Basil Argyros

970 – 1023 · Generation XXV

Basil Argyros was a Byzantine nobleman and general, a brother of the emperor Romanos III and the grandfather of the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. According to the chronicler John Skylitzes, as governor of Samos he was sent to Italy around 1010 or 1011 to fight the rebel Meles, and he was recalled about 1017. Historians disagree over whether Skylitzes confused him with another Basil, Basil Mesardonites, the governor of Italy at the time, and some take the two to be the same man.

A seal found at Preslav in Bulgaria names him as patrikios and governor of Thrace. In 1021 or 1022, when King Senekerim-John surrendered the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan to Basil II, Basil Argyros became its first Byzantine governor, but he was soon removed for incompetence.

His family helped bind the empire to its eastern neighbours. In 1032 his daughter Helena married the Georgian king Bagrat IV as part of a peace arranged by Bagrat’s mother, Queen Maria. His other daughter, whose name has not survived, married the general Constantine Diogenes and was the mother of Romanos IV. Skylitzes mentions Basil’s sons as notables living in the Anatolic theme in the middle of the eleventh century.

Read more on Wikipedia

Sources

1. Basil Argyros · Wikipedia
2. Romanos III Argyros · Wikipedia