The New International Encyclopædia/Irene (empress)

​IRENE, i-rē′nē̇ (Lat., from Gk. Ειρήνη, Eirēnē) (c.752-c.804). Byzantine Empress from 780 to 802. She was a native of Athens, and in 769 married Leo, who became Emperor as Leo IV. in 775. Her husband died in 780, and Irene became Regent during the minority of her son, Constantine VI. A great worshiper of images—in fact, this had during the lifetime of her husband caused her to be banished from the Imperial palace—she quickly began to plot for their restoration, and with this purpose assembled a council of bishops at Constantinople, A.D. 786, which, however, was broken up by the troops of the capital. A second council held at Nicea in the following year was more successful, and image-worship was reëstablished in the Eastern Church. (See Image-worship and Iconoclasm. In 790 the Government was taken out of her hands by her son, but in 792 she was again in power, and in 797 she caused Constantine to be blinded and shut up in a dungeon, where he soon died. In 802 her treasurer Nicephorus rebelled, and banished her to the Isle of Lesbos, where she remained until her death, about 804. After the restoration of the Western Empire by Charles the Great (800) that monarch contemplated the revival of the ancient Roman Empire by his marriage to Irene, but these plans were frustrated by her fall. Irene had been successful in her wars against the Slavs, but she was defeated by Harun al-Rashid, and compelled to pay an annual tribute. Consult: Gasquet, “Charlemagne et l'impératrice Irène,” in the Annales de la faculté des lettres de Bordeaux (1884).