ABSTRACT
Eirene of Athens, wife of Emperor Leo IV and mother of Constantine VI, imperial regent, and later sole empress is a complex and enigmatic figure, who has only recently attracted scholarly attention. This chapter examines the different representations of Eirene in the sources including Frankish chronicles, council acta, papal letters, Byzantine historiography, coins and imperial records, looking for evidence of gender stereotyping that has passed down, unquestioned, into contemporary scholarship. It focuses on the question of whether Eirene was regarded as a real emperor in Roman, Frankish and Byzantine sources and considers how modern scholarship has assessed Eirene's success as sole ruler and the reasons for her fall from power. Eirene's gender physically disqualified her from the priesthood, the emperor being theoretically if not in practice the chief priest of the church of Constantinople. Western attitudes to Eirene were coloured by attempts to arrange a marriage contract between the empress and the new Emperor of the Romans.
