Constantine V of Byzantium (718-14 September 775) was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 741 to 742, succeeding Leo III of Byzantium and preceding Artavasdos of Byzantium and from 743 to 775, succeeding Artavasdos of Byzantium and preceding Leo IV of Byzantium. He was the husband of Eudokia Laloudios, and Constantine was a champion of iconoclsm in Byzantium.
Biography[]
Constantine was born in 718 in Constantinople to Emperor Leo III of Byzantium, and he was from the House of Isauros. In 741 he succeeded his father as emperor of the Byzantine Empire, but he had to deal with his brother-in-law Artavasdos, an Armenian general who seized the throne until 743. Constantine had him blinded and his allies blinded or executed, and he seized power as emperor. During his reign, he embraced iconoclasm, advocating the destruction of religious imagery, which he considered to be sacriligeous. Constantine was also an opponent of the spread of Islam, and in 769 he embarked on the first of his campaigns against the Arabs on his borders. In the Battle of Tzamandos on 14 March 769, a small Byzantine army was destroyed by the Addauid Emirate, but Emir Hasan of Addauid Emirate was slain in that battle; his son Emir Abd al-Kadir of Addauid Emirate was slain in a Byzantine victory on 15 January 770. The Addauid Emirate was destroyed in this war, to be replaced by the Subaid Emirate; Constantine reconquered much of Asia Minor. After taking Tarsus in 772, he decided to wage another war against the Subaids for control of Armenian Cilicia, and he also crushed Sheikh Umara of Aintab's Subaid rebellion in order to seize Aintab for the Byzantines.
Constantine had to balance these external threats with internal threats: he faced a peasant revolt on Lesbos and agitation by nobles to reduce crown authority, increase autonomy, and for the independence of their realms. In 774, Count Liuvericho of Mallorca led a rebellion against his rule, and he had to fight against him and other rebellious nobles. On 7 January 775, he was wounded while fighting against the Subaids in Cilicia.
When he died in 775, his son Emperor Leo IV of Byzantium would allow monks to return to monasteries after decades of being persecuted by Constantine.