CONSTANTINE VII., Porphyrogenitus ("born in the purple") (905-9J9), East Roman emperor, author and patron of literature, was the son of Leo VI. the Wise. Though nominally emperor from 912-59, he was practically excluded from all real share in the government by ambitious relatives until 945. He was poisoned by his son Romanus in 959. Constantine was a painter and a patron of art and literature. Knowledge of his times is due to the fol lowing works written by or directly inspired by him : (1 ) De The matibus, an account of the military districts (Themata) of the empire during the time of Justinian, chiefly borrowed from Hier ocles and Stephanus of Byzantium ; (2) De administrando imperio, written for the use of his son ; (3) De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae, describing the customs of the Eastern Church and court; (4) a life of Basilius I., his grandfather, based on the work of Genesius; also two treatises on military subjects are attributed to him : one on tactics which, as the title shows, was really written by his grand son Constantine VIII., the other a description of the different methods of fighting in fashion amongst different peoples. A speech on the despatch of an image of Christ to Abgar, king of Edessa, is also preserved. Of works undertaken by his instructions the most important were the Encyclopaedic Excerpts from all available treatises on various branches of learning : (i ) Historica, in 53 sections, of which De legationibus, De virtutibus et vitiis, De sententiis, De insidiis, have been wholly or partly preserved ; (2) Basilica, a compilation from the different parts of the Justinian Corpus Juris; (3) Geoponica, agricultural treatises; (4) Iatrica, a medical handbook compiled by one Theophanes Nonnus, chiefly from Oribasius ; (5) Hippiatrica, on veterinary surgery, the con nection of which with Constantine is, however, disputed; (6) Historia animalium, a compilation from the epitome of Aristotle's work on the subject by Aristophanes of Byzantium, with additions from other writers such as Aelian and Timotheus of Gaza.
See A. Rambaud, L'Empire grec au dixieme siecle (187o) ; also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 53, and G. Finlay, Hist. of Greece, ii. 294 (1877). Many of Constantine's works will be found in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cix., cxii., cxiii.; for editions of the rest, C. Krum bacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (1897), and the article by Cohn in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopddie der classischen Alter tumswissenschaft (1900) should be consulted. The former contains a valuable note on the "Gothic Christmas" described in detail in the De ceremoniis; see also Bury in Eng. Hist. Rev. xxii. (1907) .