Nikephoritzes

Nikephoritzes ( Middle Greek Νικηφορίτζης ; † 1078 in Oxeia ) was a Byzantine eunuch and influential official under the emperors Romanos IV and Michael VII. His real name was Nikephoros .

Life

Nikephoritzes, who came from the theme of Bukellarion , served under Constantine IX. in the imperial court chancellery. Constantine X transferred him as governor to Antioch on the Orontes , because he had allegedly slandered the empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa as an adulteress . After the emperor's death and their assumption of reign, Nikephoritzes was imprisoned. However, the new emperor Romanos IV set him free again in 1068 and appointed him praitor (civil governor) of the combined themes of Hellas and Peloponnese . Michael VII called him back to the court in Constantinople after his coronation on October 24, 1071 , to serve in the new government under the leadership of Emperor Johannes Dukas . As the logothet of Dromos , Nikephoritzes quickly gained influence and power. He pushed the other leading figures of the government, including Michael Psellos , into the background and finally forced his sponsor, Emperor Johannes, to withdraw from political leadership and into private life in the autumn of 1073.

As the de facto regent, Nikephoritzes devoted himself to the reorganization of the empire, which had been badly shaken after the Battle of Manzikert . His first priority was to replenish the treasury. To do this, he resorted to radical tax measures that caused great hardship in both the provinces and Constantinople, while at the same time he was anxious to increase his personal wealth. He also founded a central grain storage (phundax) at Raidestos to improve the supply of capital. Nevertheless, there was a famine in Constantinople in the winter of 1076/77, for which Attaleiates blamed the eunuch directly. At the same time, an uprising broke out on the subject of Paristrion because Nikephoritzes had stopped making annual payments to the local Mixobarbaroi and the Pechenegs . The Vestarch Nestor , sent to settle the matter, joined the revolt. Remarkably, the demands of the rebels were limited to the dismissal of Nikephoritzes, but Emperor Michael VII did not respond. After they captured Raidestos and burned down the grain store there, Nestor and his allied Pechenegs withdrew to Paristrion, which thus slipped out of imperial control for the next two decades.

Nikephoritzes also tried to reform the army and in this context reactivate the Tagma of the Athanatoi . Because the military situation during his tenure was catastrophic: In the west, Byzantium was confronted with attacks by the Bulgarians under Georgi Vojtech and the self-proclaimed Tsar Konstantin Bodin as well as the Normans under Robert Guiskard , in Asia Minor with the rebellion of Roussel Phrangopolos and the growing pressure of the Seljuks . Although the Nikephoritzes proved to be a perfectly capable administrator, he drew growing resentment through greed and corruption. The opposition formed around the Antiochian patriarch Aimilianos , an old enemy of the Nikephoritzes, with the support of several bishops and guilds of the capital. In the summer of 1077 Nikephoros Bryennios in the Balkans and Nikephoros Botaneiates in Asia Minor rebelled against Michael VII. Bryennios marched against Constantinople, but the sacking of the suburbs by his troops deterred the citizens of the capital, so he had to withdraw. In response, a group of oppositional bishops assembled in Hagia Sophia on January 7, 1078 and confirmed Botaneiates as the rightful emperor. Nikephoritzes left the Synod to resolve what he by Patriarch Kosmas I. excommunicated was. Alexios Komnenos , who had made a career in the military under Nikephoritzes, proposed to suppress the resistance by force, but Michael VII decided to abdicate , freeing the throne for Botaneiates.

Nikephoritzes fled from Constantinople to Herakleia to Roussel Phrangopolos, who however had him put in chains. When Roussel died under mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards, Nikephoritzes was suspected of having poisoned him. Roussel's relatives then handed the eunuch over to the new emperor, who first banished him to the prince's island of Prote and then to Oxeia , where he was severely tortured and died a little later.

swell

• Michael Attaleiates 180-182; 201; 271
• Nikephoros Bryennios 143; 255
• Michael Glykas 613-614
• Katakalon Kek Bäumenos , Strategikon 222
• Michael Psellos , Sathas 103
• Skylitzes Continuatus 155; 162; 186
• John Zonaras 18, 16-18

literature

• Michael Angold: The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204, A Political History. Longman, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-582-29468-4 , pp. 121-124.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , pp. 1475, 1815.
• Paul Stephenson: Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. A Political Study of the Northern Balkans 900-1204. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-77017-3 , pp. 98-100.

Web links

• Nikephoritzes in the Prosopography of the Byzantine World