Today's episode is brought to you by Audible. Do you remember my dramatic recounting of the Battle of Dara?

Bela Sarius is great victory over the Persians where he dug holes in the ground to direct their cavalry?

Or what about the outbreak of bubonic plague and the vivid descriptions of the sway that cut across the Roman world?

Well, if you enjoyed those then I think you'll enjoy William Rosen's book, Justinian's Flea.

It was the primary source for all that fascinating information about Yassiniiapestis.

To listen to that book for free go to audibletrial.com forward slash TV critic.

Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium.

Episode 75 The Headless Council

Last time we followed the Emperor Constantine V through a civil war and then a series of successful

raids on the caliphate while the Umayyads began to fall. In this episode we'll follow the Emperor's

continuing quest to be accepted as the legitimate and unquestioned ruler of Romania while also

confronting his iconoclasm head on. I know that the story of the icons can be difficult to follow,

more often than not I'm describing things and then telling you that they didn't happen.

I really think it is important to do that though because both reputable history books

and many Oikipedia page currently reproduce the stories which Nysephyrus and Theofanes tell us

even though we know their accounts are highly suspect. Let me read you a passage which demonstrates

this problem. This is Theofanes introducing the Emperor Constantine V.

Now this penicious, crazed, bloodthirsty and most savage beast from the very start

parted company from our God and Savior Jesus Christ, his pure and all holy mother and all the saints.

Led astray as he was by magic, licentiousness, bloody sacrifices by the done and urine of horses

and delighting in impurity and the invocations of demons. In a word he was reared from early youth

in all soul destroying pursuits. Quite the introduction. Theofanes was a monk and grew up in a world

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