The plague also left a lasting mark on Ioannes IV, the Byzantine emperor. “Upon arrival . . . [the empress] found [our] youngest . . . dead,” wrote Ioannes, in his only known statement about the death of his thirteen-year-old son, Andronikos. After the boy’s death the emperor lost his taste for the world. Abdicating the throne, Ioannes retired to the solitude of a monk’s cell, to pray and mourn and grieve for the remainder of his life.
