Hypatus

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Hypatus or ypatus (pl. hypati or ypati) was the Latin form of the Greek hypatos (pl. hypatoi), which is often translated consul, though it survives in Italian as ipato. The title refers to the rulers of the Tyrrhenian coastal city-states of Italy, which recognised Byzantine authority in the ninth through eleventh centuries. Eventually, with the waning of Byzantine power in the region, these rulers took on more familiar Latin titles like consul and dux, modern duke. The most famous hypati were those of Gaeta. John I of Gaeta won the title patricius, in its late imperial signification of "military strongman", from the Emperor, as a reward for defeating the Saracens. The feminine form of the term was ypatissa, though this too was replaced by ducissa during the reign of Docibilis II of Gaeta and his wife Orania, in the first half of the tenth century.