Romanus III of Byzantium (968-11 April 1034) was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1028 to 1034, succeeding Constantine VIII of Byzantium and preceding Michael IV of Byzantium.
Biography[]
Romanus was born in 968 to Pothos Argyros, who defeated a raid by the Magyars in 958. He was from the House of Argyros, a dynasty of Orthodox Christian Greeks. Romanus attracted the attention of Emperor Constantine VIII of Byzantium, who forced him to divorce his wife and send her to a monastery and to marry his daughter Zoe of Byzantium. Romanus married her, and he became the emperor of the Byzantine Empire in 1028. However, in 1034 his wife tried to kill him with a slow-acting poison. When it was not quick enough, she had him drowned in his bathtub, and he was succeeded by Emperor Michael IV of Byzantium, who married her the same day as his death.