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Alexios I Comnenos, the founder of the Empire of Trebizond, was a son of Manuel and grandson of the Emperor Andronikos I, who was killed with the utmost savagery by the mob of Constantinople in 1185. His eldest son Manuel was blinded so brutally that he died, leaving two children, Alexios and David.

In the same month that Constantinople fell in 1204, Alexios, who had left Constantinople for Georgia, set out at the head of a Georgian contingent provided by his paternal aunt Tamar of Georgia, and occupied Trebizond. The new ruler was only 22. The Comnenus family was popular on the Black Sea coast, from which it had come originally, and where it had left roots. In 1182 his grandfather Andronikos had had a stronghold at Oinaion, the modern Uniye, between Trebizond and Sinope. Those three places all declared for Alexios, and while he remained cautiously in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, his dashing brother David, aided by a body of Georgians and native mercenaries, made himself master of all Paphlagonia, including Kastamuni, said to be the ancestral castle of the Comneni. David extended his power as far westward as Pontic Herakleia, the modern Erekli, well on the way to Constantinople

Alexios took the titele of Grand Comnenus ('Megas Komnenos') and Emperor. The new title and the Trapezuntine dynasty lasted 257 years the longest, as Bessarion wrote in Byzantine history.

But the two brothers were not free from dangerous neighbours, and even rivals of their own race. Besides the other Greek Empire, established by Theodore Laskaris at Nic?a, Sams?n, under the rule of Sabbas, formed an enclave in their territory, and interrupted its continuity on the Black Sea; ?Mad Theodore? Mangkaph?s held Philadelphia; Mavrozomes felt himself secure on the M?nder by giving his daughter in marriage to Kai Kh?sr? I., the Selj?k Sultan of Iconium, who was lord of the greater part of Asia Minor. From the distant Cilician kingdom of Armenia and the Armenian colony in the Troad Trebizond had nothing to fear. With Georgia Alexios was connected; but the treaty, under which the Latin conquerors of Constantinople had parti?tioned the Byzantine Empire, had assigned much of the new Trapezuntine territory??Paphlagonia, Oinaion, and Sinope? with the appurtenances of Sams?n??to the Latin Emperor.

But Theodore Laskaris soon swept away two of the Greek rulers, ?Mad Theodore? and Sabbas, while the Latins, after an attempt to conquer some of their allotted territory, found themselves sufficiently occupied in Europe with the Bulgarians. With the Latins went the Armenians of the Troad; Laskaris, who had been crowned Emperor in 1206, and the Selj?ks remained to menace the new-born Trapezuntine Empire as allies.

Kai Khosrau I, the new Seljuk Sultan of Iconium, besieged Trebizond in 1205 or 1206. David provoked Laskaris by sending his young general Synadenos to occupy Nicomedia, in the Nicene Empire. Synadenos was no match for the abler Laskaris, who led his troops through a difficult pass, setting an example to his soldiers by wielding an axe against the trees that obstructed his path of victory. Synadenos became his prisoner; David was forced to recognize Herakleia as the westward limit of the Trapezuntine Empire, and even thence Laskaris threatened to make him recede still further eastward. David, thus hard pressed by his Greek adversary, invoked the aid of the Latins; Laskaris occupied the frontier district of Plousias, famous for its archers and its warlike spirit, and would have taken Herakleia also, had not the Latins under Thierri de Loos again seized Nicomedia.

But the Latins soon retired, to face another Bulgarian invasion of Thrace, rewarded by David for their temporary aid by shiploads of corn and hams. He begged that the Latin Emperor of Constantinople would include him as his subject in his treaties and correspondence with Laskaris, and look upon all his land as Latin territory. It was his interest to prefer a nominal Latin suzerainty to annexation by the Nicene Emperor. Having thus secured his position, he crossed the Sangarios, the modern Sakaria, with a body of about 300 Frankish auxiliaries, ravaged the villages subject to Laskaris, and took hostages from Plousias. David then withdrew, but the Franks, incautiously advancing into the hilly country, were suddenly surprised by Andronikos Gidos, a general of Laskaris, in the Rough Passes of Nicomedia, and scarcely a man of them was left to tell the tale.

A further reinforcement from the Latin Emperor merely postponed the fall of Herakleia, which was annexed with Amastris and all the surrounding country to the Nicene Empire. Niketas, in a fulsome panegyric of Theodore Laskaris, poured scorn upon the ?fools? of Trebizond who had chosen their David instead of the real David of Nic?a, ridiculed Alexios as an effeminate ?youth nurtured in the shade,? a ?lad thrown up on the shores of Pontus, like offscouring cast up by a wave of the sea,? and in a feeble pun upon the name of the battlefield, declared that Laskaris had made the ??Rough Ways? causeways.?[3]

In 1214 the new Seljuk Sultan, Kai Kawus I captured Sinope, slew David, who commanded there, and compelled Alexios to render tribute and military service. The results of the loss of Sinope were far-reaching. The western frontier of Trebizond, which had been a few years earlier Erekli, and more recently Cape Kerembi, was now limited by the Iris and Thermodon Rivers the modern Jeschil Yrmak and Terme only 155 miles from the capital. Eastward the Empire stretched to the Georgian frontier at Soteropolis or Savastopoli.

Alexios seems to have made the Crimea tributary to Trebizond, which henceforth possessed in Cherson and Gothia an overseas province known as Perateia (the land beyond the sea). The loss of Sinope and David's western conquests separated Trebizond from direct contact with the rival Empire of Nicea. Trapezuntine foreign policy was now limited to relations with Georgia and Iconium.

The capital was considered impregnable, for art had supplemented nature in its defence. It possessed a mild climate, a fruitful soil in which flourished the olive and the vine, an excellent supply of water?the first requisite for Orientals??and abundant wood. Joannes Eugenikos,[6] in his later panegyric, called it ?the apple of the eye of all Asia,? and it was believed by its inhabitants to enjoy the special protection of St Eugenios.

Alexios died on 1 February 1222 after a reign of eighteen years, at the age of forty. As the new empire was not yet hereditary, his eldest son John was passed over in favour of his son-in-law, Andronikos I Gidus Comnenus.

From: Editing Alexius I of Trebizond - Preview - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexius_I_of_Trebizond&action=submit

As part of the Trapezuntine thing, I'm working up a biography for each of the emperors. I'm mainly working from Miller and Micahel Panaretos.

To Do:

• check some journal articles
• wrie a template for the emperor biographies