Demetrios Tzamplakon

Demetrios Tzamplakon (Greek: Δημήτριος Τζαμπλάκων, fl. 1345–1366/67) was a Byzantine aristocrat and senior military leader.

The Tzamplakones were an important and wealthy aristocratic family attested since the mid-13th century, when one of its members achieved the high military rank of Domestic of the Schools. Alexios Tzamplakon, Demetrios' father, was this man's son.^[1][2] His brothers, Asomatianos and Arsenios, also achieved high offices during the same period.^[3] Demetrios was married to Eudokia Palaiologina and had several children, whose names are unknown.^[2]

Demetrios is first attested in 1345, already holding the senior military rank of megas stratopedarches, during the siege of Serres by the forces of the Serbian ruler Stephen Dushan. A large part of the city's population, under Manuel Asen, wanted to surrender the city to the Serbs, while Tzamplakon led the loyalist faction.^[2][4] After the city's fall, he withdrew to Christoupolis (modern Kavala), and is still attested in the 1360s.^[2]

References

1. Kazhdan (1991), p. 2135
2. PLP 27755
3. Guilland (1967), pp. 509, 550
4. Guilland (1967), p. 509

Sources

• Guilland, Rodolphe (1967), Recherches sur les institutions byzantines, Tome I (in French), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag
• Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.
• (German) Trapp, Erich; Beyer, Hans-Veit; Kaplaneres, Sokrates; Leontiadis, Ioannis (1991). "27755. Τζαμπλάκων Δημήτριος". Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit 11. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.