'Born in the purple' was literal.
Legitimate children of Byzantine emperors were born in a palace room faced with purple porphyry, and such sons outranked older brothers born elsewhere in the succession.
More amazing facts
- 897 In 897 a pope put his predecessor's corpse on trial.
- 900 Japan's oldest surviving tale is about a girl from the Moon.
- 901 · 903 A disgraced Japanese minister became the god of learning.
- 911 Legend says that when the Viking Rollo received Normandy in 911, he refused to kiss the French king's foot and sent one of his men instead.
- 916 The Russian word for China, Kitai, comes from a people who were not Chinese: the nomadic Khitans, who founded the Liao empire in northern China in 916.
- 918 The name Korea comes from Goryeo, the kingdom founded in 918 that united the peninsula for almost five centuries and under whose name the country became known abroad.