The Byzantine Empire had a good run, from the move of the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330 CE to the takeover of the illustrious city in 1453. The individual emperors, however, frequently were not as lucky in their reigns. Here you see an 11th-century manuscript showing the murder of Emperor Romanos III Argyros in a bath (1034 CE). His wife engineered it, too. The grimmest part of this story is that when we look at the history of Byzantine regicide, Romanos was kind of lucky.
The Byzantine Empire was thoroughly Christian, and thus there was an idea that the formal approval of killing off one’s political rivals was morally wrong. (Good thing particularly in light of the fact that many “rivals” were innocent, like poor John IV Laskaris, who was made emperor at the ripe age of seven and deposed when he was eleven . . . After he was blinded). Another reason that royal claimants avoided murdering their opponents was because they didn’t want to set a precedent that might set up their own demise.
This logic led to a very Byzantine way of handling rulers and ruler-wannabes that you didn’t like, which was mutilation. The idea was that if a person’s face were disfigured, that person couldn’t be a ruler. “Why not?”, you may ask. Good question. Lots of reasons, but partly because it was thought that since God was perfect, and that the emperors governed by approval from God, therefore that the emperors’ bodies should reflect that divine perfection and have a whole, complete body.
And so, slitting the noses (“rhinotomy”) and blinding through eye-gouging were unfortunately very common. Castration and limb dismemberment were also effective ways of eliminating the opposition.
Getting to be the leader, practicing sadism, and feeling like you were in line with your religious beliefs — this was an extraordinary Byzantine concoction.
Source(s): “On the mutilation and blinding of Byzantine Emperors from the reign of Herackius I until the fall of Constantinople,” by Jonathan Alan Stumpf, _Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology_, vol 4, no 3, 2017. _A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities_, Anthony Kaldellis. Wikipedia. 11th c chronicle of John Skylites for the image.
