Pseudo-Leon Diogenes

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(Pseudo) Leon Diogenes ( ancient Greek Λέων Διογένης , Russian Леон Дивгеньевич Leon Diogenewitsch ; † 15. August 1116 ) was a Byzantine usurper , who at the lower Danube with the support of Kievan Rus as a pretender to the throne against Emperor Alexius I occurred.

Life

The second eldest son of the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV , Leon Diogenes , died in March 1086 in a battle against the Pechenegs near Silistra . Three decades later, a man appeared among the Kievan Rus who claimed to be Leon Diogenes. Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh recognized the imperial status of the alleged Byzantine prince and gave him his daughter Maria (or Marina, † 1146) as his wife.

In 1116, the Russians invaded the Byzantine theme of Paristrion under the pretext of wanting to help the alleged Leon Diogenes to the throne . The pretender initially had some successes, as several cities on the southern bank of the Danube fell to him. However, on August 15 in Silistra, he was lured into an ambush and killed by two Arab messengers whom Alexios I had recruited as an assassin. His son Vasilko was also murdered in 1136.

Because Anna Komnena and the other Byzantine sources do not report any acts of war with the Russians in the Danube region for the year in question, the Pseudo-Diogenes episode of 1116 is partially viewed as a historiographical "duplicate" of the events around the Pseudo-Diogenes of 1095. The Nestor Chronicle and other Russian sources (including the Hypatius Chronicle ) report quite extensively about this “Leon Diogenewitsch” or “Tsarevich Grechesky” sub anno 1116.

As early as 1107, an alleged son of Romanus IV had accompanied the Norman prince Bohemond of Taranto during his attack on Dyrrhachion . The sometimes speculatively considered identity of this pseudo-Diogenes with the figure of 1116 must remain open.

literature

  • Jean-Claude Cheynet: Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Series Byzantina Sorbonensia. Volume 9). Reimpression. Publications de la Sorbonne Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Civilization Byzantines, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-85944-168-5 , p. 366.
  • Alexander Kazhdan : "Rus" -Byzantine Princely Marriages in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 12-13, 1988-1989, ISSN  0363-5570 , pp. 414-429 ( PDF; 1.3 MB ).
  • Marguerite Mathieu: Les faux Diogènes. In: Byzantion 22, 1952, ISSN  0378-2506 , pp. 134-148 ( digitized version ).
  • Victor Spinei: The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century. (= East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450. Volume 6). Brill, Leiden 2009, ISBN 978-90-04-17536-5 , pp. 124-125.
  • Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza: Dictionnaire Historique et Généalogique des Grandes Familles de Grèce, d'Albanie et de Constantinople. 2nd Edition. Self-published, Paris 1999, ISBN 904747 , p. 275.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Kuman leader Pseudo-Diogenes, who appeared as a counter-emperor in the Balkans from 1094-1095, is also called Leon by Anna Komnena. From the context it is clear, however, that he claimed the identity of his older brother Constantine Diogenes . It is unclear whether this mix-up goes back to Anna Komnena or whether the pretender (mistakenly) called himself Leon instead of Constantine. See Kazhdan, Marriages. Pp. 420-422.
  2. ^ Sturdza ( Dictionnaire. P. 275) considers him to be a legitimate son of Constantine Diogenes and Theodora Komnena.
  3. ↑ The Kalokyres episode from the 10th century also shows parallels .
  4. ↑ Ordericus Vitalis 11 , 9: "filium Diogenis Augusti, aliosque de Graecis seu Thracibus illustres secum habebat".
  5. ↑ See Mathieu, Faux Diogènes. P. 144 f.
personal data
SURNAME Pseudo-Leon Diogenes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Λέων Διογένης (Middle Greek); Leon Diogenewitsch, Леон Дивгеньевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Byzantine usurper
DATE OF BIRTH 11th century
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1116