tanutēr
aspet
drongarios
Events
Date of Birth: unknown.
Place of Birth: unknown.
Settipani estimates about 620.
Date of Death: after 646.
Place of Death: unknown.
The date is given by Settipani.
Relationships
Father: Varaztirots II.
This relationship is recorded in Sebeos (p. 92, p. 109). It is given by Garsoian (1997, p. 120) and by the PmbZ.
Mother: unknown.
Spouse: a daughter of magistros Manuel, from the house of the Arsacids, a relative of the emperor Constans II.
This relationship is recorded in Sebeos (p. 109, p. 133).
Children:
(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project.)
Varaztirots III Bagratuni (died about 685).
Ashot II (died 688/9), prince of Armenia.
Evidence
on Smbat’s wife:
Sebeos (p. 109): “The king appointed his elder son, whose name was Smbat, to the rank of his father, giving him his ancestral position of tanutēr and aspet, and he made him drungar of his army. He gave him a wife from the house of the Arsacids, from among his own relatives, and sent him to his army.”
Sebeos (pp. 133-4): “What more shall I say about the disorder of the Roman empire, and the disasters of the slaughter from which the civil war was never free, and the flowing of the blood of the slaughter of prominent men and counsellors in the kingdom who were accused of plotting the emperor’s death? For this reason they slew all the leading men; and there did not remain in the kingdom a single counsellor, since all the inhabitants of the country and the princes in the kingdom were totally exterminated. They also killed Gēorg Magistros, and Manuēl, the virtuous man who was father-in-law of Smbat the aspet [son of Varaztirots‘], son of the great Smbat called Khosrov Shum. Concerning him [Manuēl] some people said that they saw in the night lamps lit at the site of his murder. Smbat they exiled because their army condemned him in the rebellion after these events had happened, since they said of him to the king: ‘He said that it is necessary to avenge the blood of [Gēorg] Magistros’. Magistros was the prince of the army in that region and dear to all the troops; Smbat was the prince of the army of the Thracian princes; and Manuēl exercised in Constantinople the function of magister….”
References
The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos. (R.W. Thomson, tr) (Liverpool U.P., 1999).
Garsoïan, Nina. “The Arab Invasions and the Rise of the Bagratuni” in The Armenian People from Anicent to Modern Times v. 1 (Richard G. Hovannisian ed.) (St Martin’s Press, 1997).
History of Lewond, The Eminent Vardapet of the Armenians (Z. Arzoumanian tr.) (1982).
Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke, and Thomas Pratsch. “Manuel” in Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online (2013).
Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke, and Thomas Pratsch. “Smbat Bagratuni” in Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online (2013).
Settipani, Christian. “The Seventh-Century Bagratids between Armenia and Byzantium” in 2013, Constructing the Seventh Century, Travaux et Mémoires XVII, (C. Zuckerman ed.), (Paris, 2013), p. 559-578.