Skleros

The Skleros (Greek: Σκληρός; plural: Σκληροί, Skleroi), Latinized Sclerus, feminine form Skleraina (Σκλήραινα), Latinized Scleraena, was a noble Byzantine family active mostly in the 9th–11th centuries as members of the military aristocracy, and as civil functionaries thereafter.

The family descended from north-eastern Asia Minor, either from Lesser Armenia or the theme of Sebasteia. Due to their origin, they have been traditionally regarded as Armenians, although this is nowhere explicitly attested. They have been linked more specifically with the area around Melitene, where a member of the family was active in the 840s, and where the rebellions of Bardas Skleros in the 970s and 980s were centred. After that, they seem to have moved their base to the Anatolic Theme, where they are recorded to have had large estates in the 11th century.

Although the family belonged to the Anatolian military aristocracy, in the 9th century its members are mostly attested as being active in the Balkans: the first Skleros known was a strategos of the Peloponnese in 805, and in 811, the same office was occupied by Leo Skleros, possibly a son or nephew of the former. Another unnamed member of the family is recorded in the 840s as serving the Arabs and being in conflict with Umar al-Aqta, the emir of Malatya, possibly indicating a fall from favour of the family under the Amorian dynasty. The family seems to have regained a prominent position under Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–886), for the magistros and anthypatos Theodore Skleros is recorded in 869–870. His sons Antony and Niketas became patrikioi, with Antony serving as strategos of Hellas and Niketas possibly as admiral of the imperial fleet (droungarios tou ploimou), while he is also recorded as leading an embassy to the Magyars in 894.

...
Wikipedia