Agatha, wife of Samuel of Bulgaria

Agatha
Empress-consort of Bulgaria
Spouse Samuel of Bulgaria
Issue Miroslava
Gavril Radomir
two unnamed daughters
Born Larissa, Byzantine Empire

Agatha (Bulgarian: Агата, Greek: Άγάθη) was a Bulgarian empress-consort as the wife of Emperor Samuel.

Biography

According to an addition to the history of the Byzantine historian John Skylitzes, Agatha was a captive from Larissa, and the daughter of the magnate of Dyrrhachium, John Chryselios. She is explicitly mentioned as the mother of Samuel's heir Gavril Radomir, which means that she was probably Samuel's wife.[1] On the other hand, Skylitzes later mentions that Gavril Radomir himself also took a beautiful captive, named Irene, from Larissa as his wife, which, according to the editors of the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, may indicate a confusion by a later copyist, and Agatha was indeed from Dyrrhachium.[1] According to the same work, it is likely that she died by ca. 998, when her father surrendered Dyrrhachium to the Byzantine Empire.[1]

Only two of Samuel's and Agatha's children are definitely known by name: Gavril Radomir and Miroslava. Two further, unnamed daughters, are mentioned in 1018, while Samuel is also recorded as having had a bastard son.[2]

Agatha is one of the central characters in Dimitar Talev's novel Samuil.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 PmbZ, Agathe (#20171).
  2. ↑ PmbZ, Samuel Kometopulos (#26983).

Sources