A protospatharios (Ἰάκωβος πρωτοσπαθάριος), Iakobos 1 was one of a number of people who were arrested as image worshippers in 780 during Lent; they were beaten, tonsured and put on display in the Mese before being imprisoned; later all, except Theophanes 2 who died, proved excellent monks: Theoph. AM 6272. Iakobos 1 is named first of those listed; there follow three koubikoularioi and parakoimomenoi, Papias 1, Strategios 2 and Theophanes 2, and two koubikoularioi, Leo 9 and Thomas 3, and an allusion to other pious men (σὺν καὶ ἑτέροις εὐλαβέσιν ἀνδράσιν). The status of Iakobos 1 is obscure, but his association with so many koubikoularioi suggests that he was either a eunuch with the dignity of protospatharios or the man who held the post of protospatharios and commanded imperial bodyguards; cf. Haldon, Byzantine Praetorians, pp. 186-187, 189 and 296-297.

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