Danielis

Danielis was a widowed Byzantine noblewoman from Patras. According to the written tradition she was an extremely wealthy landowner, owning a significant part of the Peloponnese, as well as a flourishing carpet and textile industry. However, Ilias Anagnostakis has argued that the narrative about Danielis is not merely exaggerated but largely fictional. Her relationship with Basil I was modeled on that between King Solomon and the queen of Sheba on the one hand and Alexander the Great’s visit to Kandake on the other. The invention was meant, along with the other miraculous tales told about Basil in that text, to base his legitimacy and heroic stature in the realm of romantic fable and Scriptural parallel.