A weak ruler, his reign was dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.

A weak man who preferred to engage in activities like thatching and ditch-digging rather than jousting, hunting, or the usual entertainments of kings, he spent most of his reign trying in vain to control the nobility, who in return showed continual hostility to him.

Historian R. H. Davis's influential biography paints a picture of a weak king: a capable military leader in the field, full of activity and pleasant, but " beneath the surface ... mistrustful and sly ", with poor strategic judgement that ultimately undermined his reign.

The country was economically weak and in turmoil following the reign of Akhenaten.

* May 1 – Emperor Arcadius dies in his palace at Constantinople after a weak 13-year reign.

He was to prove a weak ruler ; his reign was effectively a series of distinct regimes, depending who held the effective reins of power.

At the outset of the reign of Antiochus V, there was an attempt by the Syrians to quell the Maccabean Revolt in Judea, but this ended in a weak compromise.

Grant puts this into perspective and writes that it is notable that Robert III's reign could have been worse compared to the turmoil and violence experienced in England and France when ruled by weak kings — even on Robert ’ s death, Scotland didn ’ t descend into open civil war but was restricted to positioning among the royal family and its magnate groupings.

During Mikhail's reign, when the Romanov dynasty was still weak, such assemblies were summoned annually.

Legal codification was part of the count's efforts to forward and somehow control the process of feudalization which started during the reign of his weak father, Berenger Ramon.

' Therefore, let justice be done to all mankind, realizing that if the strong oppresses the weak, confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man but with love, faith and charity towards all the reign of peace and plenty will be heralded into the world and the generations of men shall be called Blessed.

Edward II was a weak and ineffectual king, and his reign was marked by military failure and internal strife.

Compared with the military success of his father's reign, Petar has been traditionally considered a weak ruler, who lost lands and prestige, allowed his military forces to decline while his country was ravaged by foreign invaders, and turned Bulgaria into a Byzantine satellite governed by Byzantine agents in the persons of his empress and her retinue.

Emperor Ling's reign left the Eastern Han Dynasty weak and ready to crumble.

The reign of Vasil Mzhavanadze, Shevardnadze's predecessor in office, had been characterised by weak leadership, nepotism, despotism, bribery and corruption at the upper echelons of power.

Beginning with the reign of Sobekhotep IV, the power of this dynasty, weak to begin with, deteriorated.

The eldest son of Boleslav II " the Pious ", Boleslav III was a weak ruler in whose chaotic reign Bohemia became a pawn in the long war between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and Bolesław the Brave, King of Poland.

Godunov's short reign ( 1598 – 1605 ) was not as successful as his administration under the weak Feodor.

The Majles was rendered ineffective because the central government was weak and did not have enough influence to reign in the changes that it had proposed.

During the reign of King Maha Thammaracha, the kingdom was in a weak condition due to being defeated by the Burmese.

Tsar Vasili Shuiski was unpopular and weak in Russia and his reign was far from stable.

Hatshepsut, an extremely successful pharaoh, celebrated her Sed jubilee at Thebes — in what some Victorian-era historians insist was only her sixteenth regnal year — but she did this by counting the time she was the strong consort of her weak husband, and some recent research indicates that she did exercise authority usually reserved for pharaohs during his reign, thereby acting as a co-ruler rather than as his Great Royal Wife, the duties of which were assigned to their royal daughter.

The two councils which checked the Alaafin had a tendency to select a weak Alaafin after the reign of a strong one to keep the office from becoming too powerful.

The efficiency of the government was quite weak and his actions during his 15 year reign mainly consisted of reforms of the government and the economy.

One was a praetor under Emperor Tiberius ’ reign and the other, his son, was a general.

He was the last Byzantine Emperor to reign in Constantinople before the establishment of the Latin Empire, which controlled the city for the next 57 years, until it was recovered by the Nicaean Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.

Bede follows Gildas ' account of Ambrosius in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, but in his Chronica Majora he dates Ambrosius ' victory to the reign of the Emperor Zeno ( 474 – 491 ).

Effective administrative authority during the reign of Andronikos III was wielded by his megas domestikos John Kantakouzenos, while the Emperor enjoyed himself hunting or waging war.

These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age ( about 3200 BC ) to the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine I in the 4th century AD.

For example, the year in Japan is based on the reign of the current emperor: 2006 was Year 18 of the Emperor Akihito.

Though the unified reign of the First Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang ( close to modern Xi ' an ).

The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached its zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people.

Furthermore, China's first permanent standing navy was assembled and provided an admiral's office at Dinghai in 1132, under the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song.

Ming China under the reign of the Yongle Emperor

In former times, it was customary to have a portrait in Confucius Temples ; however, during the reign of Hongwu Emperor ( Taizu ) of the Ming dynasty it was decided that the only proper portrait of Confucius should be in the temple in his hometown, Qufu.

The oldest recorded census in India is thought to have occurred around 300 BCE during the reign of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya under the leadership of Kautilya or Chanakya.

Jaivana | Jaivan Cannon-World's largest Cannon on wheels, which was cast in India during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah by his Kiladar, Jai Singh II.

* 1308 – The reign of Emperor Hanazono, emperor of Japan, begins.

The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin ( i. e. the capital Hangzhou ) written by the Yuan Dynasty ( 1271 – 1368 ) author Zhou Mi ( 1232 – 1298 ), who listed " pupai " ( gambling plaques or dominoes ) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Song ( r. 1162 – 1189 ).

The " Heshang Gong Version " is named after the legendary Heshang Gong ( " Riverside Sage ") who supposedly lived during the reign ( 202-157 BC ) of Emperor Wen of Han.

The following day Domitian was declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard, commencing a reign which lasted fifteen years – longer than any man who had ruled since Tiberius.

As Emperor, Domitian quickly dispensed with the republican facade his father and brother had maintained during their reign.

The military campaigns undertaken during Domitian's reign were generally defensive in nature, as the Emperor rejected the idea of expansionist warfare.

The most extensive account of the life of Domitian to survive was written by the historian Suetonius, who was born during the reign of Vespasian, and published his works under Emperor Hadrian ( 117 – 138 ).

The first foot-sensor-activated automatic door was made in China during the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui ( r. 604 – 618 ), who had one installed for his royal library.

In the southeast of Eritrea, the Sultanate of Awsa, an Afar sultanate, came to dominate the coastline after its founding in 1577, becoming vassal to the Emperor of Ethiopia under the reign of Susenyos I.

Many historians trace modern Ethiopian foreign policy to the reign of Emperor Tewodros II, whose primary concerns were the security of Ethiopia's traditional borders, obtaining technology from Europe ( or modernization ), and to a lesser degree Ethiopian rights to the monastery of Dar-es-Sultan in the city of Jerusalem.