Maria (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Μαρία; died 751) was the second Empress consort of

Constantine V Constantine V ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντῖνος, Kōnstantīnos; la, Constantinus; July 718 – 14 September 775), was Byzantine emperor from 741 to 775. His reign saw a consolidation of Byzantine security from external threats. As an able ...

of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Empress

Constantine was Emperor since 741 and his first wife,

Tzitzak :''This individual is sometimes confused with Byzantine Empress Irene, who was her daughter-in-law.'' Tzitzak ( el, Τζιτζάκ) (died 750), baptised Irene ( el, Εἰρήνη), was a Khazar princess, the daughter of ''khagan'' Bihar, who becam ...

, bore him a son,

Leo IV the Khazar Leo IV the Khazar (Greek: Λέων ὁ Χάζαρος, ''Leōn IV ho Khazaros''; 25 January 750 – 8 September 780) was Byzantine emperor from 775 to 780 AD. He was born to Emperor Constantine V and Empress Tzitzak in 750. He was elevated to c ...

, on 25 January 750. There is no further mention of her and, by the following year, Constantine was already married to Maria. Lynda Garland has suggested Tzitzak died in childbirth."Irene, wife of Constantine V" (2000)
/ref> Maria married Constantine between 750 and 751 and, according to the ''Chronographikon syntomon'' of

Ecumenical Patriarch Nikephoros I of Constantinople Nikephoros I or Nicephorus I (c. 758 – 5 April 828) was a Byzantine writer and patriarch of Constantinople from 12 April 806 to 13 March 815. Life He was born in Constantinople as the son of Theodore and Eudokia, of a strictly Orthodox f ...

, her untimely death occurred at about the same time her stepson

was crowned co-emperor (6 June 751) and her husband recovered Melitene. The reasons are unknown. Maria died childless and Constantine would proceed to marry Eudokia, who gave him six more children.

References

External links

A short article on her by Lynda Garland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria, Wife Of Constantine V 8th-century births 751 deaths Isaurian dynasty 8th-century Byzantine empresses