Romanos IV Diogenes - Accession To The Throne

Accession To The Throne

Romanos Diogenes was the son of Constantine Diogenes and a member of a prominent and powerful Cappadocian family, connected by birth to most of the great aristocratic nobles in Asia Minor. His mother was an anonymous daughter of Basil Argyros, brother of the emperor Romanos III. Courageous and generous, but also quite impetuous, Romanos's military talents had seen him rise with distinction in the army, including serving on the Danubian frontier but he was eventually convicted of attempting to usurp the throne of the sons of Constantine X Doukas in 1067. While waiting to receive his sentence from the regent Eudokia Makrembolitissa, he was summoned into her presence and advised that she had pardoned him and that furthermore she had chosen him to be her husband and the guardian of her sons as emperor. She took this course of action firstly due to her concern that unless she managed to find a powerful husband, she could easily lose the regency to any unscrupulous noble, and secondly because she was infatuated with the popular Romanus. Her decision was met with little protest as the Seljuk Turks had overrun much of Cappadocia and had even taken the important city of Caesarea, meaning that the army needed to be placed under the command of an able and energetic general.

The problem Romanus and Eudokia had in executing this plan was that Eudokia's deceased husband, Constantine X, had made her swear an oath never to remarry. She approached the Patriarch John Xiphilinos and convinced him both to hand over the written oath she had signed to this effect, and to have him pronounce that he was in favour of a second marriage for the good of the state. The Senate agreed, and on January 1, 1068 Romanus married the empress and was crowned Emperor of the Romans.