Sebastos

From the Komnenian period onwards, the Byzantine hierarchy included the title sebastos and variants derived from it, like sebastokrator, protosebastos, panhypersebastos, and sebastohypertatos.

The epithet was revived in the mid-11th century – in the feminine form sebaste – by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055) for his mistress Maria Skleraina, to whom he accorded quasi-imperial honours.

[4][5] This process profoundly transformed the very nature of Byzantine aristocracy, with the imposition of an entire class of imperial relatives and associates superimposed on the "traditional" administrative system and the higher officialdom that constituted the Senate.

[2] By the time pseudo-Kodinos wrote his Book of Offices, shortly after the middle of the 14th century, the sebastos occupied one of the lowest rungs in the imperial hierarchy, coming 78th between the droungarios and the myrtaïtes.

[14] Earlier lists of offices, such as the appendix to the Hexabiblos, give slightly different ranks, placing him above the governor (prokathemenos) of a fortress and of the droungarios, and after the megas myrtaïtes.