Constantine Dalassenos

John Orphanotrophos banishes Constantine Dalassenos to the island of Plati . Miniature from the Madrid illuminated manuscript of the Skylitz

Konstantin Dalassenos ( Middle Greek Κωνσταντίνος Δαλασσηνός ; * around 970/980; † after August 1042) was a Byzantine general and in October / November 1028 briefly heir to the throne of Emperor Constantine VIII.

Life

The Patrikios Konstantin Dalassenos was a son of the Dux of Antioch Damianos Dalassenos , who died in 998 near Apamea in a battle against the Fatimids . Constantine and his brother Theophylaktos were captured and ten years in Cairo as hostages detained until they were ransomed from the Byzantine Empire. Constantine then embarked on a military career like his father ; around the beginning of 1024 appointed him emperor Basil II. to katepano of Antioch.

As of Basil II. Brother and successor Constantine VIII. In the fall of 1028 was dying, was Konstantin Dalassenos, who at that time as a private citizen at his country estate in topic Armeniac Theme lived, the husband of the emperor's daughter Zoe determined. Since the emperor had no male heir, Constantine was promoted to his presumptive heir to the throne . A eunuch brought him as a messenger the request to appear at the court in Constantinople . But even before Constantine reached the capital, the advisers of the terminally ill emperor changed their minds and instead put the city ​​prefect Romanos Argyros through as the imperial son-in-law and heir to the throne, as they considered him easier to control.

Constantine Dalassenos also held important commands under the emperors Romanos III, Michael IV and Michael V , including the campaign to Northern Syria, which ended for the Byzantines in August 1030 with the heavy defeat at Azaz . In connection with the rebellion of Elpidios Brachamios in Antioch in the summer of 1034, Constantine was suspected of planning a usurpation against the new emperor Michael IV. The Parakoimomenos Johannes Orphanotrophos , who had already lured the potential rival to Constantinople under security guarantees, banished him to the prince's island of Plati in the Sea of ​​Marmara and later had him locked up in a tower of the Theodosian Wall to prevent him from escaping . During his imprisonment, he allegedly had a secret relationship with Empress Zoe. After the death of Michael V on August 24, 1042, she is said to have considered marrying Constantine after all, but then decided in favor of the younger Constantine Monomachus .

The time and circumstances of Constantine's death are unknown. A daughter whose name was not known was the first wife of the future emperor Konstantin Dukas .

swell

• Michael Psellos , Chronographia, Zoe and Theodora 12
• Johannes Skylitzes , Konstantinos VIII 3, Romanos III 5, Michael IV 2–3 and 5
• Johannes Zonaras 17, 10 and 20

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 , pp. 40-41 No. 29, pp. 45-46 No. 38, pp. 55-56 No. 57.
• Jean-Claude Cheynet, Jean-François Vannier: Études Prosopographiques (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Série Byzantina Sorbonensia. Vol. 5). Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-85944-110-7 , pp. 77-81.
• Franz Dölger : Regest of the imperial documents of the Eastern Roman Empire from 565-1453. Part 1, half volume 2: Regesten from 867-1025 (= corpus of Greek documents from the Middle Ages and modern times. Row A: Regesten. Dept. 1, Part 1, half volume 2). 2nd edition revised by Andreas E. Müller . CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51351-4 , No. 817c.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Volume 1. Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , p. 578.
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Beate Zielke, Harald Bichlmeier, Bettina Krönung, Daniel Föller, Alexander Beihammer , Günter Prinzing : Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . 2nd department: (867-1025). Volume 3: Ignatios (# 22713) - Lampudios (# 24268). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-016668-2 , pp. 638–639 No. 23940 (with information on other Armenian, Syrian and Arabic sources).