Back in Constantinople, calamity followed rebellion followed scandal. As Choniates tells us, the empress Euphrosyne became obsessed with fortune-telling and in her "mad delusions and excessive zeal" she had many statues beheaded and had the snout of a bronze boar that stood in the Hippodrome cut off. She even tried to have the back of the famous ( Read more... )

As 1198 rolled around, the marriage of Alexios III's daughter Eudokia was crumbling into sad ruins. She had been married to Stefan Nemanjić, the heir of the kingdom of Serbia, for several years, and had given him several young children. Eudokia was fed up with her husband, and accused him of being drunk from morning until night and fucking anything ( Read more... )

By spring 1195, things had come to a breaking point. Constantinople was wracked with revolt after revolt as pretenders strove to clamber over the bodies of most of their relatives to seize the imperial throne. Bulgars, Vlakhs, Kumans, and Serbs all rampaged across the borders, headbutting and pantsing anyone in their way. The German army had carved ( Read more... )

By 1189, things personally seemed to be looking up for Isaakios II. His brother Alexios had returned home from his long exile in Syria, his wife Margit of Hungary was growing into a beauty, and he had a nine-year-old son and heir, Alexakos, and two healthy daughters. But beneath the surface, all was rotten. In a few short years, Isaakios II would ( Read more... )

Alexios Vranas, a wizened military veteran "short in stature", but gifted with intelligence and cunning, as Niketas Choniates tells us, had commandeered the army Isaakios II had sent him to fight the rebellious Vlakhs and Bulgars. He now marched on Constantinople, determined to liberate Constantinople from Isaakios II and liberate Isaakios II from ( Read more... )

The downfall of Andronikos I was the death knell for the Komnenoi dynasty, which had so successfully extinguished itself; now the Angeloi, their 'poor relations', saw their star ascend.

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LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAAAAIN

ITS JUST A JUMP TO THE LEFT

The year is 1185, the place: Constantinople. So our sordid tale contines with Andronikos I Komnenos as master of the Byzantine Empire, dawdling his child-bride on his knee, and in his off hours making steady progress on thinning out the hordes of younger Komnenoi.

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An all-new season of As The Komnenoi World Turns finds Andronikos Komnenos now in firm control of the city of Constantinople, as guardian and regent of the young emperor Alexios II. With the wily Andronikos now the de facto authority in the empire, the boy-emperor's reign is looking to be brief indeed...

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Last episode, Emperor Manuel died, leaving a power vacuum in Constantinople that his big bad cousin, Andronikos Komnenos, is eager to fill.

( oh shit son )

1169 was a year of highs and lows for Manuel. His attempted conquest of Egypt fell apart when the Greek army was unable to cooperate with the Latins from the army of Jerusalem 1, but his wife Maria of Antioch was finally pregnant. The Porphyra chamber was prepared for the imperial birth, drapped with silks and decorated with symbols meant to ward ( Read more... )