KOMETOPOULOI ("Komntopouloi")

The sons of the 'comes' Nicholas and his wife Ripsime -David, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel of Bulgaria.

Asolik plainly says that the Kometopouloi ("Komsajagk") were Armenians from the district of Derjan.

They headed a revolt in Bulgaria against Byzantine power. Where and when this revolt began are the subject of discussion.

• An 11^th century historian (Skyl.255.73-80) says that the sons of Peter of Bulgaria, Boris II and Romanos, left Constantinople ca.970 in order to oppose the revolt of the Kometopouloi.
• John Geometres in a poem titled 'On the Kometopouloi', playing on the word for comet and the name Kometopouloi, connects the revolt with the appearance of a comet (perhaps in 968) and the death of Nikephoros II Phokas in 969. (A.Leroy-Molinghen, Byzantion 42 [1972-73] 410f).
• Nevertheless W.Seibt thinks it impossible that the revolt started in 969; he refers to another passage in Skylitzes (Skyl.328f) in which the revolt of the Kometopouloi is set at the time of death of John I Tzimiskes in 976.
• Also disputed is whether the revolt encompassed only Macedonia or took place in northeastern Bulgaria, eventually to be united with a movement in western Bulgaria. P.Petrov (BBulg 1 [1962] 137-42) hypothesized that the account by the 15yh century Polish historian Dlugosz about the revolt of Peter and Bojan in Bulgaria in 976 is to be connected with the activity of the Kometopouloi.

David and Moses died soon after 976, and Aaron, probably, on 14 June 987 or 988. Samuel remained alone at the helm of the Bulgarian state.

A.Kazhdan,

Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991), vol.2