Theodore Daphnopates

Theodore Daphnopates (Greek: Θεόδωρος Δαφνοπάτης) was a senior Byzantine official and author. He served as imperial secretary, and possibly protasekretis, under three emperors, Romanos I Lekapenos, Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, and Romanos II, rising to the ranks of patrikios and magistros, and the post of Eparch of the City. Daphnopates' public career ended with the accession of Nikephoros II Phokas in 963, when he went into retirement. Daphnopates also participated in the encyclopaedism movement, writing several homilies and theological as well as historical works, few of which survive. Daphnopates is best known for his surviving correspondence, and is considered by some modern scholars as the author of the last section of the chronicle of Theophanes Continuatus.

Daphnopates was probably born between 890 and 900. He was of Armenian origin, and apparently spoke Armenian, as he translated a letter by the Bishop of Siwnik, written in Armenian, into Greek. Although he lived and worked in Constantinople, his family hailed from elsewhere, as he records in a latter a visit by his mother by ship to Pylae, on the Asian shore of the Propontis, probably during the early 920s. During the return trip, Daphnopates himself nearly drowned when a heavy storm came upon his ship. Only with great effort and luck was the ship able to reach the coast at Cape Akritas.

Daphnopates first appears in the sources in the mid-920s, having apparently entered the service of the imperial court shortly before. In 924/5, Daphnopates composed three replies of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (r. 920–944), to letters by Tsar Symeon I of Bulgaria. In these letters, Romanos I criticized Symeon as rapacious and warlike, while trying to move him to accept a peace bringing an end to the long war between Byzantium and Bulgaria. Ten more letters to rulers and ecclesiastical leaders in Bulgaria and Armenia, written on behalf of Romanos I in the period 925–933, survive, indicating that Daphnopates probably held the post of head of the imperial chancery (protasekretis). A number of modern scholars—Ivan Dujčev, R. J. H. Jenkins, and Patricia Karlin-Hayter—have suggested that Daphnopates was the author of the anonymous speech celebrating the conclusion of peace with Bulgaria in 927 (ἐπὶ τῇ τῶν Βουλγάρων συμβάσει) and the concurrent marriage of Tsar Peter, the son and successor of Symeon, with Maria Lekapene, the granddaughter of Romanos I. The Greek historian Alkmini Stavridou-Zafraka however rejected this identification.

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