Stephanos Lakapenos

Miliaresion Romanos I with the names of his co-emperors Constantine VII, Stephanos Lakapenos and Konstantin Lakapenos on the lapel . Minted between 931 and 944

Stephanos Lakapenos (also Lekapenos , Middle Greek Στέφανος Λακαπηνός ; * late 920 / early 921 in Constantinople ; † April 18, 963 in Mithymna ) was Byzantine co-emperor from 923/24 to 945 .

Life

Stephanos was the second eldest son of the emperor Romanos I. Lakapenos (920-944) and his second wife Theodora . He had an older half-brother, the co-emperor Christophoros , an older brother, the later patriarch Theophylactus , a younger brother, the co-emperor Constantine , and a younger illegitimate half-brother, the later Parakoimomenos Basileios . His older sister Helena Lakapene had been married to Constantine VII since 919 , who was ousted as main emperor ( basileus ) by his father-in-law the following year . With his wife Anna Gabala , Stephanos had a son named Romanos .

On December 25, 923 (or 924), Stephanos was crowned co-emperor (Symbasileus) together with his brother Constantine as a small child . He took fourth place in the hierarchy of the imperial college behind Romanos I, Constantine VII and Christophoros; after his death in 931 he moved to the third position. Stephanos took part in the celebrations that were held in the summer of 944 on the occasion of the transfer of the Mandylion from Edessa to Constantinople.

In the winter of 944 Stephanos instigated a conspiracy against his father Romanos, who was dethroned on December 20, 944, brought to the island of Proti and shorn to be a monk . After that, however, Constantine VII was able to assert himself as main emperor, who deposed Stephanos and his younger brother as co-emperor on January 27, 945 and banished them to the Princes' Islands , where they were also dressed in clerical robes. A conspiracy in December 947 to bring Stephanos to the throne was uncovered in time. Stephanos was later brought to Prokonnisos , then to Rhodes and finally (after 949) to Mithymna on Lesbos . There he died on Easter Saturday 963; allegedly Theophanu , the widow of Romanos II , had him poisoned.

swell

• Al-Masʿūdī , Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-'l-ischrāf 173
• Bar Hebrews 161
• Konstantin Porphyrogennetos , De Cerimoniis 2, 45
• Liutprand of Cremona , Antapodosis 5, 20-23
• Pseudo-Symeon 739-754
• Johannes Skylitzes , Romanos Lakapenos 13–28, Konstantinos (2) 1–2
• Symeon Logothetes 136
• Theophanes Continuatus 6, 17-53
• Vita Basilii iun. ( BHG 263) fol. 22r, 32r
• John Zonaras 16: 18-20

literature

• 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.633.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , pp. 1203-1204.
• Otto Kresten , Andreas E. Müller : Samtherrschaft, legitimation principle and imperial document title in Byzantium in the first half of the 10th century (= session reports Austrian Academy of Sciences, philosophical-historical class. Volume 630). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-70-012226-8 .
• 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 6: Sinko (# 27089) - Zuhayr (# 28522). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-020635-7 , pp. 83-89 No. 27251.
• Alexander A. Vasiliev : Byzance et les Arabes. Department 2: La dynastie macédonienne (867–959). Volume 2: Extraits des sources arabes (= Corpus Bruxellense historiae Byzantinae. Dept. 2, Vol. 2, ZDB -ID 2197364-7 ). Édition française prepared by Henri Grégoire et Marius Canard, traduits by Marius Canard. Éditions de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves, Brussels 1950, pp. 397–398.