convent that she had founded on Prinkipo, the largest of the Princes' Isles, where he died soon afterwards. Thus Eirene became sole ruler of the empire, although her unnatural crime profoundly shocked Byzantium, as noted by the chronicler Theophanes: ‘And the sun was darkened during seventeen days, and gave not his light, so that the ships ran off course, and all men said and confess that because the emperor was blinded, the sun had put away his rays.
