Melissenos 1 | Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire |
| Sex | M |
| Floruit | E/M IX |
| Dates | 838 (taq) / 845 (ob.) |
| PmbZ No. | 4952 |
| Religion | Christian |
| Locations | Amorion (Galatia) |
| Titles | Strategos, Anatolikoi (office) |
| Textual Sources | Georgius Monachus Continuatus, in Theophanes Continuatus, ed I Bekker (Bonn, 1839), pp. 761-924 (history); Leo Grammaticus, Chronographia, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1842) (chronicle); Pseudo-Symeon, Chronographia, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), pp. 603-760 (history) |
Melissenos (ὅ τε Μελισσηνὸς) was in fact the name of Melissenos 1's family: Leo. Gramm. 224. In 838 he was one of the strategoi captured by the Arabs at the fall of Amorion and carried off into captivity; presumably he was one of the leaders who were subsequently executed by the Arabs after seven years in captivity, during which they refused to abjure their faith (the so-called forty-two martyrs of Amorion): Leo Gramm. 224, Ps.-Symeon 639, Georg. Mon. Cont. 805. See Winkelmann, Quellenstudien, pp. 152-153. One of the accounts of the Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion identifies a spatharios Kallistos as a member of the Melissenos family in one place (BHG 1209, p. 50). See Kallistos 1 and Kallistos 2 and cf. Winkelmann, loc. cit.
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