Basil Boioannes

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Basil III, called Boioannes (Βασίλειος Βοϊωάννης) in Greek and Bugiano in Italian, was the Byzantine catepan of Italy (1018-1028) and one of the greatest Byzantine generals of his time. He reestablished Byzantium as a major force in southern Italy after centuries of decline, yet the Norman adventurers introduced into the power structure of the Mezzogiorno would be the eventual beneficiaries.

Upon his appointment by the Emperor Basil II in December 1017, he immediately requested reinforcements from Constantinople to fight the resurgent insurgency of the Lombard general Melus of Bari and his Norman soldiery. The request was granted: a detachment of the elite Varangian Guard was sent. The two forces met on the river Ofanto near Cannae, where the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal defeated the consuls Varro and Paullus in 216 BC. Twelve hundred years later, the (Eastern) Romans were as decisive in victory at the second Battle of Cannae as they had long ago been in defeat at the first.

Boioannes did not revel in his triumph; he quickly set out building a great fortress at the Apennine pass guarding the entrance to the Apulian plain. Troia, named after the ancient city of Asia Minor, was garrisoned by Boioannes' own contingent of Norman troops in 1019. Soon, all the Mezzogiorno had submitted to Byzantine authority, with the exception of the Duchy of Benevento, still faithful to the Papacy.

The pope, Benedict VIII, frightened by the shift in momentum in the south, went north in 1020 to Bamberg to confer with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry II, a great friend of the church. At first no action was taken on the part of the emperor, but events of the next year would change his mind. Boioannes and his new ally Prince Pandulf IV of Capua marched on Melus' brother-in-law Dattus in his tower on the Garigliano. The tower was taken and, on 15 June, Dattus was tied up in a sack with a monkey, a rooster, and a snake and tossed into the sea. The next year, in response, a huge imperial army marched south in three divisions and joined together to attack the new fortress of Troia. The garrison held out and never fell. Boioannes granted the town privileges for its loyalty.

In 1025, Boioannes was preparing to lead a Sicilian expedition with Basil II when the great emperor died. Constantine VIII, his co-ruler and successor, cancelled the expedition, and the catepan went north to aid Pandulf in retaking Capua, of which Henry II had deprived him three years earlier. It was Boioannes who offered the new prince of Capua, Pandulf of Teano, safe passage to Naples and accepted his surrender in May 1026. This was to be his last major campaign. In 1027, he was recalled. His replacements hardly lived up to the standard of military effectiveness he set. During the next century, Byzantine influence in Italy steadily declined to nil.

In 1041, Boioannes' son Exaugustus was named as catapan, but he did not last a year in that post.