ROMANUS I., Leopoldus, Emperor of the East, was admiral of the fleet on the Danube in 919, when he determined to seize the supreme power during the reign of the young prince Constantine VII. Sailing forthwith to Constantinople, he executed his enterprise with great success. The influence of the dowager empress was gained; his daughter was married to the emperor; and he himself soon afterwards assumed the title of imperial colleague, and the real authority of sole sovereign. Romanus long enjoyed the undisturbed possession of his ill-gotten power. Several predatory invasions of the wild Bulgarians were the only events that at all endangered his security for nearly five-and-twenty years. It was not until 944 that his dissolute conduct provoked a conspiracy. In that year, during the stillness of a winter noon, the two sons of Romanus seized their father in his palace, smuggled him away to a monastery on a small island in the Propontis, and that it might not be lawful for him to resume the sceptre, lost no time in shaving his head. Thus hopelessly dethroned, he commenced the quiet life of a monk, invited his unnatural sons to share his herbs and water, when they were soon afterwards exiled to the same place, and died within the convent in 948.