Andronikos I Komnenos- Byzantium’s Greatest Tyrant
The Reign and Atrocities of the last Komnenian Emperor
From the years 1081 AD to 1185 AD, the Byzantine Empire flourished in what would be its final Golden Age. The three great Emperors of the Komnenian dynasty- Alexios I (1081–1118), John II (1118–1143), and Manuel I (1143–1180) took control of a state facing near-total collapse following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD and revitalized its status as the military and diplomatic hegemon of the Eastern Mediterranean. Under their talented leadership, invasions from the Normans and Pechenegs were repelled, relations with the West were stabilized, and the Empire regained much of the territory it lost to the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia.
But good things never last forever, and even the Golden Age of the Komnenian Restoration would come to an end following the death of Manuel I Komnenos in 1180 AD. Old resentments combined with a hated regency would pave the way for a new Komnenos to rise to power, and his reign would destroy the foundations his predecessors had painstakingly rebuilt. This is the story of how Andronikos I Komnenos, the last of the House of Komnenos to rule the Byzantine Empire, went down in history as one of the cruelest and most depraved men to ever sit upon the Imperial Throne.
The Road to Power
Born in 1118 AD, Andronikos I Komnenos grew up to be a successful general in the Byzantine army, participating in many battles against the Seljuks in the East along with the Serbians and Hungarians in the West. He also enjoyed the power and privileges of being 1st cousin to the reigning Emperor, Manuel I Komnenos, who respected his cousin’s military capabilities and considered him to be his favorite in court at Constantinople.
What Manuel did not know, however, was that beneath his cousin’s veneer of loyal service was a lecherous, power-hungry man whose desire to become Emperor outweighed the friendship he had shared with Manuel since their childhood. It did not take long for Andronikos’ darker nature to manifest itself- in 1153 AD he would be imprisoned for conspiring against the Emperor, though Manuel would later pardon him after he participated in the Byzantine invasion of Hungary.
Besides his unfettered ambition, Andronikos was also a notorious womanizer whose appetites had no boundaries- he would go on to seduce two of his own nieces, a treasonous act that led to him fleeing to the East to escape Manuel’s wrath. Despite betraying his Emperor twice, Andronikos would earn Manuel’s pardon a second time by prostrating himself in front of his cousin with a chain around his neck. Through this act of humility, he was allowed to settle in Oinaion on the Black Sea coast, where he stayed until Manuel’s death in 1180 AD.
The death of Manuel I marked a turning point in the Byzantine Empire’s fortunes, as his reign marked the last time the Empire stood as a great power on the Mediterranean. His son and heir, Alexios II, was only eleven at the time of his father’s death, so his mother, Maria of Antioch, ruled until the young Emperor could come of age.
Maria of Antioch would prove to be a terrible regent, however, as she was far more interested in playing her own political games at court rather than addressing the various crises springing up throughout the Empire. As Serbia declared independence and the Seljuks advanced in Anatolia, the Empress became the scapegoat for all the Empire’s troubles in the eyes of the citizens of Constantinople.
There was one other important factor in the animosity towards Maria- her Catholic faith. Manuel I’s reign was perhaps the most Pro-Western of all Komnenoi, as the Emperor allowed Westerners into his court and gave Venetian, Pisan, and Genoan traders their own quarters in Constantinople where they could settle with their families. The Emperor would even participate in some jousting tournaments during his campaigns in Italy. Although the Great Schism of 1054 AD still poisoned relations between the Catholic West and Orthodox East, Manuel came closer than anyone to bridging that divide.
But while Manuel I dazzled Western monarchs with his charisma and desire for cooperation, the Byzantine populace only grew more resentful of his Pro-Western policies. The Westerners who had settled in Constantinople, known as “Latins” by the Greek residents of the city, now dominated the economy of the Empire, leading to growing animosity between the two groups. Maria only exacerbated manners by filling her court with Latin courtiers, allowing religious and ethnic tensions within the city to reach a boiling point.
As the popularity of the regency continued to plummet, Andronikos I recognized the opportunity for power arising in front of him. Despite his hedonist lifestyle, the old general was still popular with the Byzantine populace. Andronikos also held no love towards Manuel’s pro-Western policies, so he relished the opportunity to restore an unraveling Empire from its supposed enemies.
The Tyranny of Andronikos I
In 1182 AD, Andronikos gathered an army in the Empire’s eastern provinces and marched on Constantinople, refusing all attempts by Maria and Alexios II to buy him off. Court officials and military generals began defecting to him en masse as he approached the city, while the citizens of Constantinople grew excited at the prospect of ending the hated regency.
Through this wave of popular support, Andronikos entered Constantinople practically unopposed in April of 1182. Both Maria and Alexios II were deposed and arrested, and the Greek citizens of Constantinople celebrated the birth of the new regime.
These celebrations turned violent, however, when the most resentful of Constantinople’s citizens used the toppling of the regency as an opportunity to finally strike against the Latin residents of the city. About 60,000 Latins lived in the city in 1182 AD, and nearly all of them were brutally slaughtered as mobs attacked the inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. While Andronikos I did not authorize what became known as the Massacre of the Latins, he did nothing to stop it and allowed his Latin subjects to be mercilessly slain. The deaths of thousands of innocents destroyed Byzantium’s reputation in the West, leading to animosity and hatred that would come back to haunt them.
As the citizens of Constantinople killed each other in the streets, Andronikos had the imprisoned Maria of Antioch beheaded after forcing Alexios II to sign his own mother’s death warrant. Andronikos would then co-rule with his relative for only two months before having the 12-year-old strangled to death, with some sources claiming that Andronikos forced him to sign his own death warrant as well. In one final act of depravity, the 65-year-old Emperor married Agnes of France, Alexios II’s betrothed wife, despite her being only 12 at the time of their marriage.
Despite these early acts of brutality, the beginning of Andronikos’ reign did show some promise. Andronikos launched a strong anti-corruption campaign that forbade the selling of offices and punished corrupt officials. He also sought to check the power and influence of the nobility by limiting their land ownership and cutting back on many of the privileges granted to them by Manuel.
But Andronikos’s paranoia and cruelty would soon transform these well-intentioned reforms into a wave of terror. No court official or general was safe from the Emperor, and Andronikos grew to enjoy blinding those he suspected of disloyalty. Although these acts of brutality were initially restricted to the upper classes, even the common folk of the Byzantine Empire were not safe under their Emperor’s merciless gaze. When the cities of Nicaea, Prusa, and Lopadium revolted in 1184 AD, Andronikos had the rebels exiled, blinded, or even impaled as a warning to all who would oppose their monarch.
As the Byzantine Empire bled under the tyranny of Andronikos, the Empire’s neighbors continued to pick apart its crumbling frontiers. Hungary and Serbia continued to seize Balkan territories for themselves, the Normans in Sicily prepared an invasion force, and a rogue Komnenian prince seized Cyprus and ruled it as an independent kingdom. Andronikos cared little about the growing threats surrounding his Empire, preferring instead to indulge in his lecherous desires and hunt down his enemies, both real and perceived.
Downfall
In 1185 AD, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily invaded the Byzantine Empire with an army of over 80,000 men. Motivated both by territorial gain and the desire to avenge the Massacre of the Latins, the Normans burned and pillaged their way through Greece, where they stopped at the city of Thessalonica. The city fell after a short siege, and the Normans would pillage Thessalonica of its valuables and massacred nearly all of its Greek inhabitants.
News of the Sack of Thessalonica and the approaching Norman army soon caused panic in Constantinople, and the citizenry looked to their Emperor for some sort of response. Andronikos, however, was far too occupied with his own pleasures to organize a proper defense of the city.
As the citizens of Constantinople grew ever more anxious, however, Andronikos began to realize that his hold on the throne was no longer secure. Unfortunately for the Empire, this insecurity only fueled his paranoia instead of motivating him to action, and the Emperor began making plans to exterminate the entire aristocratic class.
On September 11th, 1185 AD, Andronikos consulted a water-divining oracle to discover who would succeed him as Emperor. When the oracle replied that Isaac Angelos, a competent general and distant relative of the Komnenoi, would succeed him, Andronikos ordered him to be captured and put to death.
Unfortunately for Andronikos, this prophecy would become entirely self-fulfilling. Isaac Angelos was able to successfully fight off the men sent to arrest him, taking refuge in the Hagia Sophia and appealing to the citizens of Constantinople to save him from this injustice. The citizenry, who had turned against Andronikos after nearly 2 years of tyranny, proclaimed him Emperor, forcing Andronikos to flee from Constantinople. He was unable to get far before Isaac’s supporters captured him, however, and he was dragged in front of the new Emperor. His reign of terror and hedonism meant that there was no one willing to listen to his pleas for sympathy and mercy, and Isaac decided to leave him to the justice of the city mob.
What followed was perhaps one of the most brutal deaths to ever be inflicted on a deposed Emperor, exposing how deeply the citizens of Constantinople despised their former head of state. For three days Andronikos was tied to a post and exposed to the mob’s resentment. His beard was torn out, his teeth pulled, and his head shaved as the citizens of Constantinople took turns beating him. Some of his mistresses even took part in this violent public spectacle, with one prostitute pouring boiling water on his face. His right arm was eventually cut off with an axe, and the people would seat him on a camel and mockingly parade him through the streets. Despite facing this indignant torture, Andronikos remained defiant and refused to grant the crowd the satisfaction of a plea for mercy.
After three days of this mob justice, Andronikos was taken to the Hippodrome and hung before two pillars in front of the jeering crowds. There, the Tyrant Emperor finally met his end as the crowd tore his body into pieces, and his bones would remain unburied for several years as a final act of desecration against the hated Emperor.
Conclusion
When Andronikos I Komnenos began his reign as Byzantine Emperor, he promised a return to the glory days of the Komnenian dynasty and the toppling of a hated regime. Instead, Andronikos became the last of the House of Komnenos to rule Byzantium, and his acts of lechery and brutality destroyed what goodwill he may have had with the populace.
Through his paranoia, thousands of aristocrats, court officials, and military officers faced mutilation or death on trumped-up charges, ruining the social cohesion of the Empire and emptying it of its most talented men. Through his ambition, 60,000 Latin civilians faced death at the hands of the city mob, destroying his Empire’s diplomatic reputation and setting the stage for the horrors of the Fourth Crusade. Finally, through his inaction, the Empire faced a deadly Norman invasion that had already burned through Greece and now threatened the capital of the Empire itself.
Were it not for his paranoia, Andronikos could have been a capable Emperor reasserting Imperial authority after a weak and despised regency, as his reign did begin with some positive reforms. Instead, the reign of terror brought by him would mark the end of the Komnenian Restoration and Byzantium’s status as a major power, and the beginning of a downward spiral that would culminate in the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 AD.
