Romanos II

Romanos II was a son of the Emperor Constantine VII and Helena Lekapene, the daughter of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos and his wife Theodora.{{sfn|Reuter|McKitterick|1999|p=699}} The Theophanes Continuatus states that he was 21 years old at the time of his accession in 959, meaning that he was born in 938.{{sfn|PmbZ|loc="Romanos II (#26834)"}} Named after his maternal grandfather, Romanos was married, as a child, to {{ill|Bertha-Eudokia of Provence|el|Βέρθα-Ευδοκία της Προβηγκίας|lt=Bertha}}, the illegitimate daughter of King Hugh of Italy, to bond an alliance. She had changed her name to Eudokia after their marriage, but died an early death in 949, which caused the dissolution of the alliance.{{Cite book|title=History of Byzantine|last=Ostrogorsky|first=George|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=1968|isbn=0-8135-0599-2|location=New Brunswick|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofbyzanti00ostr/page/283 283]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbyzanti00ostr/page/283}}

On 27 January 945, Constantine VII succeeded in removing his brothers-in-law, the sons of Romanos I, assuming the throne alone. On 6 April 945 (Easter), Constantine crowned his son co-emperor.{{Cite book|last=Skylitzes|first=John|url=https://archive.org/details/JohnSkylitzes.ASynopsisOfByzantineHistorytrans.ByJ.Wortley2010/page/n258|title=Synopsis of Histories|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=c. 1057|isbn=9780511779657|page=228|translator-last=John Wortley|author-link=John Skylitzes}} With Hugh out of power in Italy and dead by 947, Romanos secured the promise from his father that he would be allowed to select his own bride. Romanos chose a woman named Anastaso, whom he married in 956 and renamed Theophano.

In November 959, Romanos II succeeded his father on the throne amidst rumors that he or his wife had poisoned him.{{Cite book|title=The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire|last=Gibbon|first=Edward|publisher=Ballantyne, Hanson & CO.|year=1904|location=London|pages=247|others=According to Gibbon, "after a reign of four years, she mingled for her husband the same deadly draught which she had composed for his father."|volume=V}} Romanos purged his father's courtiers of his enemies and replaced them with friends. To appease his bespelling wife, he excused his mother, Empress Helena, from court and forced his five sisters into convents. Nevertheless, many of Romanos' appointees were able men, including his chief adviser, the eunuch Joseph Bringas.

File:Ioannikios betrays to Romanos II a plot to murder him.png Ioannikios informs Romanos of a plot against him.]]

The pleasure-loving sovereign could also leave military matters in the adept hands of his generals, in particular the brothers Leo and Nikephoros Phokas. In 960 Nikephoros Phokas was sent to Crete with a fleet that was considered by contemporary historians as notably large, but probably not comprising more than 25,000-30,000 soldiers and sailors in total.{{sfn|McMahon|2021|p=67-69}} After a difficult campaign and nine-month Siege of Chandax, Nikephoros successfully re-established Byzantine control over the entire island in 961. Following a triumph celebrated at Constantinople, Nikephoros was sent to the eastern frontier, where the Emir of Aleppo Sayf al-Dawla was engaged in annual raids into Byzantine Anatolia. Nikephoros took Cilicia and even Aleppo in 962, sacking the palace of the Emir and taking possession of his treasures. In the meantime Leo Phokas and Marianos Argyros had countered Magyar incursions into the Byzantine Balkans.

File:Phokas captures Halep 962.jpg.]]

After a lengthy hunting expedition Romanos II took ill and died on 15 March 963.Georgius Cedrenus − CSHB 9: [https://books.google.com/books?id=nbkVAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA344 344]: "Anno mundi 6471 mortuus est Romanus imperator, 15 die Martii mensis. indictione 6, annos natus 24. imperavit annos 3, menses 4, dies 5." [10 November 959 − 15 March 963] Rumor attributed his death to poison administered by his wife Theophano, but there is no evidence of this, and Theophano would have been risking much by exchanging the secure status of a crowned Augusta with the precarious one of a widowed regent of her very young children.

File:Death_of_Romanos_II.png

Romanos II's reliance on his wife and on bureaucrats like Joseph Bringas had resulted in a relatively capable administration, but this built up resentment among the nobility, which was associated with the military. In the wake of Romanos' death, his Empress Dowager, now regent to the two co-emperors, her underage sons, was quick to marry the general Nikephoros Phokas and to acquire another general, John Tzimiskes, as her lover, having them both elevated to the imperial throne in succession. The rights of her sons were safeguarded, however, and eventually, when Tzimiskes died at war, her eldest son Basil II became senior emperor.

Romanos' first marriage, in September 944,Theophanes Continuatus records the marriage in September 944 of "Hugonem regem Franciæ...filiam" and "Romanus imperator...Romano Constantini generi sui filio", stating that she lived five years with her husband, although he confuses the identity of Bertha's father. Theophanes Continuatus, VI, Romani imperium, 46, p. 431. was to {{ill|Bertha-Eudokia of Provence|el|Βέρθα-Ευδοκία της Προβηγκίας|lt=Bertha}}, illegitimate daughter of King Hugh of Italy. She changed her name from Bertha to Eudokia after her marriage.{{Cite book |last=Garland |first=Lynda |author-link=Lynda Garland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gWGAgAAQBAJ |title=Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527–1204 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-75639-1 |publication-date=2014 |page=126 |language=en |orig-date=1999}}{{Cite book |last=Jestice |first=Phyllis G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gHRVDwAAQBAJ |title=Imperial Ladies of the Ottonian Dynasty: Women and Rule in Tenth-Century Germany |date=2018 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-3-319-77306-3 |page=60 |language=en}} She died in 949, her marriage unconsummated.Byzantine historian George Kedrenos recorded that that "filia Hugonis", married to "Romano", died a virgin. Liudprandi Antapodosis III.39, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica Scriptorum III, p. 312.

By his second wife Theophano he had at least four children:

• Helena, born {{c.}} 955{{sfn|Garland|2002|pp=128, 271 (note 13)}}
• Basil II, born in 958{{sfn|Reuter|McKitterick|1999|p=699}}
• Constantine VIII, born in 960{{sfn|Reuter|McKitterick|1999|p=699}}
• Anna Porphyrogenita, born 13 March 963{{sfn|PmbZ|loc=[https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ22589/html "Anna (#20436)"]}}

File:Constantine VII with Romanos II.png|Gold solidus depicting Constantine VII with Romanos II, 945–959.

File:Romanos et Eudoxie.JPG|The Romanos Ivory, 945–949.

File:Byzantine cross ivory BZ.1937.18 (detail).jpg|Depiction of a young Romanos II on an Ivory plaque, {{circa}} 945–959.{{Cite book|title=Byzantine Figural Processional Crosses|last=Cotsonis|first=John A.|publisher=Dumbarton Oaks|year=1994|location=Washington, D.C.|page=66|isbn=9780884022282}}

File:Romanos II solidus.png|Solidus of Romanos II as sole ruler, 959–963.

{{Portal|Byzantine Empire}}

• List of Byzantine emperors

{{Reflist}}

• Leo the Deacon, [https://books.google.com/books?id=RCDsV41k8A0C& Histories]
• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 By Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 147-20
• {{Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium|title=Romanos II|url=https://archive.org/details/odb_20210521/page/1806/mode/1up|pages=1806-1087}}
• {{cite book |last=Garland |first=Lynda |author-link=Lynda Garland |title=Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527–1204 |publisher=Routledge |date=2002 |isbn=978-1134756384 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a5GFAgAAQBAJ }}
• {{cite journal |last1=McMahon |first1=Lucas |title=Logistical modelling of a sea-borne expedition in the Mediterranean: the case of the Byzantine invasion of Crete in AD 960 |journal=Mediterranean Historical Review |date=2021 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=63–94 |doi=10.1080/09518967.2021.1900171}}
• {{Cite book|last=Ostrogorsky|first=George|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QDYjAQAAIAAJ|title=History of the Byzantine State|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=1969|isbn=978-0-8135-0599-2|location=New Brunswick|author-link=George Ostrogorsky}}
• John Julius Norwich (1991). Byzantium: The Apogee. {{ISBN|0394537785}}
• {{cite book |chapter=Appendix |title=The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, c.900-c.1024 |editor-first1=Timothy |editor-last1=Reuter |editor-first2=Rosamond |editor-last2=McKitterick |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1999 }}
• {{cite encyclopedia |editor1-link=Ralph-Johannes Lilie

| editor1-last = Lilie | editor1-first = Ralph-Johannes | editor2-last = Ludwig | editor2-first = Claudia | editor3-last = Zielke | editor3-first = Beate | editor4-last = Pratsch | editor4-first = Thomas|chapter=Romanos II. (#26834)|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ28988/html|title=Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit|language = de |publisher = De Gruyter |year = 2013 |ref ={{harvid|PmbZ}} }}

;Attribution

• {{EB1911|wstitle=Romanus|volume=23|pages=583–584}}

{{Commons-inline|Romanus II}}

{{s-start}}

{{s-hou|Macedonian Dynasty||938||963}}

{{s-reg|}}

{{s-bef

| before = Constantine VII

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{{s-ttl

| title = Byzantine emperor

| years = 959–963
(with Basil II, and Constantine VIII)

}}

{{s-aft

| after = Nikephoros II Phokas

}}

{{s-end}}

{{Roman emperors}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Romanos 02}}

Category:10th-century Byzantine emperors

Category:Macedonian dynasty

Category:Constantine VII

Category:930s births

Category:963 deaths

Category:950s in the Byzantine Empire

Category:960s in the Byzantine Empire

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:Sons of Byzantine emperors