- Philaretos Brachamios
Philaretos Brachamios ( _el. Φιλάρετος Βραχάμιος; Armenian: Փիլարտոս Վարաժնունի, Pilartos
Varajnuni ; Latin: "Philaretus Brachamius") was a distinguished Byzantine general and warlord of Armenian heritage. Philaretos is testified on seals as "taxiarches" (commander of an infantry regiment), as well as "protospatharios" and "topoteretes " (deputy commander) of theTagmata ofCappadocia , then as "magister " and "doux" (duke), and finally as "kuropalates" and "doux". He held a high command in the army ofRomanus IV Diogenes . After theBattle of Manzikert (1071), he commanded the forces of the fortressRomanopolis . As the only remaining Byzantine general in the southeast he established a quasi-autonomous realm, which stretched fromCilicia to Edessa. The core of his army was composed of 8,000 "Franks" (Normans ) underRaimbaud . In 1078, at the beginning of the rule of Nicephorus III Botaniates, he became duke ofAntioch , which included Edessa. Several seals testify him as "megas domestikos" and "protokuropalates", then "sebastos ", then even "protosebastos". In December 1084, he lost Antioch to Suleiman I, Sultan of Rum. In 1087, Edessa fell to Malik Shah and Philaretos escaped back to the fortress of Germanicia. However, some sources indicate that he died in 1086. He was the last well-known Scholen Domestikos ofAnatolia . His sons handed Germanicia to theFirst Crusade in 1098.ee also
*
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia References
*Chronicles of
Matthew of Edessa , translation by A. Dostourian, Armenia and the Crusades, 10th to 12th Centuries. The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa (Lanham, MD-London, 1993)
*Gravett, Christopher, and Nicolle, David. "The Normans: Warrior Knights and their Castles".Osprey Publishing :Oxford , 2006.External links
* [http://www.templiers.org/chronique-eng.html Project Beauceant: Chronicle of events between 1050 and 1350]
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