Basil Boioannes

Upon his appointment by Emperor Basil II in December 1017, he immediately requested reinforcements from Constantinople to fight the insurgency of the Lombard general Melus of Bari and his Norman soldiery.

Boioannes protected his gains by immediately building a great fortress at the Apennine pass guarding the entrance to the Apulian plain.

Frightened by the shift in momentum in the south, Pope Benedict VIII went north in 1020 to Bamberg to confer with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry II.

Boioannes and his new ally Prince Pandulf IV of Capua marched on Melus' brother-in-law Dattus and captured his tower on the Garigliano.

Constantine VIII, his co-ruler and successor, cancelled the expedition, and the catapan went north to aid Pandulf in retaking Capua, which Henry II had captured three years earlier.