Michael III

Michael III took the throne at age two in 842, the last of the Amorian dynasty. He was the youngest person ever to hold the imperial title — crowned somewhere between four and eight months old — and the youngest to succeed as senior emperor in Roman history. His quarter-century reign saw a resurgence of Byzantine power in the ninth century, though the specifics of that revival were later obscured by hostility. In 867, his co-emperor Basil I assassinated him. The Macedonian dynasty that followed needed to justify the killing, so they branded him "the Drunkard" and let that name stick for centur…