Michael Aspietes

Michael Aspietes (Greek: Μιχαήλ Ἀσπιέτης, fl. 1167–76) was a distinguished Byzantine general serving under Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.

A member of the Aspietes family, of noble Armenian origin,^[1] Michael Aspietes is most likely the Aspietes whom John Kinnamos records as having distinguished himself in the wars against the Hungarians in 1167.^[2] He is next recorded by Niketas Choniates as being active in 1176, in the aftermath of the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Myriokephalon, when he and John Komnenos Vatatzes campaigned against the Seljuk Turks raiding the Maeander River valley. At the Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir, where the Seljuk army was destroyed in an ambush, a Turk wounded Aspietes' horse and the panicked animal, rearing on its hind legs, threw the general into the Maeander, where he drowned.^[3][4]

References

1. Kazhdan 1991, pp. 211–212.
2. Savvides 1991, p. 74.
3. Savvides 1991, pp. 74–75.
4. Choniates & Magoulias 1984, pp. 110 (folios 194–195).

Sources

• Choniates, Niketas; Magoulias, Harry J. (1984). O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1764-2.
• Kazhdan, Alexander (1991). "Aspietes". In Kazhdan, Alexander. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 211–212. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.
• Savvides, Alexis G. K. (1991). "Notes on the Armeno-Byzantine family of Aspietes, late 11th-early 13th centuries". Byzantinoslavica (Prague) 52: 70–79.