10.Zaoutzas or Zaoutzes derives from the Armenian word zaoutch, black; it is almost certain that the basileiopator was very dark. He was born in Thrace of an Armenian family, and was probably related to Tzantes, a variant of Zaoutzes [?], the strategos of Macedonia who brought the Byzantine prisoners (including the parents of Basil I) out of Bulgaria (reign of Basil I, c. 2, note 16)