William J. Churchill, The Annales Barenses and the Annales Lupi Protospatharii: Critical Edition and Commentary, PhD dissertation (University of Toronto, 1979), pp. 132 & 237–238, suggests that Lupus Protospatharius is referring to a merarch under the year 998, where his annal reads marcho, marchus or nearco (depending on the manuscript). The usual term for the catapan's lieutenant was topoteretes.
