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From: Christian Settipani < >
Subject: Re: Phokas family - from the beginning
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 12:53:07 +0200


There is many problems with the stemma of the Phocades.
It is a non-sense to make the early Phocas a member of a family of
Phocades and to
assign to him and to is kindred first names and family name. The family
name doesn't
exist at this time. This man was simply Phocas (Flavios is no more that
"sir"). He was
born in 547, and probably wasn't so low born that sources say. His
mother, Domentzia
was probably of a good family which goes back to early V century. He had
two brothers,
Domentiolus and Comentiolus, and the last was the father of another
Domentiolus,
married to Irene and father of three children in 610, some of them will
have children
in turn.
In the VIII and IX century, nicknames and patronymes turn to become
family names in
Byzantium, perhaps under influence of Armenians. In 872 a Phocas (we
don't know if it
is is first name or, already, a family name, was distinguished and
become tourmarque
of Cappadocia, then protospatharius, etc., and strategos of Anatolia.
This Phocas was
of Cappadocia, and so for emperor Phocas of VII century, but they were
not necessary
of the same family for the name was perhaps a frequent one in
Cappadocia, or perhaps
they were. Nobody can say.
His son was Nicephoros Phocas, born c. 850 and the first to enter great
standing. He
had two sons, Leon (the oldest) and Bardas. Leon doesn't have a son
named Michael.
This Michael is Michael Maleinos, for Bardas, Nicephore'son married a
Maleina, sister
of Michael and Constantin Maleinoi and of very ancient cappadocian
stock. I don't know
of Leon's sons. Manuel (not Emmanuel) is the son of another Leon.
Bardas and Maleina have three sons, emperor Nicephore, Leon and
Constantin, and two
daughters: one of them is the mother of emperor Iohannes Tzimiskes and
ancestor of
Bulgarian kings and european nobility, while the other married
Theodoulos
Parsakountenos and have three sons, Theodore (?), Bardas and Nicephore.
Leon, brother of emperor Nicephore was curopalatos, not curopalatinos,
but in any
case the hightest charge of most Phocas is "Domestique of Scholae" and
almost all of
them since the first Nicephore have it. This Leon doesn't have a son
Petros, who is a
servant, not the son, of a Phocas. Bardas, Leon' son was killed in 989,
not 987. He
have married and distant cousine (Anastaso Adralestina was the maternal
grandmother of
emperor Nicephore), Ne Adralestina, and have two sons, Leon, and
Nicephore. This one
met his dead in 1022 (not 1120!!!). One of these sons if the father of
Bardas, blinded
in 1025. Perhaps is this Bardas the same that Bardas Phocas, dead in
Crete with
children and ancestor of the Cretan Phocades.
See : I. Djuric, "Porodica Foca", Zbornik Radova, 17 (1976), p. 189-292
and J.-Cl.
Cheynet, "les Phocas", in G. Dagron & H. Mihaescu, le traite sur la
guerilla de
l'empereur Nicephore Phocas, Paris, 1986.

CS

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