Zoë Carbopsina (c. 890–920)

Byzantine empress. Name variations: Carbonopsina or Carbonupsina; Carbonopsina means "with the coal-black eyes." Born around 890; died in 920 ce; became fourth wife of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine emperor (r. 886–912); children: Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus(c. 906–959), Byzantine emperor (r. 913–959); possibly Anna of Byzantium (who married Louis III the Blind, Holy Roman emperor).

Born around 890, Zoë Carbopsina was a member of an established Byzantine aristocratic family among whose numbers was her contemporary Himerius, an influential admiral. An eyecatching beauty, Zoë attracted the attention of Leo VI, whose mistress she became (probably) after the death of his third wife, Eudocia Baiane .

Some background: Leo VI ascended the throne of the Byzantine Empire in 886. Before he did so he had been forced against his wishes by his father Basil I to marry a woman named Theophano (c. 866–897). Shortly after she died in 897 without producing an heir to the throne, Leo married the woman who was then his mistress, Zoë Zautzina . Unfortunately, this Zoë also died without issue in 899. Seeking dynastic stability through the birth of an heir born within a legitimate union, Leo thereafter married for a third time in the summer of 900. Leo's choice was a Phrygian named Eudocia Baiane. This marriage, however, was controversial (especially among the clergy) because Leo himself—urged on by the Church—had only shortly before reiterated a ban on third marriages. In fact, to honor the sanctity of Christian marriage, Leo had even officially expressed concern about second unions: at least for those contracted by the general public. The grumbling generated by Leo's marriage to Eudocia was kept to a minimum, however, because most were willing to grant the emperor a little leeway in the hope that a third marriage would be fruitful and produce an heir. However, when Eudocia herself died in childbirth along with her infant in 902, a little less than a year after her marriage to Leo in April 901, many more began to see the hand of God behind the barrenness of Leo's marriages.

Knowing full well how unpopular his third marriage had been among the many of the empire's most influential clergy, Leo refrained from immediately planning a fourth. Regardless, this did not prevent him from seeking the consolation of feminine companionship, and as a result, Leo took as a new mistress the stunning Zoë Carbopsina. Thus stood affairs until 905, when Zoë gave birth to Leo's long-awaited son. A conundrum was thereby also produced, for this son was born out of wedlock at a time when this (usually) meant that the child's status would be that of a bastard, without any claim to his father's status or property. Legitimation of the boy required the Church's approval, and that normally required, even after the fact, marriage. However, it quickly became obvious that most of the clergy, especially the powerful patriarch of Constantinople, Nicholas I Mystikos, were firmly set against Leo taking a fourth wife. A compromise of sorts was worked out between Leo and Nicholas, whereby Leo agreed to separate from Zoë, and Nicholas agreed to baptize her son as Leo's heir. Therefore, on January 6, 906, Leo's and Zoë's child was christened Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus ("born in the purple [imperial] chamber"), and thus was accepted as legitimate in the eyes of the Church. Leo had his heir, although his son's surname suggests that the tinge of bastardy never was completely overcome. Moreover, three days later Leo also had his fourth wife and a new Augusta. Over the strenuous objections of Nicholas, Leo forced a priest named Thomas to preside over his union with Zoë. Zoë then became officially an empress.

Eudocia Baiane (d. 902)

Byzantine empress. Name variations: Baiana. Born in Phrygia; died in childbirth in 902; became third wife of Leo VI the Wise, emperor of Byzantium (r. 886–912), in April 901; no children.

The Byzantine emperor Leo VI the Wise had four wives. At 16, he married the saintly Theophano (c. 866–897), then fled into the arms of his mistress Zoë Zautzina (c. 870–c. 899) whom he would eventually marry. Following Zoë's death, he received dispensation from the Orthodox Church to marry a third time and chose Eudocia Baiane. She died one year later while giving birth to an infant son who also died. Refused permission to marry once more, Leo lived with Zoë Carbopsina before marrying her in a secret ceremony.

Zoë's marriage and elevation split both the ecclesiastical establishment and the general population of the Byzantine Empire into warring camps, and threatened to be as socially destructive as had been the empire's once debilitating Iconoclastic Controversy. Nicholas reacted by attempting to cut Leo off from the sacraments. Leo retaliated by appealing to the pope in Rome, who in this instance was more tolerant of Leo's wishes if for no other reason than to reestablish the Roman See's claims to superiority over all of the Eastern Church. When Pope Sergius III supported Leo's marriage, Leo used that authentication to remove Nicholas from his influential post, replacing him as patriarch with one Euthymius (907). This, however, hardly ended the dispute. Nicholas was temporarily exiled, but his supporters remained many and adamant—so adamant that Euthymius was never able to establish his effective authority. Since all of this was played out against a series of foreign problems on every frontier of the Byzantine Empire and since Leo's foreign policy knew as many setbacks as victories, Leo eventually found it necessary to depose Euthymius so as to return Nicholas to his former office (912) as a prelude to reunifying the empire against its many foreign enemies. Nicholas thereafter returned to Constantinople in triumph—not a good sign for Zoë, especially since Leo died not long after Nicholas' reinstallation.

Because Constantine VII was only a young child when his father died, Leo's younger brother, Alexander (III), who had nominally been Leo's co-emperor since 886, but who had wielded no real power in part because he had once plotted to overthrow Leo, assumed the Byzantine throne. Alexander quickly acted against the interests of Zoë, exiling her from the palace and imprisoning her kinsman, Himerius. Although nominally Constantine VII reigned as co-emperor with Alexander, Zoë's young son was pushed increasingly to the fringe, that is, until Alexander died suddenly in 913.

With Alexander gone, Nicholas assumed the regency of Constantine and attempted to run the empire with the help of powerful aristocratic families. Political intrigue at the time, however, was thick, especially since the empire was seriously threatened by the ambitions of Simeon I the Great, tsar of the first Bulgarian Empire, who wished to ascend the Byzantine throne. Nicholas turned to Romanus I Lecapenus to stabilize his influence, but Simeon's military successes against the Byzantine army forced Nicholas to attempt to buy off the Bulgarian with the promise that Constantine VII would marry Simeon's daughter. This concession, however, shocked many among the Byzantines, for it opened up the probability that Simeon would thereafter overshadow Constantinople, and even threatened the possibility that the Bulgar might someday seize the throne for himself. The promise of Constantine to the daughter of Simeon thus provided Zoë with an opportunity: she struck in 914, engineering a coup which transferred the regency of her son from Nicholas to herself.

Like Nicholas, Zoë needed powerful allies to secure her influence and ward off Simeon, who was angered by Zoë's refusal to approve her son's marriage to a Bulgarian princess. Among the allies who rallied to Zoë's side was especially the general Leo Phocas and his influential family. As long as Leo Phocas remained powerful, Zoë's position as regent was secure. However, Leo Phocas was defeated in battle by the Bulgars in 917, with the result that his bitter political rival, Romanus I Lecapenus, ousted him from his position of authority. (Leo Phocas' attempted counter-coup was unsuccessful and he was blinded for his efforts.) Leo Phocas' fall was a serious setback for Zoë, for with all of her domestic enemies she needed success abroad (especially against Simeon) to secure her influence and beat back the simmering opposition. As a result of Leo Phocas' fall and the crisis on the Bulgarian frontier, Zoë (her son as then too young to assert his independent authority) had to yield the running of the empire to Romanus I Lecapenus. In 919, she retired from court to take up residence in the convent of St. Euthymia, where she died shortly thereafter.

Romanus secured his status as Augustus beside Constantine through the marriage of Constantine to his daughter Helena Lekapena (919). With the political eclipse of Zoë, Nicholas returned to prominence and his attacks on Zoë's status. His campaign ended only after Zoë's death when at the Council of Constantinople (920) a reconciliation of sorts brought peace to the two factions created by Zoë's marriage to Leo VI. In short, both sides accepted that Leo's marriage to Zoë's had been illicit, but both also proclaimed the legitimacy and imperial status of Constantine (albeit he was to reign under the aegis of Romanus). Constantine knew a long and eventful reign: he died in 959, but ruled independently of Romanus and his sons only after 945. An intellectual at heart, his legacy lay mostly in the fields of scholarship and art. Indeed, as both a patron and as an active contributor, Constantine reigned over the golden age of Byzantine cultural creativity.

William S. Greenwalt , Associate Professor of Classical History, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California