Alexios Komnenos (; – after 1182) was a Byzantine aristocrat and courtier. A son of Andronikos Komnenos and nephew of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, he rose to the high rank of prōtostratōr in 1167. In 1176 he participated in the Myriokephalon campaign where, following the death of his older brother John, he was raised to the titles of prōtosebastos and prōtovestiarios. Following Manuel's death in 1180, he won the favour, and reportedly became the lover, of Empress-dowager Maria of Antioch. Through her he ruled the Byzantine Empire for two years as de facto regent of the underage emperor Alexios II Komnenos. The aristocracy challenged his dominance, led by the princess Maria Komnene, who plotted to assassinate the prōtosebastos. The plot was discovered and most conspirators arrested, but Maria and her husband fled to the Hagia Sophia, protected by Patriarch Theodosios Borradiotes and the common people of Constantinople.
Mounting tensions resulted in a popular uprising against Alexios' regime on 2 May 1181, (modern scholars have proposed other dates as well), which ended in a mutual reconciliation. His power shaken, the prōtosebastos reacted by punishing Borradiotes for his role in the affair. Overwhelming opposition, both among the people and the aristocracy, forced him to recall Borradiotes soon after. These events left Alexios in poor shape to oppose the advance of the adventurer Andronikos I Komnenos, who moved against Constantinople from the east. The generals dispatched against Andronikos were defeated or defected, and the usurper entered the city in April 1182. The prōtosebastos Alexios was deposed, publicly humiliated, and mutilated. His fate thereafter is not known.
Origin and early career under Manuel I Alexios was the second son and the last of five children of the sebastokratōr Andronikos Komnenos, himself the second son of Emperor John II Komnenos and Irene of Hungary. The origin of Alexios' mother, also named Irene, is unknown. The court poet, Theodore Prodromos, composed a laudatory poem to celebrate his birth.
In his prosopographical study of the Komnenoi, the Greek scholar, Konstantinos Varzos, placed his birth on Easter Day 1135 (or possibly 1134 or 1136), as he was old enough to participate in a campaign in 1149/50. Alexios' father died in August 1142, only a little while after his older brother (also named Alexios). The two brothers were on a campaign with their father, John II, and their other brothers in southern Asia Minor, and probably died of the same illness. This provided the occasion for another poem by Prodromos, in which young Alexios is referred to as the only solace for his bereaved mother. The Prosopography of the Byzantine World database, on the other hand, interprets the poems by Prodromos as indicating that Alexios was born in 1142, during his father's absence on the campaign that cost his life.
When John II died in 1143, his two remaining sons were Isaac and Manuel I Komnenos. Although the younger of the two, because of the army's support, Manuel eventually became emperor. Although Alexios' mother, the sebastokratorissa Irene, suffered repeated disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of Manuel, the emperor showed great favour to her sons, particularly Alexios' older brother John. In , like all young Byzantine aristocrats, the young Alexios was required to begin his military training and accompany his uncle, Emperor Manuel, on campaign. However, no details of his early military career are known. In he married Maria Doukaina, whose exact parentage is unknown. Together they had at least four children: a son Andronikos, a daughter Irene, and a son and daughter whose names are unknown.
The first recorded instance of Alexios attending a public function was at a synod at the imperial Palace of Blachernae, on 12 May 1157, with his brother John. He also participated in the synod of March 1166, also along with John. In both cases, Alexios is recorded among the imperial relatives, with no rank or title. In May/June 1167, following the dismissal and banishment of the prōtostratōr, Alexios Axouch, Alexios Komnenos assumed this high office. He appears with this rank at the synod in February 1170 that was convened to sit judgment against John Eirenikos. Sometime during his tenure as prōtostratōr, Alexios fell gravely ill, and his wife donated a richly embroidered veil to the Church of the Saviour at the Chalke Gate, an occasion celebrated by an anonymous court poet.
Like most of the Byzantine aristocracy, Alexios took part in the campaign that led to the disastrous Battle of Myriokephalon in September 1176. His brother John was one of the battle's casualties. Alexios, as the last remaining son of Manuel's brothers, succeeded him in his titles of prōtosebastos and prōtovestiarios. Like John before him, these titles raised Alexios to the pinnacle of the Byzantine court. As prōtosebastos, he was the most senior of the sebastoi, a group which, since the days of Alexios I Komnenos, denoted the most senior members of the court, usually close relatives or special favourites of the emperor. Furthermore, as prōtovestiarios, he was the "titular head of the imperial household", with important ceremonial and diplomatic duties. His previous post of prōtostratōr went to another Alexios, son of Andronikos Komnenos Vatatzes. Soon after Alexios' promotion, his wife died, and his son Andronikos was mortally injured after falling from his horse. The poet Gregory Antiochos wrote a lament on the occasion.
In spring 1178, Alexios led an embassy to France. His first mission concerned the marriage of his cousin Eudokia—daughter of his paternal uncle Isaac—to Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Provence, brother of King Alfonso II of Aragon. The opposition of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa aborted the marriage, and Eudokia was married instead to William VIII of Montpellier. Alexios then proceeded to Paris, to escort Agnes, a daughter of King Louis VII of France and the prospective bride of Manuel's son and heir Alexios II Komnenos, back to Byzantium. The embassy left Paris on Easter 1179, and returned via Italy to Constantinople, where Agnes and Alexios II were betrothed.
Rise to power When Manuel died on 24 September 1180, his heir, Alexios II, born in 1169, was underage. Manuel had neglected providing for a regency, and power automatically passed to the hands of the Empress-dowager, Maria of Antioch. Although after Manuel's death she had become a nun, the Empress-dowager immediately became the focus of attention of ambitious suitors who sought to win her affection, and supreme power along with it. Alexios soon emerged as the winner of this competition, and became the de facto regent of the state alongside her. Rumours spread that he also became Maria's lover. Although this was apparently widely believed at the time, modern scholars like Varzos are doubtful, as the Byzantine sources are themselves divided over the matter: while the contemporary official and historian, Niketas Choniates, reports the rumours almost as fact, the 13th-century chronicler Theodore Skoutariotes appears to have considered them baseless.
Nevertheless, Alexios evidently exercised considerable power. As Choniates writes, "confident of his own power and his great influence over the empress", Alexios "had the emperor promulgate a decree that henceforth no document signed by the imperial hand would be valid unless first reviewed by Alexios and validated by his notation 'approved' () in frog green ink", so that "nothing whatsoever could be done except through him". In addition, all revenue was channeled to the prōtosebastos and the Empress-dowager. Soon rumours began to circulate that the prōtosebastos planned to supplant the young emperor and "mount both the mother and the throne", as Choniates put it.
Whether or not Alexios intended to usurp the throne his concentration of power alarmed the other imperial relatives, above all Emperor Manuel's daughter from his first marriage, the porphyrogennētē princess Maria Komnene. Maria's relations with her step-mother were already strained before Manuel's death and, according to Choniates, Maria was incensed at the thought of the prōtosebastos and the Empress-dowager sullying her father's bed. The opposition that began to coalesce around her included: her husband, the Caesar Renier of Montferrat, Manuel's illegitimate son the sebastokratōr Alexios Komnenos, the prōtostratōr Alexios Komnenos, the Eparch of the City John Kamateros Doukas, Andronikos Lapardas, Maria's cousins Manuel and John (sons of the future emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, who was then in exile), and many others. These leading aristocrats were driven by their exclusion from the share in power and wealth they had enjoyed under Manuel, and the fear that they might be imprisoned themselves.
Choniates and his contemporaries, Archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica and William of Tyre, report that, finding themselves ever more unpopular, the Empress-dowager and Alexios turned to the numerous Latin residents of Constantinople and Latin mercenaries for support, continuing and even augmenting Manuel's pro-Latin policies. Some modern historians, such as Charles Brand, have therefore viewed the contest between the prōtosebastos and the faction around Maria as that of pro-Latin and anti-Latin parties. Most modern historians on the other hand stress that lines were not so clear cut, as the aristocratic opposition included Latins like Renier, and also recruited Latin mercenaries. According to this interpretation, the primary concern of the opposition was the prōtosebastos domination of the government, which had destroyed the previous arrangements under Manuel, where the court aristocracy had been "equal in power".
Revolt of Maria Komnene
According to Choniates, the conspirators planned to assassinate Alexios when he and the emperor were to visit the suburb of Bathys Ryax for the feast day of the martyr Theodore, "on the seventh day of the first week of Lent". A soldier betrayed the conspiracy, however, and most of its members were arrested, tried by a tribunal under the dikaiodotēs Theodore Pantechnes—who succeeded Kamateros as eparch—and imprisoned in the dungeons of the Great Palace. Andronikos Lapardas managed to escape, while the Caesarissa Maria and her husband sought refuge in the Hagia Sophia, where she soon gained the support not only of the Patriarch Theodosios Borradiotes but also of the common people, who took pity on her plight and her imperial descent, and who were further won over because of her largesse in distributing coins to the crowd.
Emboldened by the popular support, the princess refused Alexios' offers of an amnesty, demanding not only a retrial of her co-conspirators but also the immediate dismissal of the prōtosebastos from the palace and the administration. When the Empress-dowager and the prōtosebastos had Alexios II issue a warning to his half-sister that she would be evicted by force, she again refused, and despite the Patriarch's angry objections started posting her followers to keep watch over the entrances to the great church, recruiting even "Italians in heavy armor and stouthearted Iberians from the East who had come to the City for commercial purposes", as Choniates reports. To them were added the masses of the capital's people, who assembled and began to sympathise publicly with Maria and denounce the prōtosebastos and the Empress-dowager. Led by three priests, the populace was driven to rebellion, and over several days they not only demonstrated before the gates of the palace but also ransacked several mansions of the nobility, including that of Pantechnes.