Monday, September 29, 2025
How Copronymus Got His Name
Theophanes, Chronicle, annus mundi 6211 = 718/719 AD (tr. Harry Turtledove, with his note):
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While Germanos the chief prelate was baptizing Leo's successor (in both his evil and his rule) Constantine [V], the boy because he was so young, gave a terrible, foul-smelling harbinger: he defecated in the holy font, as say those who were accurate eyewitnesses.178 This made the patriarch Germanos prophetically say, "This is a sign that in the future great evil shall befall the Christians and the church because of him."
178. This is the origin of the derisive title Kopronymos ("Dung-name").
Labels: noctes scatologicae
