Definition of "basileus"

For two centuries its towers and domes were to rise in the heavens, drawing the attention of Emperors and Basilei, of Popes and Patriarchs.

1978, Славяни, volume 34, page 3

Although portrayals of basileis of the eleventh century wearing the loros in the traditional manner are not lacking, I cannot cite a Byzantine example of metropolitan origin later than 1100.

1990, Ernst Kitzinger, The Mosaics of St. Mary’s of the Admiral in Palermo, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, page 192

The revitalization of the Byzantine Empire during the reigns of the energetic and capable basilei of the Comnens dynasty: Alexios I (1081-1118), John II (1118-1143) and Manuel (1143-1180), and the wars with a Rum Sultanate troubled by dynastic fights drastically diminished its possessions in Anatolia.

2003, Victor Spinei, The Great Migrations in the East and South East of Europe from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century, Romanian Cultural Institute, page 193

It is quite easy to establish the identity of these “Roman princes” who reoccupied Pannonia after Attila’s death: they were the basilei from Constantinople who, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, claimed to be the only successors of the Caesars (around the turn of the 9th century they began to call themselves “basilei of the Romans”—“basileis ton Romanon” or “Romaion”).

2007, Transylvanian Review, volume 16, Romanian Cultural Foundation, page 16

In our third example, the tyrant Nabis usurped power from the traditional, dual basileis of Sparta, then had them executed.

2017, Michael Martin, City of the Sun: Development and Popular Resistance in the Pre-Modern West, New York, N.Y.: Algora Publishing, page 64

The basileis of the Iron Age were now replaced with various appointed and elected magistrates.

2020, David B. Small, “Institutional Evolution of Ancient Greece”, in Dmitri M[ikhailovich] Bondarenko, Stephen A. Kowalewski, David B. Small, editors, The Evolution of Social Institutions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures), Springer Nature, page 274

It would probably be worth seeking a possible connection-and-overlay between the name of one of the Byzantine basilei of the 9th century and the godfather of Boris I, Michael III, and that of the Bulgarian ruler Boris-Michael himself, who also lived in that age.

2020, Tsvetelin Stepanov, translated by Daria Manova, Waiting for the End of the World: European Dimensions, 950–1200 (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450; 57), Leiden: Brill, page 251

“Peter and Maria basilei of Bugaria,” “Peter and Maria in Christ autocrats of the Bulgarians,” and “Peter and Maria in Christ august autocrats and basilei.”

2023, Christian Raffensperger, Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200, Abingdon, Oxon, New York, N.Y.: Routledge