Once more about Romanos Boilas – a Byzantine Aristocrat of Bulgarian Origin Struggling for the Throne in Constantinople

Authors:

Pages: 264-271

Abstract:

The 11th c. saw the rise of many men of relatively humble origin to the peaks of imperial power. One of them was Romanos Boïlas, Emperor Konstantinos IX Monomachos’ personal favourite, who almost succeeded in becoming his murderer and successor at the throne. He was certainly a man of some influence, even though it did not last for long. However, our sources for this character are rather biased and unreliable, which have long been ascertained by the scholars. Here we tried to give another insight into his personality, while, at the same time, offering some reasonable explanations for the bias of the Byzantine historians. For this purpose, an attempt is made to establish the correlations between their narratives. The conclusions concern the way Michael Psellos described his anonymous character, which greatly affected his later colleagues.

Keywords:

Byzantium in the 11th century, Romanos Boïlas, Byzantine historiography, Michael Psellos, damnation memoriae in Byzantium

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