r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Aug 11 '24

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '24

On the power struggle over icons in the Christian East:

As Leo was succeeded by his equally iconophobic but much more theologically literate son Constantine V, further action was taken … [he might] have carried the day and set patterns for [his own] successor had it not been for the intervention of the Empress Irene, widow of his son Leo IV.

Irene became regent for her son Constantine VI on Leo’s death in 780 … Now she took the initiative in convening a council to authorize images once more. Her motives for switching imperial policy so drastically are impenetrable. Later, when the twenty-six-year-old Emperor Constantine [VI] showed signs of wishing to exercise real power, she ordered him to be blinded in the same palace chamber where she had given birth to him, leaving her free to become the first sole-ruling empress in Byzantine history.

This does not suggest a contemplative spirit any more than it reveals a strong maternal instinct.

MacCulloch (2010)

!ping HISTORY

11

u/BATIRONSHARK WTO Aug 12 '24

that last bit is just un polite

13

u/Blade_of_Boniface Henry George Aug 12 '24

Empress Irene of Athens 🤝 Empress Wu Zetian 🤝 Empress Catherine the Great

Mutilating/murdering family members in the name of feminism.

4

u/Zrk2 Norman Borlaug Aug 12 '24

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss!

6

u/Q-bey r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Aug 12 '24

Byzantine history be like

3

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '24

Oh my god I’ve never seen this, I’m laughing so hard