Nikephoros III "the Usurper" of Byzantium (1002-10 December 1081) was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1078 to 1081, succeeding Michael VII of Byzantium and preceding Alexios I of Byzantium.
Biography[]
Nikephoros Botaneiates' family claimed descent from the royal House of Phokas that once ruled the Byzantine Empire, and he became a general. In 1057 he aided Isaac I of Byzantium in rising to the throne, taking part in the Battle of Petroe against the forces of Emperor Michael VI of Byzantium. He served Isaac and his successor Constantine X of Byzantium, and in 1064 he was defeated and taken captive in the Balkan frontiers by the Oghuz Confederation of Turks. He only escaped after an epidemic decimated the Turks.
In 1067, he retired to his estates after Empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa passed him over for fellow general and the future emperor Romanos IV of Byzantium. Under Michael VII of Byzantium (who took power after Romanos' ouster in 1071), he was made the commander of all Byzantine forces in Asia Minor, However, in 1078 he launched a rebellion against Michael VII, and when Michael made peace with him, Nikephoros left his base in Nicaea for Constantinople, where he was crowned the new emperor of the Byzantine Empire as "Nikephoros III". He married Maria of Alania, the wife of Michael VII, forcing her to annul her previous marriage.
Nikephoros immediately faced rebellions, as Armenian princes in Asia Minor rose in rebellion against him. In addition, two Paulician Christians rebelled in Thrace, and their brutal religious conflict was not easily suppressed. He used Alexios Komnenos to put down Nikephoros Basilakes' uprising in the Balkans in 1079 and Nikephoros Melissenos' uprising in Anatolia in 1080. When Robert Guiscard and the Normans declared war on Nikephoros to protect his daughter's fiancee Constantine Doukas, the powerless co-emperor, Nikephoros sent Alexios to face him. This weakened his power at home, and the Doukas faction overthrew him. Nikephoros abdicated in 1081 and died a few months later.