LEO III., FLAvws (c.680-741). Byzantine Emperor from 717 to 741. He was surnamed the lsaurian from his birthplace. Originally his name was Conon, which he dropped in later life. Early in life he had distinguished himself as a soldier. Anastasius 11. appointed him in 713 commander of the troops in the East. On the deposition of Anastasius by Theodosius III., Leo remained faithful to the former, overthrew the usurper, and assumed the crown, Mareh 25. 717. He was scarcely seated on the Imperial throne when the forces of the Caliph Solyman laid siege to Constantinople by land and sea ; this siege lasted for a whole year. but was finally raised through the energy of Leo. The governors of sev eral provinces had meantime rebelled, and it cost Leo several years of warfare before peace was restored to the Empire. In the great battle of Acroinon, in 740. he destroyed a large Moham medan army and checked for many years the ad vance of Islam. He made many administrative
reforms, completed the organization of the themes, reconstituted the army, placed the finances upon a firmer basis, and published codes of law for the army. for agriculture, and for commerce, as well as the civil code, the Ecloga. He is best remembered, however, by his strife against the use of images in the churches. I See IA LA GE-WORSHIP.) Leo's edict against the images caused insurrections in Greece. which were soon repressed; but in Italy the opposition, headed by the Pope, was more vigorous and could not he subdued. Leo retaliated hy confis cating the lands of the Papacy in the Greek Empire, and by placing the whole of Sicily. Cala bria, Crete, and Illyricum, which had previously been under the authority of the Pope. under the Patriarch of Constantinople. This caused almost a complete rupture between the Pope and the Em peror. Leo died June IS, 741.