Monomachos (Byzantine family)

'Lone Warrior'), feminine form Monomachina (Μονομαχίνα), was the name of a Byzantine aristocratic family active in the 10th–15th centuries and possibly even before that.

[1] It produced several officials and military commanders, as well as one emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055).

An iconoclast bishop of Nicomedia with the name is alluded to in the 9th-century hagiography of St. Joannicius, whereas a fervently anti-iconoclast official was Patrikios Niketas Monomachos during the early 9th century, who was later declared a saint.

[2] The family was said to have been ‘ancient’ but did not come to the fore until the 10th and 11th centuries: firstly with Pavlos Monomachos, a wealthy merchant noble who may have married a Doukaina,[3] followed by their son, Theodosios (born c. 970), an important bureaucrat under Basil II, and lastly, Constantine Monomachos who became emperor Constantine IX.

The sole exception was George Monomachos, doux of Dyrrhachium under Nikephoros III Botaneiates (r. 1078–1081), but dismissed by Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118).