The Tzamplakones were an important and wealthy aristocratic family attested since the mid-13th century, when one of its members achieved the high military rank of Domestic of the Schools.
[1][2] His brothers, Demetrios and Arsenios, also achieved high offices during the same period.
[3] Asomatianos is first attested in 1348, as megas doux (commander-in-chief of the Byzantine navy).
He was placed in charge of the Byzantine effort to construct a new fleet to use against the Genoese colony of Galata in the Byzantine–Genoese War of 1348–1349.
His fleet's inexperience and incompetence led to its destruction or capture by the Genoese.