Petronas (The Patrician)

Petronas the Patrician (d. November 11, 865), was a Byzantine general and the brother of Empress Theodora and Bardas, uncle to the Byzantine emperor Michael III. After the death of Theophilus, young Michael ascended to the throne with the regency of Empress Theodora and the assistance of Bardas and Petronas.

During a conflict with the Arabs of the Euphrates in 860, the emperor Michael III sustained a personal defeat from which Petronas retrieved a great victory. On September 3, 863 Petronas, after visiting Latros to consult and obtain the blessings of the monks before launching his expedition against the Arabs, attained a huge victory against the emir of Melitene, Omar, whose head he carried to Constantinople. Bardas staged a triumphal entrance for his brother upon his return.

The defeated Paulician heretics with their Arab allies in Asia Minor became a turning point in the Byzantine-Muslim conflict. With this victory Petronas and Bardas were able to push back the Muslim peril for nearly two centuries. The Byzantine chroniclers add that the victorious general did not survive for long after the glorious battle of Poson. "A Saint's Life", written by a contemporary, claims that Petronas died on the same day as his spiritual father Saint Antony the Younger, two years and two months after routing the Arab armies.