While Romanos [III]was still alive, Michael Paphlagon took Zoe with his side because he loved him for his beauty though that he was coming from low and unknown parents, so that he succeed in his aim. As soon as Romanos died he was proposed for emperor, because he did not have any surname from his ancestors, he took the name of his birth place.
He was good and moral, as with all his heart he loved and afraid the God, but he suffered from a secret illness, where many times he fell down without any voice and appeared as dead for one and a half hour each time and then he was raised again and he was coming back in his previous natural condition. For that reason he placed himself in the hands of the God and his main interest was not to left any church or monastery in Constantinople without gift or in the whole Roman Empire. Others he reconstructed because for many years were not renewed. in others he gave yearly donations and lands and not few he rebuild from their foundations as the famous church of Saints Anargyroi in the Kosmodion
Saint Auxentios
*. Also he was interested and honoured monks as well as the previous mentioned Antonio (who was founder of a monastery named after his own name in the mountain of Saint Auxentios, as and Romanos previously had honoured him) famous for his virtue and his sacredness where he was ascetic with sacredness in the mountain of Saint Auxentios.
The emperor had gathered in his palace many of his relatives, thought nobody of them had his virtue. As much as good he was as bad were his relatives and particularly his brothers and specially those of them that was the most clever, who was monk and eunuch and he decided for all the royal matters, having the presidency of the Senate and his name was John and his title “orphanotrophos”.
The emperor gave a lot of money in many houses for the old people, hotels and hospitals from the land that he donated to these institutions so the weak and the ill people can be cared without cost. The brother of the emperor, John, chose one of their relatives, the son of his brother who had the same name as the emperor, Michael, who was young in the age.
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