Domestic

Domestic ( Greek δομέστικος , from Latin domesticus ) is the civil, church, and military title of the Late Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire .

Domestics originate from the body of protectors of domestics , created at the end of the III century. It was a corps of people who served as the staff of the Roman emperor, and also functioned as an official school ^[1] . They continued to exist in the Eastern Roman Empire until the end of the VI century. In the Byzantine army, domestic protectors disappeared in the 7th century, and the name remained in the name of some guards. After the creation of tags in the middle of the VIII century, four of them, scholes, excavators , gykanats and numbers, as well as the Optima optima were definitely under the command of a domestic ^[2] . To them was added a short-lived tagan Atanatov at the end of the X century ^[3] .

The most important of the domestics was the ( Greek δομέστικος των σχολών ) in the 10th century. He had the greatest influence, being the supreme commander of the army, inferior in influence only to the emperor. But his powers already in the same century were divided between two domestics - eastern and western scholes, who commanded the armed forces in Asia Minor and Europe (in the Balkans ), respectively ^[4] . As the commander-in-chief of the army, the domestic schol was replaced by the great domestic in the 12th – 13th centuries, while the usual title of domestic became the honorary title awarded to mid-level officials in the Paleologian era ^[5] .

The title of the ( Greek μέγας δομέστικος ) was assigned to the commander-in-chief of the army and was lower than the emperor ^[6] . Its exact origin remains not entirely clear. It was first mentioned in the 9th century and, most likely, comes from the title of domestic schol with the epithet “great” to denote the supreme power of its owner ^[7] . Both names, apparently, coexisted for a while, until the great domestic completely supplanted the earlier title by the middle of the 11th century, although the post was even sometimes called the great domestic of schol ^[6] . During the reign of the Komnin dynasty, the great domestic sometimes commanded an entire army of East or West ^[8] .

In the era of the Paleologists, the position was initially lower than that of holding the aquarium and the great stratopedic, but was raised in the middle of the XIV century and since then has been one of the highest ranks, below only Caesar ^[9] . He remained the formal commander of the armed forces, although in fact the title was bestowed upon military leaders and high-ranking courtiers, such as, in particular, George Muzalon, John Paleolog (brother of Mikhail VIII Paleolog ), Mikhail Tarhaniot, Alexei Stratigopul and John Kantakuzin (future emperor John VI) ^10] . The powers of the domestic also included various ceremonial functions, which was indicated in the list of ranks of the pseudo-Kodin ^[11] . Also, the title of domestics was worn by both civil and church officials.