LEO VI., surnamed THE WISE and THE PHILOSOPHER, Byzan tine emperor, 886-911. He was the son of Eudocia, wife of Basil I., but in fact his father was Michael III. The chief event of his reign was the capture of Thessalonica (9o4) by Moham medan pirates (described in The Capture of Thessalonica by John Cameniata) under the renegade Leo of Tripolis. In Sicily and Lower Italy the imperial arms were unsuccessful, and the Bul garian Symeon, who assumed the title of "Czar of the Bulgarians and autocrat of the Romaei" secured the independence of his church by the establishment of a patriarchate. But though Gibbon may be right in calling his surname "absurd," he did lasting work in reforming the civil administration of the empire. His works include seventeen Oracula, in iambic verse, on the destinies of future emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople ; thirty-three Orations, chiefly on theological subjects (such as church fes tivals) ; Basilica, the completion of the digest of the laws of Justinian, begun by Basil I., the father of Leo; some epigrams
in the Greek Anthology; an iambic lament on the melancholy condition of the empire; and some palindromic verses, curiously called KapKtvo e (crabs). The treatise on military tactics, attrib uted to him, is possibly by Leo III., the Isaurian.