Leo V the Armenian

Leo V the Armenian (, Léōn ho Arménios; 775 – 25 December 820) was the Byzantine emperor from 813 to 820. He is chiefly remembered for ending the decade-long war with the Bulgars, as well as initiating the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm.

A senior general of Armenian origin, Leo distinguished himself under Nikephoros I and Michael I Rhangabe, eventually becoming the stratēgos of the Anatolic Theme. Taking advantage of Michael's defeat at the Battle of Versinikia, he forced the emperor to abdicate in his favour. He was able to withhold the blockade of Constantinople by Krum of Bulgaria and, after Krum's death, concluded a 30-year peace with his successor Omurtag.

In 815, Leo deposed Patriarch Nikephoros and reinstituted iconoclasm. He was assassinated by supporters of Michael the Amorian, one of his most trusted generals, who succeeded him on the throne in 820.

Background

Leo was born in Umayyad Arminiya, the son of the patrician Bardas, who was of Armenian descent. According to Theophanes Continuatus, Leo was also of Assyrian/Syrian descent. In his youth he fled with his family to the Byzantine Empire and enrolled in the army of the Anatolic Theme. In 802, the general Bardanes Tourkos took over the theme and married one of his daughters to Leo. When Bardanes rebelled, Leo deserted to Emperor Nikephoros I who promoted him to the position of stratēgos of the Armeniac Theme. In 811, when Nikephoros was planning his major campaign against the Bulgars (which was to end disastrously), Arab raiders captured and destroyed the city of Euchaita in the Armeniac Theme—a humiliating defeat in which the salaries of the thematic units were also lost. Nikephoros blamed this on Leo and exiled him. Punishment also included deprivation of his military rank, beating and hair cutting. However, a modern scholar suggests this "Leo" mentioned in the contemporary sources as being punished by Nikephoros was not the same as the later Emperor Leo.

Reign

thumb|260px|Proclamation of Leo as emperor.

Recalled by Michael I Rhangabe in 811, Leo became governor of the Anatolic Theme and conducted himself well in a war against the Arabs in 812, defeating the forces of the Cilician thughur under Thabit ibn Nasr. Leo survived the Battle of Versinikia in 813 by abandoning the battlefield, but nevertheless took advantage of this defeat to force the abdication of Michael I in his favor on 11 July 813. It was at this time that people assembled at the tomb of Constantine V, an emperor who was victorious against the Bulgars, and cried out to it: "Arise and help the state which is perishing!"

In a diplomatic move, Leo wrote a letter to Patriarch Nikephoros in order to reassure him of his orthodoxy (Nikephoros being obviously afraid of a possible iconoclast revival). A further step in preventing future usurpations was the castration of Michael I's sons. One month later, during his entrance to the Palace quarter, he kneeled before the icon of Christ at the Chalke Gate, which was erected by Empress Irene.

Leo inherited a precarious situation. Within a week of his coronation, Khan Krum of Bulgaria blockaded both Adrianople and Constantinople by land. He agreed to negotiate in person with Krum but used the opportunity to attempt to have him assassinated. The stratagem failed, enraging Krum who sacked the suburbs of Constantinople and towns in southern Thrace. However, he abandoned his siege of the capital, and withdrew to capture and depopulate Adrianople. With this moment of respite, Leo divorced his allegedly adulterous wife and married the daughter of the patrikios Arsaber, the well-regarded Armenian noblewoman Theodosia, crowning her first son, the ten-year-old Symbatios, co-emperor, and renaming him Constantine, recalling the militarily successful iconoclast emperors of the eighth century, Leo III the Isaurian and Constantine V. In 814, Krum sacked Arcadiopolis and other Thracian towns, and planned a full-scale siege of Constantinople, but died of a stroke before he could begin, causing the Bulgar threat to finally recede.

Leo likely realised that it was impossible to force everyone to agree with him, and so, similar to Constans II, was less concerned with convincing his opponents of iconoclasm than with convincing them to compromise and not pursue the matter further. In other words, he was more interested in ecclesiastical unity rather than strict iconoclasm. For example, in the Life of Nicetas of Medikion, it is reported that Patriarch Theodotos gave communion to iconodule monks while they were proclaiming "Anathema to those who do not venerate the icon of Christ". Icons were not tolerated in prominent public spaces but were allowed in private, so long as people recognised the iconoclast Patriarch.

While Leo was successful on the Bulgar front, relations with the Franks and the Papacy were difficult. Theodotos attempted to establish friendly relations with Pope Paschal I (817–824) but was rebuffed. Theodore the Stoudite pre-empted these efforts through his correspondence with Paschal beforehand, in which he criticised the iconoclast patriarch and directly appealed to the papacy to restore orthodoxy in the Byzantine Empire. Although, as with all iconoclast emperors, his actions and intentions cannot be easily reconstructed due to the extreme bias of the iconodule sources (there are no surviving contemporary iconoclast sources of any kind).

thumb|The arrest of [[Michael II|Michael the Amorian before Leo V and Theodosia.]] thumb|Emperor Leo attending the Christmas celebrations in the St. Stephen chapel.

Assassination

The conspiracy which was to overthrow Leo was led by the Domestic of the Excubitors, Michael the Amorian, who disapproved of Leo's divorce and remarriage (he was married to the sister of the divorcée). In late 820, agents of the Postal Logothete uncovered the plot. Leo imprisoned him and sentenced him to death by burning, but Empress consort Theodosia arranged a postponement of the execution until after Christmas.

In the dim light they mistook the officiating priest for the Emperor and the confusion allowed Leo to snatch a heavy cross from the altar and defend himself. He called for his guards, but the conspirators had barred the doors and within a few moments a sword stroke had severed his arm, and he fell before the communion-table, where his body was hewed in pieces. His remains were dumped unceremoniously in the snow and the assassins hurried to the dungeons to free Michael.

Unfortunately for them Leo had hidden the key on his person, and since it was too early in the morning to find a blacksmith, Michael was hastily crowned as emperor with the iron clasps still around his legs. Leo's family (including his mother and his wife, Theodosia) was exiled to monasteries on the Princes' Islands. His four sons (including ex co-emperor Symbatios) were castrated, a procedure so brutally carried out that one of them died during the "operation".

Assessment and legacy

While the Byzantine bureaucracy preferred the new emperor Michael II () to Leo, who reinitiated the iconoclast controversy, Leo was popular with the army due to his military victories. Upon news of his assassination, the Anatolic Theme proclaimed Thomas the Slav, who had served with Leo and Michael under Bardanes Tourkos, rightful emperor and avenger of Leo. The Bucellarian, Paphlagonian and Cibyrrhaeot Themes immediately sided with the Anatolics, leading to the outbreak of civil war in 821. Genesius records four sons:

Symbatios (Συμβάτιος), renamed Constantine, co-emperor from 814 to 820. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father.
Basil. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.
Gregory. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.
Theodosios (died in 820). Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Died soon after his castration.

The existence of a daughter has been debated by historians and genealogists. The tentative name "Anna" has been suggested (see above). She married Hmayeak, a Mamikonian prince (died c. 797), by whom she had Konstantinos, an officer at the court of Emperor Michael III.

Notes

References

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.