Aspietes (, from ), feminine form Aspietina () or Aspietissa (), was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

noble family of

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

origin active in the 12th–15th centuries. Despite the mention of a "great and numerous lineage of the so-called Aspetianoi" by the 6th-century Byzantine historian

Procopius of Caesarea Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian's wars, Procopius became the pr ...

, the later Aspietai seem to be entirely unrelated to them. The later Byzantine writers ascribed the Aspietai descent from the Arsacid royal dynasty, but Alexandra Wassiliou-Seibt points out that this was a common literary ''topos'' at the time, and that "almost all representatives of the senior

nobility .were regarded as descendants of the Arsacids". The first known member of the Aspietai family was a general of

Alexios I Komnenos Alexios I Komnenos (, – 15 August 1118), Latinization of names, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine Emperor, Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After usurper, usurping the throne, he was faced with a collapsing empire and ...

, active in the early 12th century. Beginning with the 17th-century scholar

Du Cange Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange (; December 18, 1610 in Amiens – October 23, 1688 in Paris, aged 77), also known simply as Charles Dufresne, was a distinguished French philologist and historian of the Middle Ages and Byzantium. Life Educate ...

, successive historians, including

Ferdinand Chalandon Ferdinand Chalandon (February 10, 1875 in Lyon – October 31, 1921 in Lausanne) was a French medievalist and Byzantinist.Bibliothèque nationale de France .Ferdinand Chalandon (1875-1921). Having begun his education in his hometown of Lyon, Cha ...

Steven Runciman Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman (7 July 1903 – 1 November 2000), known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume '' A History of the Crusades'' (1951–54). His works had a profound impact on the popula ...

, and Konstantinos Varzos, have identified him with

Oshin of Lampron Oshin of Lampron ( - ''Oshin Lambronatsi'') was an Armenian nakharar. Historical sources mentioned that he was a lord of a fortress near the city of Ganja (modern-day Azerbaijan), who migrated in the early 1070s to Cilicia and founded the House o ...

. In 1924, however, Joseph Laurent rejected this identification, and has been followed by some modern scholars since. Most of the known members of the family served as military commanders: apart from the original Aspietes/Oshin, another member of the family fought and was killed at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081,

Michael Aspietes Michael Aspietes (, ) was a distinguished Byzantine general serving under Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. A member of the Aspietes family, of noble Armenian origin, Michael Aspietes is most likely the Aspietes whom John Kinnamos records as having disti ...

was a general under

Manuel I Komnenos Manuel I Komnenos (; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus (; " born in the purple"), was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history o ...

, Constantine Aspietes served under both Manuel I and

Isaac II Angelos Isaac II Angelos or Angelus (; September 1156 – 28 January 1204) was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and co-Emperor with his son Alexios IV Angelos from 1203 to 1204. In a 1185 revolt against the Emperor Andronikos Komnenos, Isaac ...

Alexios Aspietes Alexios Aspietes (, ) was a Byzantine governor and military leader who was captured by the Bulgarians, and led an anti-Bulgarian rebellion at Philippopolis in 1205, being acclaimed emperor by the citizens. Life A member of the Aspietes family ...

served as commander of

Serres Serres ( ) is a city in Macedonia, Greece, capital of the Serres regional unit and second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki. Serres is one of the administrative and economic centers of Northern Greece. The c ...

in 1195 and was proclaimed emperor in 1204, while a member of the family headed an embassy to

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

in 1189. The family is still extensively attested in the

Palaiologan period The Byzantine Empire, officially known as the Roman Empire, was ruled by the Palaiologos dynasty in the period between 1261 and 1453, from the restoration of Byzantine rule to Constantinople by the usurper Michael VIII Palaiologos following its r ...

, where it still belonged to the landed nobility and intermarried with other noble houses, but none of its members managed to rise to senior offices.

References

Sources

* * * {{cite journal , last = Wassiliou-Seibt , first = Alexandra-Kyriaki , title = Kaukasische Aristokraten auf byzantinischer Karriereleiter. Eine kritische Nachlese des Quellenbefunds zur Familie der Aspietai (1081 – 1205) , language = German , journal = Byzantinische Zeitschrift , volume = 108 , issue = 1 , year = 2015 , pages = 207–218 , doi = 10.1515/bz-2015-0011 Byzantine people of Armenian descent Armenian noble families