Mezezius

Who was Mezezius?

Mezezius was an Armenian noble who served as a general of Byzantium, later usurping the Byzantine throne in Sicily from 668 to 669.

According to a letter from Pope Gregory II to Emperor Leo III, he was Count of the Opsikion, the Imperial retinue, and a later Syriac chronicle describes him as a patrikios. After the murder of Constans II at the baths of Daphne in 668, he was proclaimed Emperor by the army thereafter and reigned in Sicily for a few months; however, when the news of the assassination of Constans reached his son Constantine IV in Constantinople, an expedition was sent to depose and kill him. His court was deported to Constantinople.