Romanus IV of Byzantium (1030-1 August 1072) was Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1 January 1068 to 24 October 1071, succeeding Constantine X and preceding Michael VII.
Biography[]
Romanus Diogenes was born in 1030 to a prominent Byzantine Greek family from Cappadocia; he was the grand-nephew of Emperor Romanus III of Byzantium. He served as a general in the Byzantine military, holding a command along the Danube frontier and becoming a Duke of the Theme of Bulgaria in 1067. However, he was then imprisoned by Emperor Constantine X of Byzantium after he was accused of plotting to overthrow the emperor. On Constantine's death, however, Empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa pardoned Romanus and chose him as her husband and the guardian of her children, making Romanus the new Byzantine emperor. The Roman Senate supported this decision, as the Seljuk Turks were overrunning Cappadocia and had just captured Caesarea (Kayseri). Romanus assembled a mercenary army of Sclavenians, Armenians, Bulgars, and Franks rather than build and train a modern Byzantine army, and he invaded Syria, captured Hierapolis (Manbij), and then returned to Asia Minor after the Seljuks sacked Amorium. In 1069, Romanus' mercenary leader Robert Crispin mutinied and began to plunder the Anatolian countryside, and Romanus captured Crispin and had him exiled to Abydos before beating off a Turkish raiding party at Heracleia in Cilicia. In 1070, Romanus was forced to return to Constantinople to deal with the Norman conquest of Bari, and he became unpopular among the court nobility due to his public salary decreases, among the military and political elites for his micromanagement of the army, among the mercenaries for his disciplinarian style, and among the common people for neither hosting games in the hippodrome nor curing their social problems. In 1071, he attempted to negotiate with the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan about the return of the fortresses of Manzikert and Archesh in exchange for the return of Hierapolis to the Turks, and, when the negotiations stalled, Romanus led an army to Manzikert to confront the Turks. In the ensuing Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine army was destroyed, and Romanus was wounded in the hand and taken prisoner. Alp Arslan had Romanus humiliated by having him bow before placing his foot on Romanus' neck, but he then ordered that Romanus be treated like a king. During Romanus' captivity, the Byzantine court deposed him and his wife and named his step-son Michael VII of Byzantium as the new emperor. On Romanus' release, he gathered troops to challenge his stepsons' rule, but he was defeated in battle at Dokeia, and captured at Adana. He was cruelly blinded on 29 June 1072 and died of his infected wounds on 1 August 1072.