t a continuation of Greek
paganism. Consequently, a reaction began, which reached its culmination
in the reign of Leo the Isaurian, who, because of his active hostility
to images, was surnamed Leo the Iconoclast. His measures were severe,
and he introduced a movement which involved the East in a tremendous
conflict of one hundred and twenty years.

Leo's son, Constantine V.,--Copronymus,--was a more cruel and determined
iconoclast than his father; but into his own family circle he was
destined to introduce a member who was to set at naught the efforts of
father and son and restore the worship of images to its former
flourishing estate. Copronymus himself had had three wives, the most
prominent of whom was a barbarian, the daughter of a khan of the
Chazars; but for the wife of his son and heir, Leo IV., he selected an
Athenian virgin, an orphan of seventeen summers, whose sole endowment
consisted in her beauty and her personal charms. As in the case of
Athenais, nothing is known of the antecedents of Irene. Who her parents
were, what was her education, how many years she lived in her native
city--these are questions of idle speculation.--Her imperial career
shows that she was a woman of remarkable beauty and fascination, of
highly trained intellectual gifts and Hellenic temperament, and from
this we are led to infer that she had in her youth the best instruction
her native city afforded.

The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated with imposing splendor,
and the new princess rapidly became an important influence in the life
of the palace, winning the regard of her father-in-law and acquiring an
indisputable ascendency over her feeble husband. Irene, though a
Christian, inherited the idolatry and the love of images and ritual of
her ancestors; but during the remaining years of the reign of Copronymus
and the four short years in which her husband occupied the throne she
repressed her zeal, and by clever dissimulation hid her devotion to the
cause of the image worshippers.

Leo left the Empire to his son Constantine VI., a lad of ten years, with
the empress-dowager Irene as sole regent and guardian of the Roman
world. During the minority of her son Irene discharged with vigor and
assiduity all the duties of public administration and enjoyed to the
full the irresponsible power of her office of regent. She took advantage
of her power to restore the worship of images and thus won the favor of
a large faction of the popul