Theophylaktos anthypatos, patrikios, vestes, and doux of Adrianoupolis (tenth/eleventh century)
Obverse
Bust of St. George with spear and shield. Vertical inscription: |Γ|Ε.|ΓΙ|Ο: Ὁ ἅγιος Γεώργιος. Border of dots.
Reverse
Inscription followed by an ornament. Border of dots.
[]ΘΕΟΦ.
ΛΑΚ,ΑΝΘ.
Π,ΠΑΤ,ΕΣ
Τ,ΔΑΔ
ΡΙΑΝΠ,
·
Θεοφύλακτος ἀνθύπατος, πατρίκιος, βέστης καὶ δοὺξ Ἀδριανουπόλεως
Obverse
Bust of St. George with spear and shield. Vertical inscription: |Γ|Ε.|ΓΙ|Ο: Ὁ ἅγιος Γεώργιος. Border of dots.
Reverse
Inscription followed by an ornament. Border of dots.
[]ΘΕΟΦ.
ΛΑΚ,ΑΝΘ.
Π,ΠΑΤ,ΕΣ
Τ,ΔΑΔ
ΡΙΑΝΠ,
·
Θεοφύλακτος ἀνθύπατος, πατρίκιος, βέστης καὶ δοὺξ Ἀδριανουπόλεως
| Accession number | BZS.1958.106.5489 |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 28.0 mm |
| Previous Editions | DO Seals 1, no. 44.1. |
Translation
Θεοφύλακτος ἀνθύπατος, πατρίκιος, βέστης καὶ δοὺξ Ἀδριανουπόλεως.
Theophylaktos anthypatos, patrikios, vestes and doux of Adrianoupolis.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 1: Italy, North of the Balkans, North of the Black Sea (Open in Zotero)
- Le kommerkion d’Abydos, Thessalonique et le commerce bulgare du 9e siècle (Open in Zotero)
- Armenian Miniature Paintings of the Monastic Library at San Lazzaro (Open in Zotero)
- Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (Open in Zotero)
- Μελέται περὶ τῆς διοικητικῆς διαιρέσεως καὶ τῆς ἐπαρχιακῆς διοικήσεως ἐν τῷ βυζαντινῷ κράτει (Open in Zotero)
- Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
- Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- La Thrace Orientale et La Mer Noire: Géographie Ecclésiastique et Prosopographie (VIIIe-XIIe Siècles) (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
Adrianoupolis (ancient Oresteias; modern Edirne in Turkish Thrace) was an important way station for the passage between Constantinople and Bulgaria and the capital of the Byzantine theme of Macedonia, the seat of one of its tourmarchai (10th century; DO Seals 1, nos. 44.9-10) and of some early ninth-century kommerkiarioi, undoubtedly related to the north-south river trade of the Bulgarians (cf. Oikonomides, Abydos). A doux of Adrianoupolis appears in the Escorial Taktikon (971-975), in which the "strategos of Macedonia" is not included; we cannot be sure if this is due to an omission or, possibly, the replacement at that time of the office of strategos of Macedonia by the office of the doux of Adrianoupolis (Listes, 354, 355). However, a "theme" of Macedonia is mentioned in 1006/1007, and in the same year an Armenian named John, proximos of the doux Theodorokanos, commissioned a manuscript in Adrianoupolis (but it is not stated explicitly that Theodorokanos was a doux of Adrianoupolis): cf. Armenian Miniature Paintings of the Monastic Library at San Lazzaro (Venice, 1966), 28 ff and pl. XL. The office of doux of Adrianoupolis disappears from the sources (because of Samuel's sack of the city in 1002?) and reappears in narrative sources only in 1049 (Skylitzes, 458; for later periods, see Zakythinos, Mélétai 18 [1948] 57-58). It is probably that at some point in the late tenth/early eleventh century the strategia of Macedonia and the doukaton of Adrianoupolis existed side by side--a situation implied by a seal of the period (DO Seals 1, no. 44.8), which attests a praitor of Macedonia and Adrianoupolis.
In the seventh century, the metropolis of Adrianoupolis had a modest rank (36th of 38 in Darrouzès, Notitiae, 205, line 36; cf. DHGE, fasc. 131 [1988] cols. 1447-48). Its rank remained low in the tenth and eleventh centuries (42 in rank in Darrouzès, Notitiae, 343, line 42), but the number of its suffragans increased from five in the seventh century to eleven by the tenth century (Darrouzès, Notitiae, 286). See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 543 ff; Asdracha, Thrace orientale, 274-77; REB 31 (1973) 293-96; 34 (1976) 194-95; BNJ 23 (1979) 37-43.