Zoe and Leo Want To Marry

Marriage

In order to convince the powerful Anatolian nobles to prop up Zoe's regency and her son's claim to the Imperial Throne, she and Leo decide to wed. Leo has a lot of support in Anatolia and in Constantinople and the remainder of his army was just across the Bosporus. Constantine finds out and wrestles with what to do - he doesn't care for Leo or his mother's way of doing things. Therefore, he lets it slip to his underhanded tutor Theodore that his mother planned on marrying. Just as planned, Theodore went to Romanos and patriarch Nicholas Mystikos.

These military disasters weakened the regency of Zoe, and rumors began to circulate that Phokas, whose army lay encamped across the Bosporus from Constantinople, and his brother-in-law Constantine Barbaros were planning to seize the throne from the young emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959). According to Runciman, Zoe herself possibly planned to solidify her own position by marrying the general. The Emperor's tutor, however, a certain Theodore, turned to Romanos Lekapenos; although the admiral carried a great share of the blame for the failure of the Bulgarian campaign, Romanos remained a powerful factor as his fleet was intact and ready at hand. The parakoimomenos Constantine tried to neutralize this threat by disbanding the fleet, but he was arrested by Lekapenos when he arrived to supervise the payment and discharge of the crews. With this stroke, Zoe lost all control of the situation, and at Theodore's urging, the young Emperor appointed the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos as regent. The Patriarch's first act was to dismiss Leo Phokas from his post as Domestic and replace him with John Garidas.