Irene Basileus - Helicopter Manager
Irene (752-803) ruled the Byzantine Empire three different times, but she kept getting booted off the imperial throne.
It started with a beauty contest. The emperor had a competition to find the most beautiful girl in the kingdom to be a bride for his son. They found Irene in Athens, an orphan from a noble family. This catapulted her to Constantinople, where she married the heir to the empire in 769.
Her husband inherited the throne in 775 and she sat by his side until he died in 780. Irene wanted to see her son on the throne, so she beat back claims to power from her husband’s five brothers.
Irene first ruled as regent for her son Constantine VI. As a 9-year-old, he was more than willing to let Mom rule while he played with his toys. And rule she did. She quashed rebellions from usurpers and enjoyed victories against both Slav and Arab armies early in her son’s reign.
In 781, Irene tried to negotiate a marriage between her son and a daughter of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. This is a fantastic “what if” of history. What if the next Byzantine Emperor had married a Frankish princess? Would east and west still have drifted apart or would they have stayed together? Well, the marriage alliance was dissolved in 787, so you’ll never know.
Having done well with politics, Irene then dabbled in religion. The Iconoclastic Controversy was a dispute over religious images that had been tearing the Byzantine Empire apart. In 787, she convened the Second Council of Nicaea, where 350 bishops restored the veneration of icons and brought an end to iconoclasm, at least for a few decades. Don’t worry, it will restart in 815, but that’s another story.
A faction of the army was opposed to icons and thus against these changes. Irene had a clever plan to overcome their resistance: she shipped them to the outer edge of the empire on a phony military campaign, then replaced them with loyalists while they were gone. Take that, suckers!
In 790, the now 19-year-old emperor wanted to rule on his own, so he pushed his mom aside. Constantine VI ruled independently for a few years, but without Mom around, he kept racking up losses. After defeats to Bulgars, Arabs, and a failed internal rebellion, he ordered the tongues torn out for all four of his uncles. It was time for new advisors. Or an old advisor, Mom.
In 792, she rejoined him as co-ruler for a few more years. They printed coins with the two of them side by side to show their unity and equality. But there were constant plots and schemes to boot Irene out so others could control her weak son, and thus, control the whole Byzantine Empire.
Fed up with all of this, Irene deposed her son as emperor, blinding him in the very same room she had given birth to him 28 years earlier. He later died from his wounds. Irene took the imperial title Basileus, the Greek word for supreme ruler, becoming the first woman to rule the Byzantine Empire in her own right from 797-802.
Many saw her rule as illegitimate, partially because she usurped the throne (that happened a lot), partially because she murdered her son (she kinda started a trend with that), and partially because she was a woman ruling without a man (pretty much unheard of).
Because of these complications, some saw the imperial throne as vacant, particularly the pope in Rome. The door opened for a new candidate for the top seat in Christendom at exactly the time when King Charlemagne was totally available for the job. The pope crowned him “Emperor of the Romans” in 800 in Rome, driving another wedge between eastern and western Christendom.
This infuriated Irene. The Byzantine Empire never called themselves Byzantines or Greeks. They saw themselves as the Romans, not the descendants of the Romans, but the very same empire. And she was its emperor, thank you very much. But this coronation happened far away in Rome, and she was busy with her own problems.
Empress Irene tried to placate her people, providing charitable aid in the form of food, and then just for extra flair, rode around the city in a golden chariot, tossing coins out to the rubes in the crowd. But it was too little, too late.
In 802, the main officials had a meeting and decided Irene was finished. The board of directors decided that the CEO had to go. She was deposed and confined to a monastery in the island of Lesbos. She wasn’t blinded and her tongue wasn’t removed, so it was a relatively good ending for a Byzantine ruler. All things considered, living your last year doing R&R on an island in the Mediterranean ain’t a bad retirement package.
There is not much of a precedent in the modern business world for a leader’s mother taking over when they are incompetent. Recently there have been rumors of younger employees asking their moms to sit in with them for tense and/or stressful work Zoom calls.
It’s hard to tell if this is really a for real trend, or just overblown “Can you believe the kids these days?” But if you’re thinking about sharing the screen with your mom during your next 1-on-1 with your boss, no, don’t. Just don’t.
There is a common notion that you should not ask your mom if your business idea is any good because she loves you and will support you no matter how harebrained your scheme is. There’s probably some validity to that. Your mom might think that your crypto coin is “great, Sweetie,” but don’t make that a headline in your pitch deck.
Lucky for you, your mom is not Irene. If you can, go give your mom a hug. Or at least send her a text. “Thanks for not deposing me and stabbing my eyes out in the room where I was born,” is probably not the best text you could send, but feel free to start with that and then make it better.
If your mom is one of those rare moms who appreciates “yo mamma” jokes, maybe tell her one, but maybe just stress your appreciation of all of her sacrifices for you over the years. And the whole not murdering you thing. That’s big too.
To conclude with the kindest, gentlest yo mamma joke for all the great moms out there:
Yo mamma is so smart, even Google asks her for answers.
Awww. Thanks, Mom.
