Dattus was a Lombard

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 leader from Bari

Bari

Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...

, the brother-in-law of Melus of Bari

Melus of Bari

Melus was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early 11th century inadvertently sparked the Norman presence in southern Italy.Melus and his brother-in-law Dattus rebelled in 1009...

. He joined his brother-in-law in a 1009 revolt against Byzantine authority

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 in southern Italy.

In 1010, the rebels took Ascoli

Ascoli

-Places of Italy:*Ascoli Piceno, a city and provincial seat in Marche*Ascoli Satriano, a town in the Province of Foggia*Porto d'Ascoli, a civil parish of San Benedetto del Tronto, in the province of Ascoli Piceno*Province of Ascoli Piceno, a province of the Marche...

 and Troina

Troina

Troina is a town and comune in the province of Enna, Sicily, Italy. It is located in the Nebrodi Park.-History:...

. In March 1011, the catepan

Catapanate of Italy

The Catepanate of Italy was a province of the Byzantine Empire, comprising mainland Italy south of a line drawn from Monte Gargano to the Gulf of Salerno. Amalfi and Naples, although north of that line, maintained allegiance to Constantinople through the catepan...

Basil Mesardonites

Basil Mesardonites

Basil Mesardonites was the Catapan of Italy, representing the Byzantine Emperor there, from 1010 to 1016 or 1017. He succeeded the catapan Curcuas, who died fighting the Lombards, then in rebellion under Melus, early in 1010. In March, Basil disembarked with reinforcements from Constantinople and...

 and Leo Tornikios Kontoleon, the strategos

Strategos

Strategos, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean "general". In the Hellenistic and Byzantine Empires the term was also used to describe a military governor...

of Cephalonia, disembarked with reinforcements from Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. Basil immediately besieged the rebels in Bari. The Greek citizens of the city negotiated with Basil and forced the Lombard leaders, Melus and Dattus, to flee. Basil entered the city on 11 June 1011 and reestablished Byzantine authority. He did not follow his victory up with any severe reactions. He simply sent the family of Melus, including his son Argyrus, to Constantinople.

While Melus fled to Guaimar III of Salerno

Guaimar III of Salerno

Guaimar III was duke of Salerno from around 994 to his death. His date of death is sometimes given as 1030 or 1031, but the most reliable sources consistently indicate 1027. Under his reign, Salerno entered an era of great splendour...

, Dattus looked to the protection of the Abbey of Montecassino, where he was aided by the Latin monks, and to Pope Benedict VIII

Pope Benedict VIII

Pope Benedict VIII , born Theophylactus, Pope from 1012 to 1024, of the noble family of the counts of Tusculum , descended from Theophylact, Count of Tusculum like his predecessor Pope Benedict VI .Benedict VIII was opposed by an antipope, Gregory...

, who loaned him papal troops to garrison a tower on the Garigliano, in the territory of the Duchy of Gaeta

Duchy of Gaeta

The Duchy of Gaeta was an early medieval state centred on the coastal South Italian city of Gaeta. It began in the early ninth century as the local community began to grow autonomous as Byzantine power lagged in the Mediterranean and the peninsula thanks to Lombard and Saracen incursions.Our...

, then ruled by the anti-Byzantine Emilia

Emilia of Gaeta

Emilia was the duchess of Gaeta first as consort of John III and then as the regent for her grandson John V until at least 1029....

.

In 1016, Dattus rejoined Melus and his Norman mercenaries in Apulia

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

. They were moderately successful at first, but they were defeated at Cannae (1018)

Battle of Cannae (1018)

The second Battle of Cannae took place in 1018 between the Byzantines under the Catepan of Italy Basil Boioannes and the Lombards under Melus of Bari. The Lombards had also hired some Norman mercenaries under their leader Gilbert Buatère...

 and Dattus fled back to Montecassino and thence to the old tower.

In 1020, while Melus was conferencing with pope and the German king in Bamberg

Bamberg

Bamberg is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. Bamberg is one of the few cities in Germany that was not destroyed by World War II bombings because of a nearby Artillery Factory that prevented planes from...

, the new catepan, Basil Boiannes, and his new ally, Pandulf IV of Capua

Pandulf IV of Capua

Pandulf IV was the Prince of Capua on three separate occasions.From February 1016 to 1022 he ruled in association with his cousin Pandulf II. In 1018, the Byzantine catapan Boiannes destroyed the Lombard army of Melus of Bari and his Norman allies at Cannae...

, marched on the tower and, on 15 June, Dattus was tied up in a sack with a monkey, a rooster, and a snake and tossed into the sea. The atrocity prompted a quick Western response, a huge army under the Emperor Henry II marched south to besiege the new fortress of Troia. Dattus was never avenged, except, perhaps, by the Normans in the coming years.

Sources

• Norwich, John Julius
  John Julius Norwich
  John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich CVO — known as John Julius Norwich — is an English historian, travel writer and television personality.-Early life:...
  
  . The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London
  London
  London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
  
  , 1967.
• Amatus of Montecassino
  Amatus of Montecassino
  Amatus of Montecassino , a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Montecassino is one of three Italo-Norman chroniclers, the others being William of Apulia and Goffredo Malaterra...
  
  . History of the Normans Book I. Translated by Prescott N. Dunbar. Boydell, 2004. ISBN 1-84383-078-7