The rhaiktor (Greek: ῥαίκτωρ, the hellenized form of Latin rector) was a high-ranking court position of the middle Byzantine Empire.
History and functions
J. B. Bury assumed that the post was created either under Leo VI the Wise (reigned 886–912) or his father Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–886), but Nicolas Oikonomides restored it in the text of the Taktikon Uspensky of ca. 843. The title is also found in seals of the 7th and 8th centuries, but with a different sense; thus a "rhaiktor of Calabria" was the administrator of the local estates of the See of Rome in Calabria.
The Kletorologion of 899 includes the rhaiktor among the "special dignities" (axiai eidikai). The exact functions of the office are not clear, but, as J. B. Bury wrote, they probably "consisted in exercising some authority over the Imperial household". Earlier authors suggested that the title was related, or even identical, to that of proedros, but the theory was rejected by Rodolphe Guilland. His ceremony of appointment is recorded in Constantine VII's De Ceremoniis. The reports of the ambassador to the Byzantine court Liutprand of Cremona show the rhaiktor as playing an important role in court ceremonies under Constantine VII.
The post could be held by court eunuchs as well as clerics, even priests, but was also often combined with other high offices, such as stratopedarches or logothetes tou genikou. In the lists of precedence to the imperial banquets of the 9th–10th centuries he occupied a very prominent place, coming right after the magistroi and before the synkellos and the patrikioi. The title disappears from the sources after the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055).
At the same time, the title also appears as a family name: the magistros and logothetes tou dromou Michael Rhektor was a member of the regency council appointed on the death of Romanos II in 963, while under Nikephoros III (r. 1078–1081) a monk called Rhektor pretended to by Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071–1078) and tried to overthrow the emperor.