page_title: Basileus
section_title: Romans and Byzantines
hierarchical_section_title: Basileus / Romans and Byzantines
caption_attribution_description: Български: Миниатюра, изобразяваща византийския император Мануил II Палеолог, императрица Елена Драгаш и трима от синовете им - Йоан, Андроник и Теодор. Ελληνικά: Μικρογραφία από το χειρόγραφο MS. Ivoires 100 φυλασσόμενο στο Λούβρο. Ο αυτοκράτωρ Μανουήλ Β' Παλαιολόγος (ΜΑΝΟΥΗΛ ΕΝ ΧΩ ΤΩ ΘΩ ΠΙCΤΟC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ Ο ΠΑΛΑΙΟΛΟΓΟC ΚΑΙ ΑΕΙ ΑΥΓΟΥCΤΟC) που πέθανε ως μοναχός, η αυτοκράτειρα Ελένη (ΕΛΕΝΗ ΕΝ ΧΩ ΤΩ ΘΩ ΠΙCΤΗ ΑΥΓΟΥCΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΙCΑ ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ Η ΠΑΛΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΝΑ) και τρεις από τους έξι γιους τους, ο συναυτοκράτωρ Ιωάννης Η' (ΙΩ ΕΝ ΧΩ ΤΩ ΘΩ ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC Ο ΥΙΟC ΑΥΤΟΥ) και οι δεσπότες Θεόδωρος (ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟC Ο ΠΟΡΦΥΡΟΓΕΝΝΗΤΟC ΕΥΤΗΧΗC ΔΕCΠΟΤΗC Ο ΥΙΟC ΑΥΤΟΥ) και Ανδρόνικος (ΑΝΔΡΟΝΙΚΟC ΑΥΘΕΝΤΟΠΟΥΛΟC ΠΑΛΑΙΟΛΟΓΟC Ο ΥΙΟC ΑΥΤΟΥ). English: А miniature from the Louvre MS. Ivoires 100 manuscript, depicting the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, empress Helena and three of their sons - the co-emperor John VIII and the Despots Theodore and Andronikos. Italiano: Miniatura, rappresentante la famiglia imperiale, Manuele II Paleologo con la moglie Elena Dragaš, insieme ai tre figli, da sinistra, Giovanni VIII Paleologo, Teodoro II Paleologo, Andronico Paleologo.
context_page_description: Basileus is a Greek term and title that has signified various types of monarchs in history. In the English-speaking world it is perhaps most widely understood to mean "king" or "emperor". The title was used by sovereigns and other persons of authority in ancient Greece, the Byzantine emperors, and the kings of modern Greece.
  The feminine forms are basileia, basilis, basilissa, or the archaic basilinna, meaning "queen" or "empress".
context_section_description: Under Roman rule, the term basileus came to be used, in the Hellenistic tradition, to designate the Roman Emperor in the everyday and literary speech of the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean. Although the early Roman Emperors were careful to retain the façade of the republican institutions and to not formally adopt monarchical titles, the use of basileus amply illustrates that contemporaries clearly perceived that the Roman Empire was a monarchy in all but name. Nevertheless, despite its widespread use, due to its "royal" associations the title basileus remained unofficial for the Emperor, and was restricted in official documents to client kings in the East. Instead, in official context the imperial titles Caesar Augustus, translated or transliterated into Greek as Kaisar Sebastos or Kaisar Augoustos, and Imperator, translated as Autokratōr, were used.
  By the 4th century however, basileus was applied in official usage exclusively to the two rulers considered equals to the Roman Emperor: the Sassanid Persian shahanshah ("king of kings"), and to a lesser degree the King of Axum, whose importance was rather peripheral in the Byzantine worldview. Consequently, the title acquired the connotation of "emperor", and when barbarian kingdoms emerged on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, their rulers were referred to in Greek not as basileus but as rēx or rēgas, the hellenized forms of the Latin title rex, king.
  The first documented use of basileus Rhomaíōn in official context comes, surprisingly, from the Persians: in a letter sent to Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) by Chosroes II, Maurice is addressed in Greek as basileus Rhomaíōn instead of the habitual Middle Persian appellation kēsar-i Hrōm ("Caesar of the Romans"), while the Persian ruler refers to himself correspondingly as Persōn basileus, thereby dropping his own claim to the Greek equivalent of his formal title, basileus basileōn ("king of kings"). The title appears to have slowly crept into imperial titulature after that, and Emperor Heraclius is attested as using it alongside the long-established Autokratōr Kaisar in a letter to Kavadh II in 628. Finally, in a law promulgated on 21 March 629, the Latin titles were dropped altogether, and the simple formula πιστὸς ἐν Χριστῷ βασιλεύς, "faithful believer, emperor by the grace of Christ" was used instead. The adoption of the new imperial formula has been traditionally interpreted by scholars such as Ernst Stein and George Ostrogorsky as a move indicative of the almost complete hellenization of the Empire by that point. In imperial coinage, however, Latin forms continued to be used. Only in the reign of Leo III the Isaurian (r. 717–741) did the title basileus appear in silver coins, and on gold coinage only under Constantine VI (r. 780–797). "BASILEUS" was initially stamped on Byzantine coins in Latin script, and only gradually were some Latin characters replaced with Greek ones, resulting in mixed forms such as "BASIΛEVS".
  Until the 9th century, the Byzantines reserved the term basileus among Christian rulers exclusively for their own emperor in Constantinople. This usage was initially accepted by the "barbarian" kings of Western Europe themselves: despite having shed the fiction of Roman suzerainty from the 6th century on, they refrained from adopting imperial titulature. The situation began to change when the Western European states began to challenge the Empire's political supremacy and its right to the universal imperial title. The catalytic event was the coronation of Charlemagne as imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans") by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800, at St. Peter's in Rome. The matter was complicated by the fact that the Eastern Empire was then ruled by the Empress Irene (r. 797–802), who had ascended the throne after the death of her husband, the Emperor Leo IV (r. 775–780), as regent to their 9-year-old son, Constantine VI (r. 780–797). Following Constantine's coming of age, Irene eventually decided to topple him and rule in her own name. In the conflict that ensued, Irene was vict
caption: Early 15th-century miniature depicting Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos with his family: empress Helena Dragaš, and three of their sons, John, Andronikos and Theodore. The full imperial title uses both typically Byzantine and revived archaic Roman elements: ΜΑΝΟΥΗΛ ΕΝ ΧΩ ΤΩ ΘΩ ΠΙϹΤΟϹ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥϹ ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ Ο ΠΑΛΑΙΟΛΟΓΟϹ ΚΑΙ ΑΕΙ ΑΥΓΟΥϹΤΟϹ, "Manuel, by the grace of Christ the God, faithful Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans, the Palaiologos, forever August". Of his sons, John, the eldest and co-emperor, is also called basileus, while his brothers are titled despotes.
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