Joseph Bringas

Joseph Bringas was an important Byzantine eunuch official in the reigns of Emperor Constantine VII (r. 945–959) and Emperor Romanos II (r. 959–963), serving as chief minister and effective regent during the latter. Having unsuccessfully opposed the rise of Nikephoros Phokas to the imperial throne in 963, he was exiled to a monastery, where he died in 965.

Biography Gold solidus of Emperor Constantine VII (r. 945–959) with his son and heir, Romanos II.

Historian Leo the Deacon reported that Bringas hailed from Paphlagonia. He gradually rose in imperial service to the rank of patrikios and the court post of praipositos. Emperor Constantine VII appointed him first as sakellarios and then as Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet, the position he held at the time of the emperor's death.

When Emperor Constantine VII's son, Romanos, assumed the Byzantine throne, he appointed Bringas as his parakoimomenos (chamberlain). The young emperor preferred to spend his time hunting, and largely left affairs of state to him. In this capacity, Bringas foiled a plot against Romanos led by a group of nobles around the magistros Basil Peteinos. The plotters were arrested, tortured, and exiled, although most of them, with the exception of Peteinos, were soon recalled.

When Emperor Romanos II died suddenly on 15 March 963, leaving behind only his young sons Basil II and Constantine VIII (five and two or three years old respectively), he left Bringas as the de facto head of state, although by tradition, the Empress-dowager Theophano was the nominal regent. Theophano did not trust Bringas, however, and the powerful parakoimomenos had other enemies: his predecessor and rival, Basil Lekapenos, and the successful and widely popular general Nikephoros Phokas, who had just returned from his conquest of the Emirate of Crete and a highly successful raid into Cilicia and Syria, which led to the sack of the Hamdanid capital, Aleppo.

The street clashes lasted for three days, and in the end, Phokas's supporters prevailed. Bringas was forced to flee to Hagia Sophia seeking sanctuary, while Basil Lekapenos assumed the post of parakoimomenos and welcomed Nikephoros Phokas into the capital, where he was crowned on August 16. Bringas was banished first to his native Paphlagonia, and then to the monastery of Asekretis at Pythia near Nicomedia, where he died in 965.