Basil Argyros

Basil Argyros (Greek: Βασίλειος Ἀργυρός, c. 970 – after 1023) was a Byzantine nobleman of the Argyros family and a brother of the emperor Romanos III.

According to the Synopsis Historion by John Skylitzes, Basil Argyros was the strategos of Samos who was sent to fight the Italian rebel Meles c. 1010–11. It is possible that the account of Basil's career in Italy is the result of Skylitzes' conflation of Argyros with another contemporary Basil, surnamed Mesardonites, who was the catapan of Italy. On the other hand, he may have been a commander of the fleet sent to support Basil Mesardonites in his crackdown on the rebellion. He was recalled from Italy c. 1017. Modern scholars such as Guilou and Vannier consider Basil Argyros and Basil Mesardonites to have been the same person, a view not shared by Alexander Kazhdan.

After a gap in his recorded career, Basil appears as the first Byzantine commander of Vaspurakan, an Armenian kingdom, which was surrendered by its king Senekerim-John to the emperor Basil II in 1021/22. He was removed from the office for incompetence soon after his appointment. The gap in Basil's career can tentatively be filled by the information provided on a seal discovered at Preslav, Bulgaria, on which Basil is named a patrikios and strategos of Thrace.

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