The next move of Bringas was a blunder and the beginning of his downfall. One of Nicephorus’s chief officers was his nephew, John Zimiskes, the later Emperor. When we find Zimiskes murdering his uncle with the aid of Theophano, and then callously repudiating her, we shall not suppose him to be a man of tender conscience, and Bringas, no doubt, regarded him as venal. He sent a secret messenger to offer Zimiskes the supreme command if he would send his uncle in bonds to Constantinople. Zimiskes calculated that he would have the command, in any case, if his uncle became Emperor, and he showed the letter to Nicephorus, and urged him to assume the purple. They were in Cæsarea at the time, and from that city Bringas soon learned that Nicephorus had accepted the title of Emperor and would march on Constantinople.
The spirited events which followed must here be told briefly. On Sunday morning, 9th August, the advance-guard of Nicephorus’s army appeared on the Asiatic shore in sight of the city, at the point where Scutari now is, and the people began to make their choice in the usual sanguinary way. The services in the great church were desecrated with riot, the battle against the guards who were faithful to Bringas was conducted in the streets, and by midnight the houses of his supporters were in flames. Theophano remained with her children behind the barrier of palace guards, listening, not unwillingly, to the increasing cries for Nicephorus. We may very well assume that she had had her share in the riot. One of the most formidable leaders of those who called for Nicephorus was the bold and ambitious Basil, the natural son of the elder Romanus. Castrated by his father, that he might never aspire to the purple, yet promoted to wealth and high office, he seems to have come to an agreement with Theophano. As soon as the battle began he led three thousand of his servants and followers, armed, into the Augusteum, and they continued all Sunday and throughout the night to hunt the soldiers of Bringas and loot the mansions of his friends.
Nicephorus had meantime reached the Hieria palace on the Asiatic side, and on the following Sunday he made his triumphant entry by the Golden Gate, and along the Mese, to St Sophia, the citizens draping their houses with the scarlet of rejoicing and adorning the way with laurel and myrtle. The patriarch Polyeuctes met him at the cathedral, and Theophano would be present on her golden throne, in her violet mourning robes, when the crown was put on his head.