Theophobos

The head of Theophobos is brought to Emperor Theophilos' deathbed . Miniature from the Madrid illuminated manuscript of the Skylitz

Theophobos ( Middle Greek Θεόφοβος ; † between 839 and 842 in Cilicia or Constantinople ), nickname Perses ("the Persian "), was a Byzantine general of Persian or Kurdish origin.

Life

Theophobos who originally named Nasr (Nasar, Nasir, Nusayr) wore the served Khurramites Bābak Chorramdin as an officer before 834 with his troops to the Byzantines ran for Christianity converted and was baptized in the name Theophobos. He entered the service of Emperor Theophilos as a military leader , who bestowed him with the dignity of Patrikios and gave his sister Helene as his wife.

Emperor Theophilos, a staunch iconoclast , tried to secure his religious policy with military success against the Abbasid caliphate , the main enemy in the east of the empire. In 837 Theophobos led a campaign as a strategos together with the emperor in the border area on the upper reaches of the Euphrates . His Persian soldiers looted Sozopetra , the birthplace of the caliph al-Mu'tasim , among other things , allegedly killing the entire male population. In the Battle of Anzen on July 22, 838, Theophobos (according to other sources, the Magistros Manuel) saved the life of the emperor.

When rumors of Theophilos' death reached the capital after the defeat of the Byzantine army at Anzen and the sacking of Amorion by the Arabs in August 838, Theophobus - he was obviously an iconodule , in contrast to the emperor, who was strictly hostile to images - was traded as a candidate for successor. Theophilus, however, returned happily to the capital; Fearing the imperial disgrace, Theophobos fled to Sinope in the Armeniakon theme , where his Persian soldiers - allegedly against his will - proclaimed him a basileus . With the assurance of impunity , however, he was persuaded to give up and returned to Constantinople in 839. The Persian contingent was dissolved and distributed over various topics.

It is unclear when and under what circumstances Theophobos died. While Arab and Syrian sources report that the general fell in Cilicia in 839 or 840 while fighting the Muslims, Greek authors claim that Theophobos was still suspected of usurpation and was killed shortly before Theophilos' death in 842 on his orders in Constantinople.

swell

• at-Tabarī 95; 120
• Bar Hebrews 132-138
• Joseph Genesios 3: 2-6
• Johannes Skylitzes 67; 74-76
• Michael the Syrian 3, 36, 74 and 88-89
• Pseudo-Symeon 625-626; 637; 646
• Theophanes Continuatus 3:19 , 29-32
• John Zonaras 15, 27-29

literature

• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , pp. 2067-2068.
• 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. 656-659 No. 8237.
• Warren Treadgold : A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1997, ISBN 0-8047-2630-2 , pp. 439-445.
• Alexander A. Vasiliev : Byzance et les Arabes. Volume 1: La Dynastie d'Amorium (820-867) . Éditions de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales, Brussels 1935, pp. 93, 124, 154.