v18_0786 - LEO III and CONSTANTINE V Solidus

LEO III and CONSTANTINE V

(25/03/720-18/06/741)

Leo III, a peasant from Syria, became august on March 25, 717. He overthrew Theodosius III on July 24 of the same year. He victoriously pushed back the Arabs who had come to besiege Constantinople (717-718). Leo III, nicknamed the Isaurian, founded a dynasty destined to reign over the Byzantine Empire for a century. His son, Constantine V, was associated with the throne from 720. The Arab enemy was contained and Europe was saved. He allied himself with the Bulgarians and the Khazars. In 733, Constantine V, married the daughter of the Khazar khan. Leo III, before dying won a great victory over the Muslims in 740 at Acroinon. But the iconoclastic quarrel which began under his reign in 726 was to shake the ideological structures of the Byzantine Empire..