Empress Irene had her son Constantine VI blinded in the room where he was born and ruled Byzantium alone from 797

Irene was born in Athens and married the future emperor Leo IV in 769. Their son Constantine was born on 14 January 771 in the Porphyra, the purple room of the palace in Constantinople. Leo IV died on 8 September 780, and Irene ruled jointly with her ten-year-old son. In 788 she cancelled his betrothal to a daughter of Charlemagne and married him to Maria of Amnia. In 790 she had the armies swear oaths against his rule. The Asian themes backed Constantine, and he confined her to the Palace of Eleutherios. They were reconciled about two years later. In 795 Constantine had Maria tonsured as a nun and married Theodote, a marriage the chronicler Theophanes called illegal. In 797 Irene plotted with the commanders of the guard regiments, and Constantine fled to Bithynia. On 15 August 797 her men brought him back, held him in the Porphyra and blinded him the same day. Theophanes says he died of it. Irene ruled alone and struck gold coins with her own portrait on both sides. Some official records styled her basileus, the male title for emperor^†. Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome in 800, and his envoys later proposed marriage to her. On 31 October 802 the finance official Nikephoros was proclaimed emperor. Irene was exiled to Lesbos and died there on 9 August 803. Her body was later moved to a marble sarcophagus in the Church of the Holy Apostles. That church no longer stands^†.