Leo the Wise (Byzantium: Rise of the Macedonians)

In the autumn of 886, the newly crowned emperor Leo VI presided over one of the strangest funerals in Byzantine history. The body of the long dead Michael III was dug up from its modest tomb and transported by imperial barge across the Bosporus. There it was carried in an ornate procession to the Church of the Holy Apostles and reverently laid in a sarcophagus that had once belonged to the 5th century emperor Justin I. It was a remarkable honor for a man who had been known in life as Michael the Drunkard, and the watching courtesans couldn’t fail to miss the point. Rumors had swirled in the capital for years that Michael was Leo’s true father and this seemed to dramatically confirm it. For those who looked a step further the audacity was breathtaking. Justin I had been followed on the throne by his far more brilliant nephew. If Michael now occupied his sarcophagus, than the twenty year old Leo had just proclaimed that he was the new Justinian.