Born: 978 (circa), Turkey
Died: 1050
Country most active: Turkey
Also known as: Ζωή Πορφυρογέννητη
Zoë Porphyrogenita briefly ruled as Byzantine empress in 1042 with her sister and co-ruler Theodora, following years as first the empress consort and then empress mother to a series of co-rulers. She was the daughter of co-emperor Constantine VIII, but was not married until 1028, when she was 50. She and her husband Romanos ascended the throne following the death of Constantine just one day after the wedding.
It was not a good marriage. Zoë’s sister Theodora had rejected Romanos because he was already married (his wife had been forced into a nunnery when the opportunity to marry into the imperial family arose), leading to Zoë marrying him instead. Obsessed with getting pregnant to produce an heir, Zoë’s inability to do so further drove the couple apart and each began taking lovers. In 1033, she took up with a servant, Michael, and Romanos’s suspicious death the following death was widely assumed to be the work of Zoë, Michael or both – not least because they married the same day as the presumed murder, with the low-born Michael crowned emperor the next day.
In 1041, with Michael’s health failing, Zoë was persuaded to adopt his nephew, Michael Kalaphates. After Michael’s death, his nephew ruled as emperor for just four months, in part because he exiled Zoë almost immediately after taking the throne. This led to a popular revolt that ousted him and crowned Zoë and Theodora as co-empresses. But only two months later, Zoë married one of her former lovers, Constantine, and transferred her power to him. She died, aged 72, in 1050.