Page "Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy" Paragraph 16

* Sebastos ( σεβαστός ) – " August One " this title is the literal Greek translation of the Latin term Augustus or Augoustos, was sometimes used by the emperors.

As a separate title it appeared in the latter half of the 11th century, and was extensively awarded by Alexios I Komnenos to his brothers and relations.

The female version of the title was sebastē.

The special title prōtosebastos (" First Venerable One ") was created for Hadrianos, Alexios ' second brother, and awarded also to the Doge of Venice and the Sultan of Iconium.

During the 12th century.

it remained in use for the Emperor's and the sebastokratōrs children, and senior foreign dignitaries.

However, the parallel processes of proliferation and devaluation of titles during the 12th century resulted in the creation of a bewildering array of often ridiculously large variations, by using the prefixes pan (" all "), hyper (" above "), prōto (" first "): examples include pansebastos, panhypersebastos, or hyperprōtopansebastohypertatos.

Few of them actually survived past the 12th century, and all of them rapidly declined in importance.