The ambitious Irene, her role as regent…

The ambitious Irene, her role as regent having ended, orders her son captured and imprisoned.

Constantine can only flee for aid to the provinces, but even there participants in the plot surrounded him.

Seized by his attendants on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus on July 17, Constantine is carried back to the palace at Constantinople.

On August 15, Irene’s orders are carried out; Constantine’s eyes are gouged out, and his mother is declared first Empress regnant of Constantinople.

It is unknown when exactly Constantine died; it was certainly before 805, but he very likely died of his wounds shortly after being blinded.

He was buried in the Monastery of St. Euphrosyne, which Irene had founded.