Lakapenos

thumb|right|Miliaresion from 931–944, showing [[Romanos I's bust on a cross on the obverse and listing the names of Romanos and his co-emperors, Constantine VII, Stephen Lekapenos and Constantine Lekapenos on the reverse]] Lekapenos () or Lakapenos (), usually Latinized as Lecapenus or Lacapenus, feminine form Lekapene () or Lakapene (), Latinized as Lecapene or Lacapene, was the name of a prominent, assumed, Byzantine-Armenian family of humble background which intermarried with and almost managed to usurp the throne from the Macedonian dynasty in the first half of the 10th century.

The family was founded by Theophylact, surnamed Abaktistos or Abastaktos (the Unbearable), who had rescued the Emperor Basil I from the enemy in battle at Tephrike in 872, saving his life, and had been rewarded by a place in the Imperial Guard and received estates as a reward. The family surname derives from the locality of Lakape; possibly these estates were located there. Theophylact's son Romanos became commander-in-chief of the Imperial Fleet and eventually senior emperor in 920 after marrying his daughter Helena to the legitimate emperor Constantine VII, grandson of Basil I. He raised three of his sons, Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine, as co-emperors alongside Constantine VII. Another son, Theophylact, was made Patriarch of Constantinople, and Christopher's daughter Maria-Irene was married to the Tsar Peter I of Bulgaria. Romanos was deposed by Stephen and Constantine in December 944, but they too were in turn soon deposed and Constantine VII was restored as sole emperor. Their descendants continued to occupy senior palace offices in the next decades, but the most notable member of the family was Romanos' illegitimate son Basil Lekapenos, who as the imperial parakoimomenos was the virtual ruler of the empire until the 980s.