Alexius II Comnenus (24

September 1180- before 24

September 1183)
Andrew Stone
University of Western Australia
Introduction
The reign of Alexius II Comnenus (24
September 1180- before 24 September
1183) marks the beginning of a rapid
decline in Byzantine affairs, following
the restoration effected by the first three
emperors of the Comnenian dynasty.
Throughout, the spectre of the boy
emperor's second cousin Andronicus
loomed, whether it be as a rallying-point
to the opponents of the regency of the first
years of Alexius' reign, be it as regent in

succession to the legitimate regency of

Maria of Antioch (Maria-Xene)
(appointed by Alexius' father Manuel),
or as co-emperor. The boy-emperor took
no part in government due to his tender
age (he was but eleven on his succession,
and had not been given any training by his
father, as the panegyrists of the time
happily admit), and was but a puppet,
dominated at first by the regency of his
mother Maria of Antioch (Maria-Xene)
in collusion with her lover the
protosebatos Alexius, and then by
Andronicus; he was even coerced by the
latter into signing his mother's deathwarrant. The tragedy of Alexius' reign is
testament to the fact that the Comnenian
style of government required a strong and

capable autocrat to be effective.

Alexius as heir-apparent
Alexius was born on 14 September 1169
and crowned co-emperor in 1171. By
1174 this "sprout of purple" or "gleam of
purple" was being celebrated in
contemporary panegyrics for his alleged
precocity in wielding spears (for hunting)
like Achilles, and in the 1179 speech of
Eustathius of Thessalonica welcoming his
fiance, the nine-year-old Agnes of
France (daughter of King Louis VII)
[[1]], the rhetor praises him for his
physical beauty. The speeches reveal that
Manuel largely spared his son the rigours
of governmental responsibility[[2]],
despite his official status as co-emperor,

and those of campaigning, with the

possible exception of the 1175 campaign
in Phrygia, where the boy emperor may
have witnessed the rebuilding of the key
fortresses of Dorylaeum and Siblia[[3]].
Alexius' wedding to Agnes was
celebrated on the 2nd of March 1180, a
double bill with the wedding of his halfsister Maria to Renier of
Montferrat[[4]].
The regency of Maria of Antioch
(Maria-Xene) and the protosebastos
Alexius (1180-early 1182)
Manuel had, on his deathbed, appointed a
regency council of twelve, headed by his
wife Maria of Antioch (Maria-Xene),
with the assistance of Theodosius

Boradiotes, the patriarch[[5]]. The new

boy emperor (he was only eleven years
old) took absolutely no interest in
government, but indulged in his favourite
pastimes of hunting and attending chariot
races. In short order, the protosebastos
and protovestiarios Alexius Comnenus,
Manuel's nephew, prevailed over the
other members of the council, and
became Maria of Antioch's (MariaXene) lover, much to the chagrin of
Maria Porphyrogenita, Manuel's
daughter from his first wife, who was
thus excluded from power. Another party
desirous of power was Manuel's cousin
Andronicus, who, after returning from
exile before Manuel's death to become
reconciled with him, now sojourned in

Paphlagonia. The situation was a

veritable powder-keg, and would shortly
be ignited. Once in power, the
protosebastos sold offices to the upper
tier of the aristocracy at high prices,
alienating the middle and lower classes
of Constantinople by his greed and
parsimony. We are told something of the
condition of the provinces by the
metropolitan bishop of Athens Michael
Choniates. The great landowners were
favoured by the rgime, as were the
monasteries (their fiscal privileges being
reaffirmed in July 1181). The people at
large however fell victim to the rapacity
of the governors (praetors) in
Hellas[[6]]. One notable diplomatic
initiative of the protosebastos was the

meeting between Byzantine envoys and

Saladin in Cairo, May-June 1181[[7]].
Maria Porphyrogenita's plot and the
associated riot (early 1181)
The kaisarissa Maria Porphyrogenita
opposed the new rgime openly and was
forever scheming against it. An attempted
coup (for 7 February 1181) failed, and
the plot was revealed (March 1 1181).
Some of the conspirators are listed for us
by Nicetas Choniates, and also by
Eustathius of Thessalonica[[8]]:
important were two sons of Andronicus
Comnenus. They were tried and
condemned, Maria and her husband
Renier of Montferrat seeking refuge in the
Great Church of Hagia Sophia (before

Easter, 5 April 1181). The protosebastos

and Maria of Antioch (Maria-Xene)
offered Maria an amnesty, which she
refused, demanding that her coconspirators be re-tried. She was
emboldened by the fact that the populace
was sympathetic to her cause.
Accordingly, she had the Great Church
garrisoned with supporters, including
Latins and Iberians (despite the protests
of Theodosius, as Choniates tells
us[[9]]), and a riot broke out among the
people, who proceeded to sack certain
buildings, including the palace of the
eparch of the city, Theodore Pantechnes.
Alexius the protosebastos decided to
send soldiers against the kaisarissa,

these soldiers rallying at the Great

Palace. In the meantime, Maria's(MariaXene) men demolished the buildings
adjacent to the Great Church and the
Augusteum, which were her strongholds.
On 2 May a great battle began between
the imperial troops and the outnumbered
troops of the kaisarissa Maria. After a
while some of her supporters withdrew
and the remaining survivors shut
themselves in the Great Church. At first,
neither side dared to risk continuing
battle following this development. Then
Renier led a sally forth from the Great
Church, and held his own, but further
fighting had to be left aside due to the
lateness in the day. Theodosius in the
meantime had sent a messenger to the

regents asking for a truce on the

kaisarissa's behalf. This was granted,
and the megas doux Andronicus
Contostephanus and the megas
hetaireiarches John Ducas sent to
negotiate with Renier and Maria. The
result was a truce, and the kaisarissa did
not lose her rank[[10]]. The
protosebastos Alexius had Theodosius
removed from the patriarchal throne for
his alleged support of the rebels, and
confined to the monastery of the
Pantepoptes, but soon relented and
reinstalled him. Nicetas Choniates says
that it was the sacrilege of the use of the
Great Church as a fortress which was the
immediate cause of the sack of
Constantinople by the crusaders of the

Fourth Crusade in 1204[[11]].

The march of Andronicus Comnenus
and the massacre of the Latins in 1182
The protosebastos remained as
unpopular as ever. Taking advantage of
this, Andronicus passed from
Paphlagonia, where he had been residing,
into the Pontus, all the while writing
letters in which he posed as the champion
of the boy-emperor's rights[[12]]. He
moved slowly, to give a false impression
of a large and cumbersome army.
However, Nicaea in Bithynia refused to
submit, and John Ducas and the Grand
Domestic John Comnenus were entrusted
with her defence by the regency
government. Andronicus Angelus (father

of the future emperors Isaac II and

Alexius III) marched out from Nicomedia
and fought with Andronicus Comnenus
at the village of Charax, to be roundly
defeated in spite of his superior numbers.
Andronicus Angelus was so worried
about being punished for this failure in
battle, that in the end he defected to
Andronicus Comnenus' cause. So it was
that Andronicus (Comnenus) arrived at
the Bosporus, camping at Chalcedon (on
the opposite shore from Constantinople).
Although his force was small, he spread
his men out, and the impression given by
the campfires was of a much greater
force[[13]].
The protosebastos Alexius first tried

diplomacy, sending George Xiphilinus to

Andronicus promising a pardon, vast
rewards and high office if he would
desist. When this failed, the
protosebastos, realising how little he
could depend on the populace or army,
decided that a naval blockade was the
answer. The blockading fleet was
commanded by the megas doux
Andronicus Contostephanus. The boy
emperor sent a messenger to Andronicus
(Comnenus) to promise him greater
honours should he desist; Andronicus
flatly refused the ultimatum, whereupon,
in the next few days, Andronicus
Contostephanus changed sides.
Andronicus Comnenus' two sons,
imprisoned for their part in Maria

Porphyrogenita's plot, were released, and

the protosebastos imprisoned in their
place. Days later, he was ferried across
to Andronicus (Comnenus) at Chalcedon
and blinded as a punishment[[14]]. The
populace, incited by Andronicus
(Comnenus), now fell upon those Latins,
particularly the Genoese and Pisans, who
were living in Constantinople or there on
business. The Latins abandoned their
riches, some seeking refuge in the houses
of noblemen whom they could trust,
others escaping by galleys, others, less
fortunate, falling to the sword. The
populace persecuted the Latin clergy
especially. Those who took to the sea
were not pursued, and they retaliated by
sacking those islands they encountered on

their journey away from

Constantinople[[15]].
Andronicus' regency (early 1182-1183)
At length the patriarch Theodosius
crossed the Bosporus and met with
Andronicus, who, Choniates tells us,
feigned obeisance[[16]]. Shortly,
Andronicus and his entourage travelled
to Damalis (more precisely opposite
Constantinople). From there, they crossed
to the suburb of Philopatium, where once
again Andronicus made a show of
respect, this time to the boy emperor.
After many days had been spent there,
Andronicus paid his respects to the
sarcophagus of his cousin the emperor
Manuel I, with an ostentatious display of

grief. One of his first actions as new

guardian of the emperor was to reward
his Paphlagonian and other supporters
with offices and money. Then the
persecutions began, many punished, even
by blinding, without a charge being laid
formally against them. One who was a
friend of the regent one day was the next
day condemned as an enemy. Choniates
accuses Andronicus of poisoning the
kaisarissa Maria Porphyrogenita and her
husband the kaisar Renier, despite their
previous support of him[[17]]. They were
obviously perceived as obstacles to his
true aim, accession to the throne.
The next stage was to marry his daughter
Irene (by his second cousin Theodora) to
the emperor. To do so would have been

within the prohibited degrees of

consanguinity, and Andronicus therefore
convened a synod of the bishops to give a
dispensation. Theodosius remained
opposed, but Andronicus obtained the
necessary dispensation through strategic
bribery. Theodosius therefore departed
for the island of Terebinthos. Andronicus
appointed his own man Basil Camaterus
in his place, and the wedding proceeded,
consecrated by the archbishop of
Bulgaria[[18]].
In the meantime the sultan of Konya,
Kilidj II Arslan, seized the opportunity to
capture Sozopolis in Phrygia, with the
surrounding towns, and John Comnenus
Vatatzes, who was residing in

Philadelphia, rebelled against the new

rgime. Andronicus sent Andronicus
Lapardas against Vatatzes, who took ill,
but did not die before seeing his sons
Manuel and Alexius rout the army sent
against him. Upon John Vatatzes' death,
however, the inhabitants of Philadelphia
changed sides to Andronicus. His sons
took refuge with the sultan of Konya.
Departing from Konya, they set sail for
Sicily, but had to make a landfall at
Crete, whereupon they were captured and
deprived of their sight[[19]].
Andronicus' reign of terror
We are told by Choniates that Andronicus
became more arrogant than ever, and
sought to become co-emperor[[20]]. The

main remaining obstacle was Maria of

Antioch (Maria-Xene) . Andronicus
incited the populace against her and when
some of the judges of the velum
(Demetrios Tornices, Leo Monasteriotes
and Constantine Patrenus), who were to
consider the charges laid against her,
asked if prosecuting her was the wish of
the emperor Alexius, they nearly lost
their lives at the hands of the mob, so
provoked by Andronicus. Andronicus
now tried to eliminate competition from
among the extended imperial family,
many of whom were holding longestablished or recently invented offices,
under the so-called "Comnenian system".
For Andronicus Angelus, the son of
Constantine Angelus, the megas doux

Andronicus Contostephanus, and these

two men's sons, along with the logothete
of the drome, Basil Camaterus (not the
homonymous patriarch), plotted the
tyrant's destruction. However, the plot
was betrayed, and although Andronicus
Angelus escaped, Contostephanus, his
sons and Basil Camaterus were not so
fortunate, and blinded[[21]]. The regent
Andronicus now instituted a reign of
terror, imprisoning, banishing, and
undoing in other ways. Maria of Antioch
(Maria-Xene) still needed to be dealt
with, so she was arraigned on a charge of
treason (for she had sought the help of her
sister's husband Bla III of Hungary) and
a puppet court condemned her to
imprisonment in a dungeon near the

monastery of St Diomedes. The sentence

was commuted to death, the decree
affirmed by the signature of the emperor
Alexius himself. Even Andronicus'
firstborn Manuel, we are told, was
disgusted at this sentence, and so the
empress-dowager had a brief reprieve. In
the end however men (in particular the
hetaireiarch Constantine Tripsychus)
were found to carry out the sentence of
death by strangulation (? end of 1182)
[[22]], another testament to the bloody
nature of the new rgime.
The empire's frontiers
While all this was happening, Bla III
had taken the opportunity to conquer the
Balkan frontier towns of Branitshevo and

Belgrade (he had already recovered

Sirmium and Dalmatia) and he advanced
up the Morava to Nish, proceeding even
as far as Sofia, removing the relics of the
local saint, even though he abandoned the
latter. The Byzantine army, setting out in
the summer of 1181 under Alexius Branas
and Andronicus Lapardas, was
ineffective against him. Stephen Nemanja
and the Serbs of Rascia and Zeta made
themselves independent, and Kilidj II
Arslan of Konya/Iconium, after taking
Sozopolis in Pisidia, destroyed Cotyaeum
(Kutahya). His court became a haven for
Byzantine refugees.
Andronicus co-emperor
Isaac Angelus and Theodore

Cantacuzenus were fomenting

insurrection in the city of Nicaea, and
Theodore Angelus was harboured by the
city of Prusa. Andronicus' supporters, the
demagogues who incited the populace,
said that this opposition could only be
silenced by granting him the imperial
office. Andronicus at first feigned
reluctance to receive the crown, but,
needless to say, was soon proclaimed coemperor, to the accompaniment of much
rejoicing by the people at large[[23]].
The following day, Andronicus was
proclaimed first in rank among the coemperors. He was subsequently crowned,
and barely had this happened than he
began plotting Alexius Porphyrogenitus'
removal. It was decided, by Andronicus'

supporters, that his co-emperor should

become a private citizen. Before the
populace could be apprised of this
incident, Stephen Hagiochristophorites,
Constantine Tripsychos and Theodore
Dadibrenos fell upon the boy emperor
and throttled him with a bowstring
(before September 1183)[[24]]. Alexius'
body was decapitated and while the head
was being displayed to Andronicus, the
remainder was being thrown into the sea.

Legacy
The collapse of the Byzantine power was
rapid. Now that there was no strong

autocrat at the centre of the extended

family of the Comneni to keep the various
members of it in check, there was
concomitant splintering into different
factions. Civil war so occupied the
capital that foreign powers could take
advantage of it and begin the process of
carving out enclaves from territory which
previously recognised Byzantine
authority. The process would continue
under Andronicus, whose tyranny gave
the process but a brief reprieve, and
accelerate under the weak dynasty of the
Angeli.
Bibliography
Primary sources

-Nicetas Choniates, Historia, ed. J.-L.

Van Dieten, 2 vols., Corpus Fontium
Historiae Byzantinae 11, 2 vols., Berlin
and New York, 1975; trans. as O City of
Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates,
by H.J. Magoulias, Detroit, 1984.
-Eustathius of Thessalonica, The Capture
of Thessaloniki, ed. and tr. J.R. MelvilleJones, Canberra, 1988.
-Eustathius Thessalonicensis Opera
Minora, Corpus Fontium Historiae
Byzantinae, vol. 32, Berlin and New
York, 2000.
Secondary sources
-M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire,
1025-1204: a political history, 2nd ed.,

London and New York, 1997.

--C.M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the
West 1180-1204, Cambridge Mass.,
1968.
-C. Cupane, "La 'Guerra Civile' della
primavera 1181 nel racconto di Niceta
Coniate e Eustazio di Tessalonica:
narratologica historiae ancilla?', in
Jahrbuch der sterreichischen
Byzantinistik 47, 1997, pp. 179-194.
-F. Cognasso, "Partiti politici e lotte
dinastiche in Bisanzio alla morte di
Manuele Comneno", in Reale Accademia
delle Scienze di Torino memorie classe
II 62, 1912, pp. 213-317.
-P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I

Komnenos, 1143-1180, Cambridge,

1993.
Notes:
[[1]] Eustathii Thessalonicensis
opera minora, ed. P. Wirth,
Corpus Fontium Historiae
Byzantinae 32, Berlin and New
York, pp. 250-260.
[[2]] eg. Eustathius, ed.
Wirth, pp. 188-189.
[[3]] Eustathius, ed. Wirth,
p. 45.
[[4]] cf. Eustathius, ed.
Wirth, pp. 170-181.
[[5]] Eustathius, ed.
Melville-Jones (see

bibliography), p. 18; William

of Tyre, tr. Babcock and Krey
(see bibliography), XXII.5.
[[6]]Michael Choniates,
Michael Akominatou tou
Choniatou ta sozomena, ed. Sp.
Lambros, vol. 1, p. 176
[[7]]Al-Makrizi, Histoire
d'Egypte, tr. into French by
E. Blochet in Revue de
l"Orient latin 8 (1900-1), p.
539.
[[8]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten (see bibliography, p.
231; Eustathios, ed. MelvilleJones, p. 22.
[[9]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 233.

[[10]] Choniates, ed. Van

Dieten, p. 240.
[[11]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 241.
[[12]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 245; Eustathius,
ed. Melville-Jones, p. 30.
[[13]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 245-6; Eustathius,
ed. Melville-Jones, p. 32.
[[14]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 249.
[[15]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 250-1; Eustathius,
ed. Melville-Jones, p. 34.
[[16]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 252-3.

[[17]] Choniates, ed. Van

Dieten, p. 260.
[[18]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 261-2.
[[19]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 262-4.
[[20]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 264-5.
[[21]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 266-7.
[[22]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, pp. 268-9.
[[23]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 270.
[[24]] Choniates, ed. Van
Dieten, p. 274.