ROMANUS II., Emperor of the East, succeeded his father Constantine VII. in 959. The beauty and excellences of his person made him a gymnast and a sportsman. His days were spent in the circus, in the tennis-court, and in hunting the wild boar on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. The welfare of his government was left to the mercy of those unprincipled times. Accordingly, in 963 his wife Theophano, a remorseless wretch, poisoned him.