Crowned sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire in 797, she became the first woman ever to hold the throne of the old Roman Empire.  She issued a clever marriage proposal to Charlemagne to unite east and west, which would have been an economical way to re-assemble the former Roman empire by annexing Italy, France, and Germany without warfare but was toppled in a revolt of the nobility shortly thereafter.   Earlier she had suggested a marriage between Charlemagne's daughter, Rotrude, by his wife Hildegard, to her son. She called herself Basileus, or "emperor" rather than empress.  Coin of Irene <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash"width="520"height="520"src="http://cognitivelabs.com/9699/irene.swf"allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all"></embed> <br><scripttype="text/javascript"id="wa_u"></script><scripttype="text/javascript" src="http://cognitivelabs.com/cognitive.js"></script>   add to your site  |  games  | share
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