katepano
Sign in to savethumb|right|300px|Map of the administrative structure of the Byzantine Empire in 1025. The regional eastern commands, variously under doukes or katepano, are outlined. Southern Italy was under the authority of the katepano of Italy, while Bulgaria, Serbia and Paristrion were often under the authority of a single katepano. The katepánō (, ) was a senior Byzantine military rank and office. The word was Latinized as capetanus/catepan, and its meaning seems to have merged with that of the Italian "capitaneus" (which derives from the Latin word "caput", meaning head). This hybridized term gave rise
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- References
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thumb|right|300px|Map of the administrative structure of the Byzantine Empire in 1025. The regional eastern commands, variously under doukes or katepano, are outlined. Southern Italy was under the authority of the katepano of Italy, while Bulgaria, Serbia and Paristrion were often under the authority of a single katepano. The katepánō (, ) was a senior Byzantine military rank and office. The word was Latinized as capetanus/catepan, and its meaning seems to have merged with that of the Italian "capitaneus" (which derives from the Latin word "caput", meaning head). This hybridized term gave rise to the English language term captain and its equivalents in other languages (Capitan, Kapitan, Kapitän, Capitán, Capitano, Kapudan Pasha, etc.)
==History== The katepáno first appears in the 9th century, when it was used in the generic sense of "the one in charge" by two officials: the head of the basilikoi anthrōpoi ("imperial men"), a class of low-level court functionaries, and the head of the Mardaites marine detachments of the Byzantine naval theme of the Cibyrrhaeots in southern Asia Minor. On the eve of the great eastern conquests of the 960s, however, the title acquired a more specific meaning.