LEO III

born c. 675, 680, Germanicia, Commagene, Syria died June 18, 741, Constantinople byname Leo The Isaurian Byzantine emperor (717741), who founded the Isaurian, or Syrian, dynasty, successfully resisted Arab invasions, and engendered a century of conflict within the empire by banning the use of religious images (icons). Additional reading Karl Schenk, Kaiser Leon III. (1880), a biography of his early life; A Manual of Roman Law: The Ecloga, Published by the Emperors Leo III and Constantine V . . . A.D. 726, trans. by Edwin Hanson Freshfield (1926), contains a useful introduction; J.B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, 395 A.D. to 800 A.D., 2 vol. (1889), an old but useful narrative; G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates (1963; History of the Byzantine State, 2nd ed., 1968), including a useful bibliography; R. Jenkins, Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, A.D. 6101071, pp. 6168, 7489 (1966), a good narrative; E.J. Martin, A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (1930).