"At the accession of Leo III (717), the Hellenic race occupied a very subordinate position in the empire. The predominant influence in the political administration was in the hands of Asiatics, and particularly of Armenians, who filled the highest military commands. Of the numerous rebels who assumed the title of emperor, the greater part were Armenians. Artabasdos, who rebelled against his brother, Constantine V, was an Armenian. Alexios Mousel, strangled by order of Constantine VI, in the year 790; Bardan called the Turk, who rebelled against Nicephorus I; Arsaber [Arshavir] the father-in-law of Leo V, convicted of treason in 808; and Thomas, who revolted against Michael II, were all Asiatics, and most of them Armenians. Many of the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire belonged to the oldest and most illustrious families in the Christian world; and their connection with the remains of Roman society at Constantinople, in which the pride of birth was cherished, was a proof that Asiatic influence had eclipsed Roman and Greek in the government of the empire. An amazing instance of the influence of Asiatic prejudices at Constantinople will appear in the eagerness displayed by Basil I, a Sclavonian groom from Macedonia, to claim descent from the Armenian royal family." (But I shall show that he was an Armenian.) Let us note the Armenian sovereigns of the Byzantine Empire. First the great Iconoclast house, of Leo the so-called Isaurian, the saviour and restorer of the empire, which reigned from 716 to 797. Leo considered himself an Armenian, and he ought to have known best, and he married his daughter to an Armenian. He saved Constantinople from capture by the Saracens, causing the destruction of the finest Mohammedan army ever got together; of its 180,000 men only 30,000 got back home, according to the Mohammedan historians. Twenty-two years later another great Moslem army was annihilated by Leo, and for two centuries the Saracens scarcely troubled the empire again. But not only so, he remodeled the whole administration so effectively that no serious break-down occurred for three centuries, and he put new life into the whole society, so that it began to outgrow its enemies, as well as outfight them. After his able dynasty ended, another Armenian, Leo V, reigned seven and a half years, from 813 to 820. About half a century later began the Basilian dynasty, under which the laws were codified, and Bulgaria destroyed. Basil was born in Macedonia, but the name of his brother, Symbatios, Armenian Simpad, shows that he was of an Armenian family, the colonies of Armenians having spread all over the civilized world. His line reigned without a break from 867 to 963, when the beautiful widow Theophano was pushed aside for sixteen years by another Armenian house, Nikephoros Phokas and his nephew John Zimiskes, two of the ablest generals and statesmen ever on the throne, descendants of a brother of the great commander, John Kurkuas,