Irene was deposed and exiled in October 802, ending her unprecedented reign as the first woman to rule Byzantium alone.
In October 802, Irene was deposed in a palace coup and sent into exile first to Prinkipo and then to Lesbos. The overthrow ended her five-year reign as sole ruler and illustrated the volatility of Byzantine politics, where court factions, fiscal grievances, and military dissatisfaction could rapidly overturn even long-established authority. Her fall was swift, but it did not erase her unprecedented place in history.
The deposition was significant because it showed both the strengths and vulnerabilities of a woman who had ruled at the summit of empire. Irene had broken the gender barrier at the imperial apex, but her position remained dependent on the loyalty of powerful men and on the acceptance of the political class. Her exile also completed a dramatic arc that had begun with her arrival as a teenage bride more than three decades earlier. The event is remembered as the end of one of Byzantium’s most extraordinary reigns and a reminder of how precarious extraordinary power could be in the medieval world.