A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

IEO. LEO.:73
and he was to be executed on the same -day. -Leo exposed thle.Bulgarian merchants to veitations and
left his palace to witness the execution, and the ill-treatment. Thence arose a war with the Bulunhappy man, loaded with chains, was dragged garian king, Simeon, who ravaged Macedonia, and
along, when the empress besought her husband not routed the Greek army, commanded'by Leo Catato carry out his bloody verdict on that sacred day, calon and Theodosius, the latter of whom was
but to wait till after Christmas. Leo, moved by killed in the action, to the great regret of the naher entreaties, ordered Michael to be taken back to tion and the emperor. The credit of Stylianus
his prison. On the following day the emperor and ceased with the death of his daughter, the empress;
his whole court went in procession to church, and and his disgrace grieved him so much that he died
according to a custom established at the Byzantine of sorrow and disappointed ambition (894). Leo
court, the emperor himself began the sacred chant. got rid of the Bulgarians by involving them,
This was the signal of his death. During the night through intrigues, in a war with the Hungarians.
the friends of Michael had resolved to risk every The following years were rendered remarkable by
thing in order to save his and their own lives; and several conspiracies. That of 895 proved nearly
dressed in the garb of priests, with arms hid under fatal to the emperor, but it was discovered in time,
their floating garments, they entered the church and quelled by one Samonas, who, in reward, was
without creating any suspicion. At the moment created patricius, and soon rose to great wealth
they heard Leo's voice they rushed upon him. and power. A few years afterwards Leo was
He escaped to the altar, and defended himself with attacked in a church during service by a ruffian,
the great cross; but in vain-nobody came to his who felled him to the ground with a club; but on
rescue. Exhausted by an heroic resistance, he saw this occasion also the emperor escaped, and the
one of his murderers, of gigantic stature, aim a fatal assassin met with the fate he deserved. The inacblow at him. "Have mercy!" cried the fainting tivity of Leo induced the Arabs and northern.eperor. "This is not the hour of mercy," replied neighbours of the empire to attack it at their conthe giant, "but the hour of revenge! "'and with venience. The former once more invaded Sicily,
one blew he felled him to the ground. Michael and took Tauromenium; and in 904 appeared with
was now dragged from his prison, and, as Gibbon a numerous fleet in the harbour of Thessalonica.
says, he was snatched from the fiery furnace to the. This splendid city, the second in wealth and popusovereignty of an empire. Leo left four sons, the lation after Constantinople, was ill fortified and
eldest of whom, Sarbatius or Symbatius, was still worse garrisoned, so that in spite of the efforts
crowned as his father's future successor shortly of the inhabitants, the Arabs soon made themafter the deposition of Michael Rhangabe. They selves master of it. They destroyed a great portion
were all castrated by order of Michael the Stam- of it; and after having plundered it during ten
merer, and confined in a convent. Sarbatius died days, left the harbour with their fleet laden with
in consequence of the operation. (Theoph. p. 424, booty and'captives. The history of this conquest
&c.; Theoph. Contin. p. 428, &c.; Cedrem p. 483, was described by Joannes Cameniata in his valu-'&c.; Zonar. vol. ii. p. 127, &c.; Leo Gram. p. 445, able work, The Capture of Thessalonica ('H faAcl s
&c.; Const. Manass. p. 94; Joel, p. 287; Glycas, Trjs OEeaaXovflKiqs). [CAMENIATA.] About this
p. 287, &c.; Genesius, p. 2, &c.) [W. P.] time the last remains of the authority of the senate
LEO VI., FLA'VIUS, surnamed SA'PIENS were finally abolished by a constitution of Leo. In
and PHILO'SOPHUS, emperor of Constantinople 910 Samonas was sentenced to perpetual imprison(A. D. 886-911), second son of Basil I., the ment for having abused the confidence the emperors
Macedonian, by his second wife, Eudoxia, was had never ceased to bestow upon him since he
born in A. D. 865, and succeeded his father on the had crushed the conspiracy of 895. In 911 the
1st of March, 886, after having previously been Arabs defeated the:Greek fleet off Samos. In this
created Augustus. A short time before the death action the Greeks were commantnded by Romanus
of Basil, young Leo narrowly escaped the punish- Lecapenus, who became empeor'4during. the minoment of a parricide, a crime, however, of which he rity of Constantine VII. porphyrogenitus. Leo
was not guilty, but of which he was accused by died in the same year, 911, either on the 11th of
the minister, Santabaren, the knavish favourite of May or on the 11th of July, of a chronical dysenthe emperor. As soon as Leo ascended the throne tery. His successor was his infant son, Constantine
he prepared for revenge. He began by deposing Porphyrogenitus, whom he bad by:his fourth wife,
the notorious patriarch Photius, who was the chief Zoe; and his younger brother, Alexander, who
support of Santabaren; and having got rid of that had nominally reigned with Leo:since the death of
dangerous intriguer, he had the minister arrested, theit father, Basil, but who, preferring luxury and
deprived him of his eyes, and banished him to one idleness to business, had abandoned his share in
of the remotest corners of Asia Minor. The reign the government to his elder brother Leo. Leo was
of Leo presents an uninterrupted series of wars married four times; in consequence of which lhe
and conspiracies. In 887 and 888 the Arabs in- was excluded from the communion with the faithvaded Asia Minor, landed in Italy and Sicily, and ful by the patriarch Nicolaus, as the Greek church
plundered Samos and other islands in the Archi- only tolerated a second marriage: it censured a
pelago: it was only in 891 that the emperor's third, and it condemned a fourth as an atrocious
authority was re-established in his Italian domi- sin. The first wife of Leo was' Theophano, the
nions. Stylianus, Leo's father-in-law, and prime daughter of Constantinus Martinacius; the second
minister, gave occasion to a bloody war with the Zoe, the widow of Theodorus Guniatzita, and the
Bulgarians. At that period these people were no daughter of the minister Stylianus, who, after the
longer so barbarous as in former centuries, and marriage of Zoe, received from his son-in-law the
they carried on a considerable trade with the unusual title of basileopator, or father of the emByzantine empire, having their principal factories peror; the third was Eudoxia, a woman of rare
at Thessalonica, where they enjoyed great privi- beauty; and the fourth was Zoe Carbonopsina,
leges. These privileges Stylianus disregarded, and who survived her husband.
3 B'2