Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 125, as Zah is born.

Last time we followed the confusing game of musical chairs that decided who would become

the new guardian for Constantine VII. In the end the major players from the

court of Leo VI were all swept away and an unknown Armenian sailor took charge

of the government. So who is Romanus Lecapinos and where did he come from?

Lecapinos derives from Lecap, a town near Meliting in Western Armenia. It's possible

that this place was technically part of the caliphate when Romanus was born. My vagueness

comes from the fact that we don't know when that was. Romanus's father was an Armenian

peasant named Theophylact. Like many men from the mountains, Theophylact became a soldier

and was recruited during the eight sixties to serve with the Byzantines. The major push

at the time was to crush the Paulitions, whose stronghold at Tefliki was a little

way north of Meliting. Theophylact earned himself a nickname during these

wars, the unbearable, which one hopes his reference to his ferocity and not his conversation

skills. In eight seventy, the emperor Basil led a force on an attempt to capture the

Paulition capital, but the rebels surprised the Romans and drove them off. As the Vassil

left smate his escape, he was alarmed to find enemy troops bearing down on him. Fortunately,

he was saved by the unbearable. Suitably grateful Basil promoted Theophylact to be part

of the Imperial Bodyguard. So the story goes. Interestingly, Leo III's rise to prominence

contained a similar tale. You may remember that he saw Justinian II marching on the capital

and presented him with his flock of sheep. He too was promoted into the Imperial Bodyguard

and up the ladder he went. In both cases, perhaps the personal contact with the emperor

has been exaggerated in the telling. But most likely Theophylact, the unbearable, did

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