campaigns against the Bulgarians, who posed a constant threat to Byzantine Thrace . In the end he did not succeed in finally defeating the Bulgarians, but he established a (short-term) Byzantine hegemony in this area, which Basil II later succeeded in doing again.

The sources for these campaigns are very confused; it is based in the core on the world chronicle of Theophanes as well as on the historical work of the Nikephoros , whereby their messages partly contradict each other. In 756 Constantine apparently undertook a first campaign, but it was not a resounding success. The same is true of a campaign in 760, according to Theophanes, but Constantine does not seem to have suffered defeat, as a subsequent major military operation forced the Bulgarians to plead for peace and to take hostages. In 762/63, however, there was a Bulgarian revolt, and Telez became the new Khan . In 763 Constantine defeated the Bulgarians under Telez near Anchialos . This victory remained in the memory of the Byzantines for a long time and represented a triumph for the emperor. The Bulgarians asked for peace again, but Constantine himself invaded Bulgaria shortly afterwards and won a great victory. Another campaign in 766 failed. It was not until 774 that Constantine took action against the Bulgarians under Khan Telerig and defeated them again. However, the emperor died on his last campaign in 775. He also took action against the Slavs, who had established themselves in Greece and the Balkans, and defeated them in 759. In 764/65 he was able to capture an important Slav prince. Through his campaigns, Constantine had stabilized the situation on this border in favor of Byzantium.

During Constantine's reign the papacy turned to the Franks - but less because of the emperor's religious policy than because of the inability of Byzantium to intervene effectively militarily in the West. In 751 Ravenna , seat of the Byzantine exarch , fell to the Lombards . The relations between Pope and Emperor varied depending on the prevailing political situation: under Pope Zacharias, for example, they seem to have been quite good; but Pope Hadrian welcomed the emperor's death with relief. This was most likely due to the rapprochement between Constantine and the Lombards, which the Pope perceived as a threat to his position.

Death of the emperor and judgment

During a campaign against the Bulgarians, Constantine died in September 775 when he was about to return to Constantinople. The cause of death was an unexplained disease, which iconophiles saw as divine punishment. His body was buried in the Apostle Church in Constantinople, but excavated and burned in the 9th century.

In several oriental and Latin sources Constantine was portrayed very positively, especially his military achievements were praised, as was his generosity. In contrast, the emperor was portrayed in the darkest colors in the surviving (image-friendly) Byzantine sources and sharply polemicized against him there. It can be assumed that the emperor was also honored in several Byzantine sources, but these have not been preserved. The emperor was probably quite popular with the population, but Constantine was evidently held in high esteem in the army, which is reflected in later sources. Even Leon Diakonos in the late 10th century paid tribute to Constantine's victories against the Bulgarians.

According to the findings of recent research, the representation of the preserved picture-friendly authors therefore certainly does not correspond to historical reality. Constantine was evidently a militarily capable and successful emperor who secured the borders of the empire and recaptured lost territories. Even his opponents Theophanes and Nikephorus , who otherwise had nothing good to say about the emperor, could not completely deny him military successes in their historical works. Only in Italy did Constantine suffer the loss of Byzantine authority. More precise statements about his domestic politics are very difficult due to the tendency of the sources, but he does not seem to have pursued any hard iconoclastic politics; on the contrary, he took decisive action against political opposition and tried, in terms of religious policy, to act against superstition. He reformed the army and the administration and also took care of theological issues. All of this gives the image of an emperor who took his political duties seriously and, above all, was up to them. In later times, the population still remembered his successful campaigns - one reason for the “second phase” of the iconoclasm in the 9th century was the military successes of the iconoclastic emperors.

literature

• Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . Bristol Classical Press, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-85399-750-1 .
• Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-43093-7 .
• Judith Herrin: The Formation of Christendom . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1987, ISBN 0-691-00831-0 .
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Ilse Rochow, Beate Zielke: Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . 1st department: (641−867). Vol. 3: Leon (# 4271) - Placentius (# 6265). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-11-016673-9 , pp. 491-496 No. 3703.
• Ilse Rochow: Emperor Constantine V (741–775). Materials on his life and afterlife (= Berlin Byzantine Studies. Vol. 1). With a prosopographical appendix by Claudia Ludwig, Ilse Rochow and Ralph-Johannes Lilie . Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1994, ISBN 3-631-47138-6 .
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 241-246.

Web links

Commons : Konstantin V.  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Shaun Tougher: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).

Remarks

1. ↑ Ilse Rochow is now fundamental: Emperor Konstantin V (741–775). Materials on his life and afterlife . With a prosopographical appendix by Claudia Ludwig, Ilse Rochow and Ralph-Johannes Lilie. Frankfurt am Main et al. 1994, cf. summarized on p. 1f. and p. 173.
2. ^ Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V , p. 7.
3. ↑ Cf. Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 12f.
4. ↑ On usurpation see Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 21ff.
5. ^ On military reform: Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , pp. 32–35.
6. ^ Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V , p. 35f.
7. ^ Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V , p. 40f.
8. ↑ See currently Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era, ca 680-850. A history . Cambridge 2011, p. 156ff. See also Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 43ff.
9. ↑ See generally Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , pp. 44–46.
10. ↑ See for example Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 30.
11. ^ Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era , pp. 246f.
12. ^ Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V , p. 48ff.
13. ↑ On foreign policy in general: Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , pp. 73ff.
14. ↑ See also Daniel Ziemann: From Wandering People to Great Power: The Emergence of Bulgaria in the Early Middle Ages . Cologne u. a. 2007, p. 213ff.
15. ↑ Cf. Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 93f.
16. ↑ On the afterlife see Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 123ff.
17. ↑ Cf. Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 123f. and p. 130.
18. ↑ Leon Deacon VI 9.
19. ↑ See also Rochow, Kaiser Konstantin V. , p. 173ff.

predecessor	Office	successor
Leo III.	Byzantium emperor 741–775	Leo IV