HYPATUS

'Hypatus' or 'ypatus' (pl. ''hypati'' or ''ypati'') was the Latin form of the Greek ''hypatos'' (pl. ''hypatoi''), which is often translated ''consul'', though it survives in Italian as ''ipato''. The title refers to the rulers of the Tyrrhenian coastal city-states of Italy, which recognised Byzantine authority in the ninth through eleventh centuries. Eventually, with the waning of Byzantine power in the region, these rulers took on more familiar Latin titles like ''consul'' and ''dux'', modern duke. The most famous ''hypati'' were those of Gaeta. John I of Gaeta won the title ''patricius'', in its late imperial signification of "military strongman", from the Emperor, as a reward for defeating the Saracens. The feminine form of the term was ''ypatissa'', though this too was replaced by ''ducissa'' during the reign of Docibilis II of Gaeta and his wife Orania, in the first half of the tenth century.