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''Sebastos'' ((ギリシア語:σεβαστός) "venerable one", pl. σεβαστοί ''sebastoi'') was an honorific used by the ancient Greeks to render the Roman imperial title of ''Augustus''. The female form of the title was ''sebastē'' (σεβαστή). From the late 11th century on, during the Komnenian period, it and variants derived from it, like ''sebastokrator'', formed the basis of a new system of court titles for the Byzantine Empire. ==History== The term was used in the Hellenistic East as an honorific for the Roman emperors from the 1st century onwards.〔.〕 For example, the Temple of the Sebastoi in Ephesus is dedicated to the Flavian dynasty. This association also was carried over to the naming of cities in honor of the Roman emperors, such as Sebaste, Sebasteia and Sebastopolis. Following the adoption of the term ''basileus'' as the main imperial title in the 7th century, the epithet fell out of use, but it was revived in the mid-11th century—in the feminine form ''sebaste''—by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (reigned 1042–1055) for his mistress Maria Skleraina.〔 Thereafter, the title began to be conferred upon members of the nobility favored by the Byzantine emperors, including Bagrat IV of Georgia, George II of Georgia, and the future emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118).〔〔.〕 When the latter assumed the Byzantine throne in 1081, he set about to reorganize the old system of court dignities, with ''sebastos'' as the basis for a new set of titles, which primarily signalled the closeness of their holders' familial relationship to the emperor.〔.〕 This use of the imperial epithet of ''sebastos'' set the imperial family apart, at the top of the imperial hierarchy, and made them, in the words of historian Paul Magdalino, "partners in, rather than executives of, imperial authority."〔.〕 In this context, the scholar L. Stiernon calculated that over 90 percent of the ''sebastoi'' belonged to the ruling Komnenos family.〔.〕 In 12th-century Byzantium, the ''sebastoi'' were divided in two groups: the simple ''sebastoi'' and the ''sebastoi gambroi''.〔 The latter were members of various aristocratic families tied to the emperor via marriage to his female relatives (''gambros'' means "son-in-law" in Greek). The ''gambroi'' thus formed the upper layer of the ''sebastoi'' class.〔.〕 The title was also conferred to foreign rulers, and spread to neighboring, Byzantine-influenced states, like Bulgaria, where a ''sebastos'' was the head of an administrative district, and Serbia, where the title was employed for various officials.〔 In Byzantium itself, the title lost its pre-eminence in the late 12th century, and in the following centuries the ''sebastos'' was a title reserved for commanders of ethnic units.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sebastos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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