Empress Zoe and a complicated life

Empress Zoe on the ceiling of the Hagia Sophia
Among the beautiful gold-cobalt-red-green mosaics we saw in Instanbul my favorite was one in the Hagia Sophia of the Byzantine Empress Zoe and her husband.

If you look hard at the mosaic you can see that the face of the husband has been redone and his name in cyrillic letters above his figure has been reworked. This is a doctored mosaic.

Zoe was something of a character. The Daughter of Constantine the 8th, she never married, until at age 50 she married Romanus III because her father asked that she help him secure the empire. He neglected her, however, and wound up dead. Probably Zoe had something to do with that. Her period of mourning was suspiously short -- she married her lover the night of the burial. Emperor Michael IV was pretty good at ruling, but he died. Michael's nephew took over the throne and banished Zoe to a convent

The people, plainly as taken with Zoe as I am rose up and the nephew was blinded and exiled. Zoe and her younger sister Theodora became joint empresses. A little later Zoe took a third husband -- the guy who's name and face is in the altered mosaic -- Constantine IX. He and the sisters ruled jointly until Zoe died at age 72. Research tells me that The court under the troika was known for scandal and intellectual brilliance.