Polybotus

Polybotus or Polybotos (Greek: Πολύβοτος) was a city in the Roman province of Phrygia Salutaris. Its site is located 3 miles (4.8 km) southwest of Bolvadin in Asiatic Turkey.[1][2]

History

This town is mentioned in the 6th century by Hierocles in his Synecdemus.[3]

A map of Byzantine Anatolia with Polybotus located in the Anatolic Theme

Due to the wide-ranging grasslands, the area was used as a mustering place (e.g. possibly by emperor Romanos IV Diogenes)[4] and one of the metata (imperial stock-raising farm) was situated nearby between Polybotus, Dokimion and Synnada, though it was moved to Europe after the invasion of the Turkmen in the eleventh century.[5] The city was sacked in 838 by retreating Arab troops under caliph Al-Mu'tasim according to the vita of John of Polybotus.[6]

The Turks first occupied Polybotus some time after the battle of Manzikert, but it was reconquered in the aftermath of the First Crusade by emperor Alexios I Komnenos and his general John Doukas as is recounted in the Alexiad.[7] The town became part of a contested area between the Byzantine Empire and the Sultanate of Rum, with neither being able to exert durable control in the early twelfth century until it finally was lost to the Seljuks later that century.[8]

Ecclesiastical history

The earliest Greek Notitia Episcopatuum of the 7th century places the see among the suffragans of Synnada. After Amorium became a metropolitan see in the 9th century, Polybotus became a suffragan of Amorium until its disappearance as a residential see.[9]

Le Quien mentions two bishops:[10]

• Strategius, present at the Council of Chalcedon (451);
• St. John the Thaumaturgus, whose feast is celebrated on 5 December and who lived under Leo the Isaurian.

At the Second Council of Nicaea (787), the see was represented by the priest Gregory.

The bishopric is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees.[11]

References

1. Richard Talbert, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 62, and directory notes accompanying. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9.
2. Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
3. Hierocles. Synecdemus. Vol. 677, 10.
4. Trobley, Frank R.; Tougher, Shaun (March 2019). "The Emperor at War - Duties and Ideals". The Emperor in the Byzantine World Papers from the Forty-Seventh Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. Taylor & Francis. doi:10.4324/9780429060984-10. ISBN 9780429590467. S2CID 166381063. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
5. John Haldon (2010). Stephenson, Paul (ed.). "The army and military logistics". The Byzantine World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781136727863. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
6. Signes Codoñer, Juan (March 2016). The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829–842 Court and Frontier in Byzantium During the Last Phase of Iconoclasm. Taylor & Francis. p. 299. ISBN 9781317034261. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
7. Mullett, Margaret (June 2023). Letters, Literacy and Literature in Byzantium. Taylor & Francis. p. 244. ISBN 9781000941647.
8. Daniel Beihammer (14 November 2022). Nilsson, Ingela; Veikou, Myrto (eds.). "Spatial Concept and Administrative Structures in the Byzantine-Turkish Frontier of the Twelfth-Century Asia Minor". Spatialities of Byzantine Culture from the Human Body to the Universe. Brill: 413. ISBN 9789004523005. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
9. See the "Basilii Notitia" in Heinrich Gelzer (1890). Georgii Cyprii descriptio orbis romani. Leipzig. p. 26.
10. Michel Lequien (1740). Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus. Parigi 1740, Tomus I, coll. 841-844.
11. Annuario Pontificio 2013. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. 2013. p. 954. ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Polybotus". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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