George Maniakes

George Maniakes was an eleventh-century Byzantine general renowned for campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean and southern Italy. He captured Edessa and later recovered much of eastern Sicily from Muslim rule, but quarrels among Byzantine commanders undermined the expedition. Recalled and threatened by court rivals, he rebelled against Emperor Constantine IX and was killed in battle in 1043.

Maniakes’s campaigns in Sicily brought Byzantine forces temporary victories over Muslim rulers, but quarrels with allies and officials repeatedly damaged his position. Recalled and later accused of disloyalty, he rebelled in 1042 and crossed into the Balkans with his troops. He was killed in battle while advancing toward Constantinople, ending one of the most dramatic military careers of the middle Byzantine period.

In Simon Turney’s Iron and Gold, Having escaped Constantinople without their ship, Halfdan and the Wolves serve as Byzantine mercenaries in the campaign of George Maniakes against the Normans.