better enhanced by church approval than marriage to the unpopular empress and acceded to the patriarch's demands. Theophano was sent into exile to the island of Prinkipo (sometimes known as Prote). Return to court Following the death of Tzimiskes in January 976, Theophano's teenage sons Basil and Constantine took sole power. One of the emperors' first acts was to recall their mother from exile. She is last attested in the year 978, appealing to the retired Georgian general T'or'nik of Tao to broker an alliance with his former overlord Davit III of Tao to support her sons against the first revolt of the general Bardas Skleros. This seems to be the last reference to Theophano in any source, and it may be that she died relatively early in the reign of her sons. In literature English author Frederic Harrison wrote Theophano: The Crusade of the Tenth Century (1904) The Greek historical fiction writer Kostas Kyriazis (b. 1920) wrote a biography called Theophano (1963), followed by the 1964 Basil Bulgaroktonus on her son. The Greek comic book writer Theocharis Spyros wrote a graphic novel, illustrated by Chrysa Sakel, called Theophano: A Byzantine Tale (2020). References Sources History of the Byzantine State by Georgije Ostrogorski Byzantium: The Apogee by John Julius Norwich 941 births 970s deaths 10th-century Greek people 10th-century Byzantine empresses 10th-century viceregal rulers Macedonian dynasty Byzantine regents Remarried royal consorts Mistresses of Byzantine royalty People from Laconia 10th-century women rulers Mothers of Byzantine emperors