Theophilos

Theophilos inherited the throne in 829 and immediately faced invasions from the Abbasid Caliphate in the east and the Aghlabids pressing Sicily. He led his armies personally from 831 onward, winning brief victories before Caliph al-Mu'tasim retaliated with crushing force: the 838 Sack of Amorion destroyed his dynasty's ancestral city. The humiliation drove him toward a harsher iconoclasm than his father Michael II had pursued, and he persecuted clerics who refused to abandon religious images. Yet he also patronized learning - his ally John the Grammarian helped foster ties with the Caliphate and an appreciation for Arabic culture - and he launched ambitious construction projects across the capital. When he died in January 842, his wife Theodora immediately ended iconoclasm but worked to preserve his reputation as a just administrator and builder.