Andronicus I of Byzantium (1118-12 September 1185) was Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 24 September 1183 to 12 September 1185, succeeding Alexius II and preceding Isaac II. He was an infamous lecherer, adulterer, and vagrant, and he was murdered after a popular revolt in Constantinople in 1185. He was the last Comnenus emperor to rule from Constantinople.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Andronicus was born in 1118, a grandson of Emperor Alexius I of Byzantium. He spent his early years both in pleasure and in military service, and he was captured by the Seljuks in 1141 and ransomed a year later. He became a favorite at the court of his cousin Manuel I of Byzantium, and he travelled to Cilicia with his niece Eudoxia (whom he had made his mistress) to assume an important command in 1152. He was defeated in his attack on Mamistra, after which he returned to Constantinope and was nearly killed by Eudoxia's brothers.
Loving on the run[]
In 1153, Andronicus was imprisoned for plotting against Manuel, only to escape in 1165. Andronicus fled to Kiev, where he was protected by his cousin, Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia, before allying with Manuel and taking part in an invasion of Hungary, attacking the fortress of Semlin. He then returned to Constantinople in 1168, but refused to take an oath of allegiance to the future Bela III of Hungary, whom Manuel desired to adopt as his heir. Andronikos was then sent to govern Cilicia, and he then fled to the court of Raymond of Poitiers in Antioch to evade Manuel's wrath. Under King Amalric I of Jerusalem, he became Lord of Beirut, and he eloped to Damascus with Baldwin III of Jerusalem's widow Theodore Komnene before being received at the court of King George III of Georgia. In 1173, he accompanied King George on his recapture of Shabaran from Derbent, only for Theodora and her two children be captured on Andronicus' excursion to Trebizond, his family's home.
Rise to power[]
On Manuel's death in 1180, his son Alexius II of Byzantium took the throne, and his regents' pro-Latin policies alienated the Greek Christian populace. Andronicus exploited the political chaos in Constantinople to capture the city in 1182 and have Alexius II strangled with a bowstring a year later, taking the throne for himself. His accession to power was aided by the xenophobic mob, which carried out the Massacre of the Latins in the capital. This resulted in an invasion by King William II of Sicily, who landed in Epirus with 200 ships and 80,000 men (including 5,000 knights). He sacked Thessalonica in 1185 and killed 7,000 Greeks, and Andronicus failed to raise an army to fight off the Sicilian-Norman invasion.
Meanwhile, Andronicus attempted to exterminate the aristocracy, but, in September 1185, Isaac Angelos launched a rebellion against Andronicus in Constantinople. The rebellion won popular support, and Isaac was proclaimed emperor. Andronicus was captured while attempting to flee the capital on a boat, and he was tortured by the mob for three days: his right hand was cut off, his teeth and hair were pulled out, one of his eyes was gouged out, and boiling water was thrown in his face. He was then taken to the Hippodrome and hung upside-down from his feet, and two Latin soldiers had a competition as to whose sword could penetrate his body more deeply, tearing Andronicus apart. Andronicus was the last Comnenus ruler of Constantinople, and his relatives would go on to found the Empire of Trebizond following the Sack of Constantinople.