Flavius Strategius Apion Strategius Apion (died between 577 and 579) was a patrician of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and the consul ordinarius

Roman consul

A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

of 539. He was a member of the wealthy and prominent Apion family of Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...

, Egypt.

He was son to a senior Strategius. He had a son also known as Strategius, named in one of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Oxyrhynchus Papyri

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a very numerous group of manuscripts discovered by archaeologists including Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt . The manuscripts date from the 1st to the 6th century AD. They include thousands of Greek and...

. This son and his wife Eusebia maintained friendly relations with Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...

, mentioned in his extant correspondence. The youngest Strategius was not the only heir of Apion mentioned in the latter's will. He shared his inheritance with Praejecta, another Apion and Georgius. An interpretation of the text suggests Praejecta was the widow of Apion, while Strategius, Apion and Georgius were their three sons.

Strategius Apion is mentioned variously as consul, vir illustris

Vir illustris

The title vir illustris is used as a formal indication of standing in late antiquity to describe the highest ranks within the senates of Rome and Constantinople...

, and comes domesticorum during the 530s. Texts from c. 547-548 mention him as a patrician. Texts from c. 548/549 to 550/551 mention him as dux

Dux

Dux is Latin for leader and later for Duke and its variant forms ....

of the Thebaid

Thebaid

The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. It acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes....

. This position typically came with the honorific title of patrician. He is called patrician in a text dated to 556, indicating he had already received the title. He was mentioned at the time as stratelates

Stratelates

Stratēlatēs was a Greek term designating a general, which also became a honorary dignity in the Byzantine Empire. In the former sense, it was often applied to military saints, such as Theodore Stratelates....

and pagarch

Nome (Egypt)

A nome was a subnational administrative division of ancient Egypt. Today's use of the Greek nome rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period. Fascinated with Egypt, Greeks created many historical records about the country...

 of Arsinoe

Crocodilopolis

Crocodilopolis or Krokodilopolis or Ptolemais Euergetis or Arsinoe or Krialon was an ancient city in the Heptanomis, Egypt, the capital of Arsinoites nome, on the western bank of the Nile, between the river and the Lake Moeris, southwest of Memphis, in lat. 29° N...

. This placed him in charge of the pagarchy local to Oxyrhynchus and its vicinity.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri preserve information as to the extend of the familial estates and the business affairs relating to them. John Malalas

John Malalas

John Malalas or Ioannes Malalas was a Greek chronicler from Antioch. Malalas is probably a Syriac word for "rhetor", "orator"; it is first applied to him by John of Damascus .-Life:Malalas was educated in Antioch, and probably was a jurist there, but moved to...

 also mentions a residence of Apion in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 for an incident in May 562, when certain persons of the House of Apion hurled verbal insults at the Green faction of the Hippodrome

Hippodrome of Constantinople

The Hippodrome of Constantinople was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with only a few fragments of the original structure surviving...

. Apion is presumed active in the Byzantine Senate

Byzantine Senate

The Byzantine Senate or Eastern Roman Senate was the continuation of the Roman Senate, established in the 4th century by Constantine I. It survived for centuries but was increasingly irrelevant until its eventual disappearance in the 13th century....

 when present at the capital. He is last mentioned alive in 577, mentioned as already deceased by 579.

Sources