Editing Basil I (section)

===Last years and succession===
[[File:Santabarenos the monk advises prince Leo to carry a knife.jpg|thumb|Santabarenos the Monk advises Prince Leo to carry a knife.]]
[[File:Prince Leo offers a knife to his father, Emperor Basil I.jpg|thumb|250x250px|Basil I and his son Leo. Leo is discovered carrying a knife in the emperor's presence.]]
Basil's spirits declined in 879, when his eldest and favourite son, Constantine, died. Basil now raised his youngest son, [[Alexander (Byzantine emperor)|Alexander]], to the rank of co-emperor. Basil disliked the bookish [[Leo VI the Wise|Leo]], on occasion physically beating him; he probably suspected Leo of being the son of Michael III. In his later years, Basil's relationship with Leo was clouded by the suspicion that the latter might wish to avenge the murder of Michael III. Leo was eventually imprisoned by Basil after Theodore Santabarenos informed him of a plot against him, but the imprisonment resulted in public rioting; Basil threatened to blind Leo but was dissuaded by Patriarch Photios. Leo was eventually released after the passage of three years.<ref>{{harvnb|Jenkins|1987|pp=196–197}}.</ref> Basil died on 29 August 886,<ref>[[Constantine VII]] (960). ''[[De Ceremoniis]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=9VQ6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA780 '''II''', 52.]</ref> from a [[fever]] contracted after a serious hunting accident when his [[belt (clothing)|belt]] was caught in the antlers of a [[deer]], and he was allegedly dragged 16 miles through the woods. He was saved by an attendant who cut him loose with a [[knife]], but he suspected the attendant of trying to assassinate him and had the man executed shortly before he himself died.<ref>{{harvnb|Treadgold|1997|p=461}}.</ref> One of the first acts of Leo VI as ruling emperor was to rebury, with great ceremony, the remains of Michael III in the Imperial [[Mausoleum]] within the [[Church of the Holy Apostles]] in Constantinople. This did much to confirm in public opinion the view that Leo considered himself to have been Michael's son.<ref>{{harvnb|Finlay|1853|p=241}}.</ref>