# Talk:Zoe Porphyrogenita

i dont know how to edit this in but Zoe was a principle character in the novel Byzantium

"like a well baked chicken"--I honeslty hope the person who actually said the quote stated that. Otherwise, I think Wikipedia can do better ;)

Should I move this to Zoe Porphyrogenita instead of Zoe the Macedonian. I mean her great-great grandfather was Basil the Macedonian but she probably doesn't have much Macedonian blood in her.  I remember there was a Greek surname for Macedonian but I can't find it.  It was kind of like Macedonos, Macedenes or something like that but they not it.  --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 10:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

"Never having forgiven her sister for being their father’s first choice," for what?  4.249.63.80 (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Theodora was Constantine VIII's first choice for a wife for Romanos III. Oatley2112 (talk) 23:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Zoë Porphyrogenita's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Canduci":
From Licinius: Canduci, Alexander (2010). Triumph & Tragedy: The Rise and Fall of Rome's Immortal Emperors. Pier 9. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-74196-598-8.
From Constans II (son of Constantine III): Canduci, pg. 153
From Theodora Porphyrogenita (11th century): Canduci.

Reference named "Norwich":
From Manuel I Komnenos: Z. N. Brooke, A History of Europe, from 911 to 1198, 482* P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 67* J. H. Norwich, A short history of Byzantium
From Theodora Porphyrogenita (11th century): Norwich.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 20:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I've edited the lede to try and get the chronology clear in my head; please modify it as you see fit, as I may well have messed it up or even gotten something horribly wrong. I am slightly confused by the article on Zoe's mother Helena, who, it seems, married a 16-year-old Constantine, had two daughters in quick succession, and then either soon had a third, Theodora, or waited 11 years and then died giving birth to her. Psellus is interesting, I wound up reading him. He does seem rather partial to both Michael IV the Paphlagonian and, to a lesser extent, Zoe. He makes brief mention of Zoe in book two, and writes of her death in book 6, of his Chronographia, with bits in between; I'm sure you've sen all this, Gog the Mild, but add it least someone else read it. The suggestion of Zoe actually ruling despite being female is made twice in his text (it is suggested, for instance, that she marry "a man willing to treat her, not as his consort, but as empress in her own right"); Psellus attributes her not doing so to her lack of interest in such things. He does not seem to draw a clear distinction between empress consort and empress regnant, tho, and of Theodora says somewhat bizarrely "Everyone was agreed that for the Roman Empire to be governed by a woman, instead of a man, was improper, and even if the people did not think so, it certainly seemed that they did. But if one removes this single objections it must be admitted that in everything else the Empire prospered and its glory increased.". He gives Zoe's age at her first marriage as 50; the 1950s translator corrects him to 48. Not sure what's right. He repeatedly mentions her piety and generosity, the latter critically, the former not exactly approvingly. He also doesn't attribute her looks to ointments, saying that in age she took little care of her appearance, and attributes the ointments to religious devotion. He also says she was temperamental and far too ready to blind people for no good reason. Spends more time on the first fault. Of murder, he also says flat out that "I do maintain that Zoe and Michael were the cause of his death". He doesn't attribute the death to the one or the other. HLHJ (talk) 05:08, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Pinging to inform you I've removed all canduci citations here also, and tagged them with CNs. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:19, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

There are a number of contradictory dates in this article. Firstly, in the infobox and lead, it says that Zoe's reign began on 11 November 1028, which coincides with the death date given in Constantine VIII. However, [1] says 12 November. Then in the "Early life" section, it says that Constantine died on 15 November. Later in that same section, it says she and Romanos were married on 10 November and then sitting on the throne three days later, which would make that 13 November. So none of these dates line up correctly. —howcheng  {chat} 07:57, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Howcheng. No contradiction with Woodacre; they say that she was crowned on the 12th: correct. Her reign began the moment Constantine dropped dead, on the 11th. The death date of Constantine in the article is a typo - probably mine. Thanks for picking it up; now corrected. Similarly, re your last point, it should, obviously, be two days, as the source says. Again thanks for picking up the glaring inconsistency, which I have now corrected. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:29, 14 December 2019 (UTC)