CONSTANTINE V COPRONYMUS, with LEO IV and LEO III, 741-775 AD. AV, Solidus Constantinople.
Obv: ConSTAnT[InoS S LE]on O nEoS.
Frontal busts of Constantine V, bearded, on left, and Leo IV, beardless, on right, each wearing chlamys and crown with cross. Cross between their heads.
Rev: C LEoN P A МЧL.
Frontal bust of Leo III, bearded, wearing loros and crown with cross on circlet and holding outwards a cross potent on globe in right hand.
Sear 1551.
Condition: Good very fine.
Weight: 4.38 g.
Diameter: 19.60 mm.

The long reigns of Leo III and his successors, when compared with the multiple usurpations of the imperial tenures in the two decades prior, attests to the importance of success and ability, as opposed to birth, in the length of rule and legitimacy of dynasty in Byzantium.

Constantine was a more vigorous Iconoclast than his father had been. Constantine died in 775, he was popular with the army and the people of Constantinople. He repopulated the capital following an outbreak of the plague, repaired the Aqueduct of Valens, restoring the supply of clean, fresh water to the city, and also supplied plentiful and inexpensive food.

Leo was the son of Constantine V by his first wife, Eirene, daughter of the Khazar Khan. He crowned his five-year-old son, Constantine VI, in an elaborate ceremony in St. Sophia on Easter Day 776. This led to the revolt of five of Leo's half-brothers, who were no longer second in the order of precedence. Two of these brothers, Nikephoros and Christopher, had been elevated to the rank of Caesar in 769, and were thus their brother's heirs until the coronation of Constantine.