Theophantos 1 | Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire |
| Sex | M |
| Floruit | E VIII |
| Dates | 738 (taq) / 738 (tpq) |
| Variant Names | T'wpntws |
| Locations | Harran (Carrhae) (residence); Harran (Carrhae) |
| Textual Sources | Bar Hebraeus, Chronographia, tr. E. A. W. Budge, The Chronography of Abu 'l-Faraj (London, 1932; repr. Amsterdam, 1976) (history); Chronicon Anonymi ad annum 1234 pertinens, ed. and tr. J.-B. Chabot, I = CSCO 81-82 (Paris, 1916-20), II = CSCO 109 (Louvain, 1937) (chronicle); Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. and tr. J.-B. Chabot, La chronique de Michel le Syrien (Paris, 1899-1904) (chronicle) |
Theophantos 1 was supposedly a blind Roman living in Harran whose help was enlisted by Beser 2 in a fraud to convince the Arab authorities that Beser 2 was in fact the son of the former Roman emperor Justinian II (Ioustinianos 1) (see Tiberios 4); Theophantos 1 pretended to betray Beser 2's real identity to Sulayman 2 (son of the caliph Hisham 1): Chron. 1234, ยง165 (p. 311), Mich. Syr. II 503. He was a paralysed man who lived at Harran, where he was visited by Bashir and told that Bashir was really Tiberios, son of the Roman emperor Konstantios; his name is here recorded as Theopitos: Bar Hebr., p. 110. His role is not recorded in Theophanes' brief account of this (AM 6229). Perhaps he, like Beser 2, was a native of Pergamon carried away into captivity.
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