Melias

[3] Melias first appears in historical sources as a vassal of Ashot the Long-armed, an Armenian prince (possibly a Bagratid from Taron) who entered Byzantine imperial service in circa 890.

After participating in the failed aristocratic rebellion of Andronikos Doukas against Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912) in 905, however, Melias and many other Armenian nobles were forced to flee to the Arab border emirate of Melitene to escape retribution.

[3][4][7] In 907 or 908, however, through the intervention of the strategos Eustathios Argyros, the Armenian refugees were pardoned by Emperor Leo and granted the border provinces as quasi-fiefs: the three brothers Vasak, Grigorik and Pazunes settled in the fortress of Larissa, which formed a border tourma of the theme of Sebasteia and now became a kleisoura (a fortified frontier district), Ismael (possibly an Arab-Armenian) took over the deserted area of Symposion, and Melias was appointed "tourmarches of Euphrateia, the Passes (Trypia, from Arabic al-Durub) and the wasteland", covering the mountainous frontier zone around the Pass of Hadath.

[3][8] Of these petty border-lords, Melias alone would hold his position for long: Ismael died in a Melitenian offensive in 909, while Vasak was accused of treason in 913, possibly due to his association with the failed usurpation of Constantine Doukas, and banished.

[4][7][13] In recognition for his success against Marash, in 916 the kleisoura of Lykandos was raised to the status of a full theme, with Melias as its strategos with the rank of patrikios and later magistros.

[21] He is last known to have participated in the opening stages of the campaign that led to the final capture of Melitene on 19 May 934, but neither Arab nor Byzantine sources mention him during or after this event, making it probable that he died at about this time.