Photios I, also spelled Photius, was the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886. He is recognized in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Saint Photios the Great.
Basil I, nicknamed "the Macedonian", was Byzantine emperor from 867 to 886. Born to a peasant family in Macedonia, he rose to prominence in the imperial court after gaining the favour of Emperor Michael III, whose mistress he married on his emperor's orders. In 866, Michael proclaimed him co-emperor. Fearing a loss of influence, Basil orchestrated Michael's assassination the next year and installed himself as sole ruler of the empire. He was the first ruler of the Macedonian dynasty.
Philippicus was Byzantine emperor from 711 to 713. He took power in a coup against the unpopular emperor Justinian II, and was deposed in a similarly violent manner nineteen months later. During his brief reign, Philippicus supported monothelitism in Byzantine theological disputes, and saw conflict with the First Bulgarian Empire and the Umayyad Caliphate.
Michael III, also known as Michael the Drunkard, was Byzantine emperor from 842 to 867. Michael III was the third and traditionally last member of the Amorian dynasty. He was given the disparaging epithet the Drunkard by the hostile historians of the succeeding Macedonian dynasty, but modern historical research has rehabilitated his reputation to some extent, demonstrating the vital role his reign played in the resurgence of Byzantine power in the 9th century. He was also the youngest person to bear the imperial title, as well as the youngest to succeed as senior emperor.
John I Tzimiskes was the senior Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general who married into the influential Skleros family, he strengthened and expanded the Byzantine Empire to include Thrace and Syria by warring with the Rus' under Sviatoslav I and the Fatimids respectively.
An exarch was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical.
Constantine IX Monomachos reigned as Byzantine emperor from June 1042 to January 1055. Empress Zoë Porphyrogenita chose him as a husband and co-emperor in 1042, although he had been exiled for conspiring against her previous husband, Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian. The couple shared the throne with Zoë's sister Theodora Porphyrogenita. Zoë died in 1050, and Constantine continued his collaboration with Theodora until his own death five years later.
Abas was king of Bagratid Armenia from 928 to 953. He was a member of the Bagratid (Bagratuni) royal dynasty. He was the son of Smbat I and the brother of Ashot II the Iron, whom he succeeded. In contrast to the reign of his predecessors, Abas's reign was mostly peaceful, and he occupied himself with the reconstruction of the war-torn kingdom and the development of his capital at Kars.
Gagik II was the last Armenian king of the Bagratuni dynasty, ruling in Ani from 1042 to 1045.
Nerses IV the Gracious was Catholicos of Armenia from 1166 to 1173.
Byzantine Armenia, sometimes known as Western Armenia, is the name given to the parts of Kingdom of Armenia that became part of the Byzantine Empire. The size of the territory varied over time, depending on the degree of control the Byzantines had over Armenia.
The Byzantine Empire experienced cycles of growth and decay over the course of nearly a thousand years, including major losses during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th century. But the Empire's final decline started in the 11th century, and ended 400 years later in the Byzantine Empire's destruction in the 15th century.
Ani is a ruined medieval Armenian city now situated in Turkey's province of Kars, next to the closed border with Armenia.
The theme of Iberia was an administrative and military unit (theme) within the Byzantine Empire carved by the Byzantine Emperors out of several Georgian lands in the 11th century. It was formed as a result of Emperor Basil II’s annexation of a portion of the Bagrationi dynasty domains (1000–1021) and later aggrandized at the expense of several Armenian kingdoms acquired by the Byzantines in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 11th century. The population of the theme—at its largest extent—was multiethnic with a possible Georgian majority, including a sizable Armenian community of Chalcedonic rite to which Byzantines sometimes expanded, as a denominational name, the ethnonym "Iberian", a Graeco-Roman designation of Georgians. The theme ceased to exist in 1074 as a result of the Seljuk invasions.
Toros Toramanian was a prominent Armenian architect and architectural historian. He is considered "the father of Armenian architectural historiography." Christina Maranci credited him with "establishing the practical foundation for the study of Armenian architecture with his "extensive field work, measurements, plans, and photographs."
Bagratid Armenia was an independent Armenian state established by Ashot I of the Bagratuni dynasty in the early 880s following nearly two centuries of foreign domination of Greater Armenia under Arab Umayyad and Abbasid rule. With each of the two contemporary powers in the region—the Abbasids and Byzantines—too preoccupied to concentrate their forces on subjugating the region, and with the dissipation of several of the Armenian nakharar noble families, Ashot succeeded in asserting himself as the leading figure of a movement to dislodge the Arabs from Armenia.
Hovhannes-Smbat III was King of Ani (1020–1040). He succeeded his father Gagik I of Ani (989–1020) being the king's elder son and legal heir to the throne.
The Kingdom of Vaspurakan was a medieval Armenian kingdom centered on Lake Van, located in what is now eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. It was named after Vaspurakan, a province of historic Greater Armenia. Ruled by the Artsruni dynasty, it competed and cooperated with the Bagratuni-ruled Kingdom of Armenia for a little over a century until its last king ceded the kingdom to the Byzantine Empire in 1021.
Senekerim-Hovhannes Artsruni, also known variously as Senekerim-John, Sennecherim or Sennacherib-John, known in Byzantine sources simply as Senachereim, was the sixth and last King of Vaspurakan, from the Artsruni dynasty. In 1021/22, he surrendered his kingdom to the Byzantine emperor Basil II, receiving in return extensive lands in the Empire, and the governorship of Cappadocia.
In 1064, the Seljuk Sultan, Alp Arslan, besieged the fortified city of Ani. After a siege of 25 days, the Seljuks captured the city.
