Argyros (dux)

Argyros ( Argyrus , Italian Argiró , Middle Greek Ἀργυρός ; * around 1000 in Bari ; † between 1058 and 1068 there?) Was a Byzantine general of Longobard origin who appeared as a rebel in Katepanat Italy in 1042 .

Life

Argyros' handwritten signature on a document, around 1050

Argyros was the son of the Apulian separatist Meles of Bari and the Meralda . When Meles rebelled against the Byzantine rule in southern Italy for the first time around 1009/1011 , the Barens captured Argyros and Meralda and sent them together to Constantinople . Only in 1029 (according to other information: 1038) was he allowed to return to Apulia. When Argyros entered Bari in May 1040, the Lombards rose up against Byzantine rule and overthrew the Katepan Nikephoros Dokeianos . They were supported by Norman mercenaries under the leadership of the Arduin von Melfi , who had deserted from the Sicilian expedition army of the Byzantine general Georgios Maniakes . In February 1042, Argyros in Bari was made princeps and Dux of Italy by the rebels as the successor to Atenulf, who defected to Byzantium due to bribery . However, in July 1042, Argyros was also persuaded to change sides with money: He joined the new Byzantine emperor Constantine IX. and took sides against Maniakes, who had risen to become the anti-emperor in Sicily. After the suppression of the Apulian revolt, Argyros was awarded the high dignity of Patrikios and Magistros Vestes in Constantinople . In the capital he was involved in the suppression of the usurper Leon Tornikes in 1047 .

In 1051 Argyros was given by the emperor - as the first Lombards - the leadership of the Katepanate Italy (under the title of a "Dux of Italy, Calabria , Sicily and Paphlagonia "). To counter the growing Norman threat in southern Italy , he entered into an alliance with the papacy , but could (or would not) prevent Leo IX from succumbed to the troops of Humfreds von Hauteville at the Battle of Civitate in June 1053 and was taken prisoner. On behalf of Leos, Cardinal Humbert von Silva Candida traveled to Patriarch Michael Kerularios in 1054 as an ambassador via Bari to Constantinople . Argyros then accused Argyros of having forged letters of abuse from the Pope against the Eastern Church (the actual author was Humbert himself), and had his son and son-in-law arrested (see Oriental Schism ).

Argyros served as imperial governor in southern Italy until 1058 without having succeeded in renewing the Byzantine-papal alliance. After that there is hardly any news about him. He probably died in Bari in 1068; Before his death he bequeathed a richly embroidered silk robe to the Farfa Monastery , which has been preserved.

swell

• Annales Barenses 54-56
• Anonymous Barensis 149–152
• Leo Ostiensis 2, 37
• Lupus Protospatharius 58-59
• John skylitzes 440
• Wilhelm of Apulia 1, 422–478

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. 48 No. 43.
• Vera von Falkenhausen : La dominazione bizantina nell'Italia meridionale dal IX all'XI secolo. Bari 1978, pp. 80-81, No. 53, pp. 204-209.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , pp. 165-166.
• 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. 364.
• Friedhelm Winkelmann u. a .: Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine period . 2. Department, Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-016666-8 , pp. 322–323 No. 20561.

Web links

• Argyros, son of Melus in the Prosopography of the Byzantine World
• Armando Petrucci:  Argiro. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 4:  Arconati-Bacaredda. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1962.