Michael Monokarites, imperial spatharios and judge of the Hippodrome of Thrace and Macedonia (tenth/eleventh century)

Commentary

Laurent suggested that the family name be read as Μονοχαρίτ(ῃ), but our specimen, with a distinct kappa at the beginning of the last line of the reverse, imposes the reading Μονοκαρίτῃ, that is, a family name originating from a place called Μονοκαριά. Laurent dated the Orghidan specimen to the second half of the eleventh century, but we think that it definitely belongs to an earlier period, before the middle of the century (see esp. the form of the omicron upsilon ligature on the first line of the reverse).

According to Lemerle (Philippes, 122-23), this theme was established between 789 and 802 (first mention of a strategos in 813). It was situated in present-day Greek Thrace and the western part of Turkish Thrace, with the city of Adrianoupolis as its capital (Listes, 349). Among known seals, no specimen appears to contradict the chronology that Lemerle espoused (cf. Winkelmann, Ämterstruktur, 101-2, 124-25). Although Laurent asserted that a seal published by Mordtmann (Ἐλλ. Φιλολ. Σύλλ. 13, Suppl. [1880] 85) and struck in the name of a Gregory, imperial spatharios and strategos of Macedonia, belonged to the eighth century (V. Laurent, "La Macédoine orientale à l'époque byzantine," REB6 [1948] 77; cf. K. Konstantopoulos, ΑΘΛΓΘ 4 [1937] 189-91), there is good reason to believe that it belongs to the ninth century, as its obverse has a cruciform monogram similar to that on the bulla of the ninth century, as its obverse has a cruciform monogram similar to that on the bulla of Antonios I Kassimatas, patriarch of Constantinople 821-837. Another (or several other) very early seal(s), attributed to the eighth-ninth century, belonged to a certain Sergios strategos of Macedonia (Sig., 111; EO 9 [1906] 215; Byzantion 6 [1931] 802). Another seal, of a komes tes kortes of Macedonia (Zacos-Veglery, no. 1530a), has been dated to the second half of the eighth century, but its reading and dating seem questionable.

The theme of Macedonia is mentioned in all taktika except the Escorial Taktikon (971-975), where a doux of Adrianoupolis appears instead (see DO Seals 1, § 44). We know that the theme of Macedonia existed in 962 (Theophanes Cont., 480) and was still functioning in 1006/7, as we learn from an inscription of that year (see Listes, 355). On occasion, the administrative functions of Macedonia and Thrace were combined, as, for example, in the case of a mid-tenth-century protonotarios of Macedonia and Thrace named Stephanos (Zacos, Seals II, no. 894) or of the anagrapheus of Thrace and Macedonia George (DO Seals 1, no. 43.1).