The ''epi tōn deēseōn'' ( el, , "the one in charge of petitions") was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

office, whose holder was responsible for receiving and answering petitions to the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...

. Subordinate officials with the same title also existed in the provinces, and the

Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Οἰκουμενικός Πατριάρχης, translit=Oikoumenikós Patriárchēs) is the archbishop of Constantinople (Istanbul), New Rome and '' primus inter pares'' (first among equals) among the heads of th ...

also had an ''epi tōn deēseōn''. The office is usually considered (cf. Bury) as the direct continuation of the late Roman ''magister memoriae'', but this identification is not certain. The title is first attested in a 7th-century seal. In the lists of precedence like the '' Klētorologion'', he was counted among the judicial officials (''kritai''), and surviving seals show that until the 11th century, its holders held relatively mid-ranking dignities, no higher than '' prōtospatharios''. From the latter half of the 11th century however and during the 12th, the office rose much in importance, with its holders receiving higher titles and being drawn from among the Empire's nobility. The last named holder, George Chatzikes, is attested in 1321, but the office is still mentioned as active decades later by Pseudo-Kodinos. It is unknown if he had a dedicated staff ('' officium''), or what its composition may have been; it is absent in the ''Klētorologion'', but a seal of a probably subordinate "notary of the petitions" (''notarios tōn deēseōn'') is known. Seals also attest to the existence of provincial officials titled ''epi tōn deēseōn'', as in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

and the

Peloponnese The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge which ...

Sources

* * * * Byzantine judicial offices Greek words and phrases {{Byzantine-stub