Staurakios (eunuch)

Staurakios ( Middle Greek Σταυράκιος ; † June 800) was a Byzantine eunuch , patrician and senior civil servant under Empress Irene .

Life

The eunuch Staurakios directed during Irene's reign for her underage son Constantine VI. between 780 and 791 as Logothet des Dromos the state business. Between September 789 and February 790 there was a conspiracy that wanted to bring the meanwhile of adult Constantine to power. Staurakios managed to uncover the plot and get Irene to send the participants into exile . The attempt by Irenes to make herself the sole ruler under the exclusion of Constantine failed because of the resistance of the subjects , which on the initiative of the Alexios musele Konstantin VI. proclaimed sole emperor. Staurakios was relegated to the Armeniakon theme , but returned to Constantinople before the autumn of 792 , after Irene had also been rehabilitated in her old position as empress.

In August 797 Irene and Staurakios succeeded Emperor Constantine VI. to blind (and maybe to kill) and to get the affairs of state completely back into their hands. The uncle of the deposed emperor, who Kaisar Nicephorus , and his brothers failed with a usurpation and were to Athens banished. In the following years Staurakios grew up in the eunuch Aëtios a strong competitor for the favor of the empress. Both tried to bring their relatives into positions of power (see Leon ) in order to be able to gain power over the empire after Irene's death. The rivalry intensified in May 799 when Irene became seriously ill. Before the ears of the Byzantine empress, Aëtios accused Staurakios of plotting a usurpation. Irene convened a council in the palace of Hiereia , where she made serious accusations against Staurakios. But he was able to pull himself out of the affair with an apology.

Staurakios now began to distribute bribes among the soldiers of the Scholai and the Excubitores in order to gain their support for a coup . Aëtios informed Irene, who in February 800 forbade any member of the military to make contact with Staurakios. This, combined with Aëtios' appointment as strategos of the subject of Anatolia , restored the balance of power between the two camps. Shortly afterwards Staurakios fell ill, but never tired of scheming against Aetios. He managed to spark a revolt against Aëtios in Cappadocia , but he died in June 800. The revolt was resolutely and bloodily suppressed, and after the death of his rival, Aëtios rose to the highest level of power at Irene's court. He probably succeeded Staurakios in his office as Logothet des Dromos.

swell

• At-Tabarī 220-221
• Bar-Hebraeus 120
• Kedrenos 2, 24-28
• Michael the Syrian 3, 13
• Theodor Studites , Magna Catachesis 2, 59 (p. 423 in the edition by Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus )
• Theophanes , pp. 456–474 (in the edition by Carl de Boor )
• John Zonaras 15, 11

literature

• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , p. 1945.
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Ilse Rochow, Beate Zielke: Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . 1st department: (641−867). Volume 4: Plato (# 6266) - Theophylaktos (# 8345). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-11-016674-7 , pp. 187-189 no. 6880.
• Warren Treadgold : A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1997, ISBN 0-8047-2630-2 , pp. 418-423, 446, 565.