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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

A gold solidus featuring Constantine VI and his mother, Irene. Pintrest

8. The Religious Zealot Who Killed Her Kid

When Byzantine Emperor Leo IV died, he left the empire to his son, the child Emperor Constantine VI, with the kid’s mother, Irene (circa 753 – 803), as regent. After consolidating her power, Irene set about undoing the preceding decades of Iconoclasm – a religious movement that had banned icons and religious imagery.

She went about it with all the tenacity and enthusiasm of a religious zealot. In her determination to let nothing stand in the way of her mission, Irene rode roughshod over opponents, including her own son, whom she killed in a particularly cruel way.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.