Nikulitza's Delphinas

Nikulitzas Delphinas ( Middle Greek Νικουλιτζάς Δελφινάς ; * in Larisa ; † after 1071) was a Byzantine aristocrat who rebelled against Emperor Constantine X in Thessaly in 1066 with the guards .

Life

The Protospatharios Nikulitzas was the grandson of the governor of the same name of Servia and archons of the Wlachen in the Hellas theme . In Larisa, the magnate had his own fortress with an armed garrison. When the guards and Bulgarians of the region planned an uprising in 1065 out of dissatisfaction with the high tax burden and corruption of the local officials, Nikulitzas went to Constantinople to warn Constantine X, but was delayed there for a month and then sent away without having achieved anything. When he returned to Larisa in the spring of 1066, the rebels Johannes Gremianetes and Gregorios Bambakas had meanwhile gained further popularity. Nikulitzas did not dare to arrest the rebels arbitrarily, but tried to dissuade them from their plan by persuading them. These in turn asked him to take the lead in the uprising himself. Fearing for his two sons staying in the capital, he initially turned it down, but then bowed to public pressure and led the revolt that was now openly breaking out with his private army.

Nikulitzas set up camp in Farsala with a large force of guards and Bulgarians . In a letter to the emperor he confessed himself to be the leader of the rebels and asked him to lower the taxation of the subjects in order to remove the basis of the revolt. When taking Servia , Nikulitzas refused to be acclaimed to the basileus . In the meantime, in a letter in reply to Nikulitzas, Constantine X had sworn the rebels an amnesty and that the tax increases would be withdrawn if they lay down their arms. Because the guard leaders Sthlabotas Karmalakes and Theodoros Skribon Petastos refused, Nikulitzas took them to Peteriskos (today Petres ) to the Katepan of Bulgaria , Andronikos Philokales, who took them into custody.

After the fighting ended, Nikulitzas was captured by Constantine X and brought to the Kastron Amaseia in the Armeniakon , where he was arrested in the Marmarote. In 1068 the new emperor Romanos IV pardoned his old companion, received him in the palace and had him return to his hometown Larisa. After Romanos' capture in the Battle of Manzikert on August 26, 1071, the finance minister Nikephoritzes induced the Nikulitzas to go to Constantinople as an advisor to the young emperor Michael VII .

Nikulitzas' further fate is unknown. His son-in-law was the writer Katakalon Kekänkeos , who is also the only source about Nikulitzas and the revolt of 1065/66.

swell

• Katakalon Kek Bäumenos , Strategikon 204-222

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. 72 No. 85.
• John Van Antwerp Fine: The Early Medieval Balkans. A critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1991, ISBN 0-472-08149-7 , p. 216.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 327-328.

Web links

• Nikoulitzas Delphinas in the Prosopography of the Byzantine World