Alexios Aspietes

Alexios Aspietes ( Middle Greek Ἀλέξιος Ἀσπιέτης ; † June 1205 in Philippopel ) was a Byzantine governor and military commander of Armenian origin who was proclaimed emperor in 1205 as the leader of an anti-Bulgarian uprising in Philippople.

Life

Alexios Aspietes was believed to be a close relative of Generals Michael Aspietes and Konstantin Aspietes , who were active in the late 12th century. He first appears in 1195 as Dux des Subject Serres . On behalf of Emperor Alexios III. he waged a war against the rebellious Bulgarians and Cumans under Theodor-Peter and Iwan Assen in summer or autumn . The rebels defeated the Byzantines in a battle on the Struma and captured Aspietes.

Alexios Aspietes must have been released again at an unknown point in time, because his presence in Philippopel is documented for the spring of 1205. The city had been occupied by the Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade the year before. Under the impression of the devastating defeat of the troops of the Latin Empire against the Bulgarian Tsar Kalojan in the Battle of Adrianople on April 14, 1205, the majority of the Greek city population feared the imminent reconquest of Philippople by the Bulgarians. Aspietes was then proclaimed a basileus , apparently with the aim of establishing a Byzantine remnant or successor state in Thrace between the Bulgarians and Latins .

Kaloyan immediately dispatched his force against the insurgents, who surrendered after a brief siege in June 1205. Contrary to previous promises to spare their lives, the Bulgarian czar had the city leaders executed on charges of collaboration with the Latins . According to the chronicler Niketas Choniates , Aspietes was hung upside down and quartered . Philippopel was destroyed, the surviving followers of Aspietes joined the Latins or fled to the Laskarids in Nicaea .

swell

• Niketas Choniates 465; 627 (ed. Jan-Louis van Dieten, CFHB Ser. Berol. Vol. 11, 1975)
• Gottfried von Villehardouin 401 (ed. Jean Dufournet, 2004) or 106 (ed. Frank T. Marzials, 1908; online on Internet Medieval Sourcebook )

literature

• Jean-Claude Cheynet: Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Series Byzantina Sorbonensia. Vol. 9). Reimpression. Publications de la Sorbonne Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Civilization Byzantines, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-85944-168-5 , p. 151 No. 215.
• John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A critical Survey from the late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , p. 28.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , pp. 211-212.
• Alexis GC Savvides: Notes on the Armeno-Byzantine family of Aspietes, late 11th – early 13th centuries. In: Byzantinoslavica 52, 1991, ISSN  0007-7712 , pp. 70-79.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , p. 425.
• Alicia Simpson: Niketas Choniates. A Historiographical Study. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967071-0 , pp. 309, 312.