antiquity, an appellation given, by the emperors of the east, to certain officers sent into Italy, in quality of vicars, or rather prefects, to defend that part of Italy which was yet under their obedience, particularly the city of Ravenna, against the Lombards, who had made themselves masters of the greatest part of the reft.

The residence of the exarch was at Ravenna; which city, with that of Rome, was all that was left the emperors. The first exarch was the patrician Boetius, famous for his treatise, De Consolatione Philosophiae; appointed in 568 by the younger Justin. The exarchs subsisted about 185 years, and ended in Eutychius: under whose exarchate the city of Ravenna was taken by the Lombard king Astulphus, or Alolophus.

The emperor Frederic created Heraclius, archbishop of Lyons, a descendant of the illustrious house of Montboissier, exarch of the whole kingdom of Burgundy; a dignity till that time unknown anywhere but in Italy, particularly in the city of Ravenna.

Homer, Philo, and other ancient authors, give likewise the name exarchus to the choragus or master of the fingers, in the ancient choruses, or him who sung first; the word αρχων or αρχηται, signifying equally to begin, and to command.

Exarch of a Diocese was, anciently, the same with primate. This dignity was inferior to the patriarchal, yet greater than the metropolitan.