Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, Episode 105, the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Across the last two episodes we've explored most of the 13-year reign of Theophilus.

At home and abroad he was constantly active. He rebuilt the palace, bedecked the throne-room in gold,

and sent ambassadors out across Europe. On the eastern front he twice raided the caliphate,

only to suffer severe reprisals. The sack of Amorium though was an event that obscured all others.

Back in the capital an heir of doom descended as the young emperor hobbled back to the palace.

Four years later Theophilus passed away and several historians seek a connection,

claiming that the emperor became ill and depressed and never recovered.

There's no testimony to this story though, so it's better to view the emperor's last few years

as simply a continuation of the administration we've seen so far. To that point,

the Vasilefs last few years seemed just as active as ever. First he had to deal with the fallout

from the sack of Amorium. This meant sending men to negotiate with the caliph for peace and a return

of the many imprisoned officers. And second it meant dealing with Theophobus and the

pyramids currently in revolt at the city of Sinope in central Anatolia.

Fortunately Theophobus had no interest in rebellion. He had been swept along by his disgruntled

troops but secretly communicated with the emperor to bring about a settlement.

The pyramids were once again dispersed amongst the existing themes, and many of them were sent

to the borderlands where they were particularly effective at counter-attacking Arab raids.

Their success helped Theophilus finally ring a ceasefire out of Motosim in 841.

It was during this period that the emperor attempted to find solutions to the empire's inferiority

to Arab might. Embraces went out to the Franks and the Umayyads in Spain, as I mentioned a couple of

episodes ago, but he also seems to have given his entire army a pay rise. Nailing down exactly when,

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