Alexios II Komnenos

Alexios II Komnenos (; 14 September 1169 September 1183), Latinized Alexius II Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1180 to 1183. He ascended to the throne as a minor. For the duration of his short reign, the imperial power was de facto held by regents.

Biography Early years Born in the purple at Constantinople, Alexios was the long-awaited son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (who gave him a name that began with the letter alpha as a fulfillment of the AIMA prophecy) and Maria of Antioch. In 1171 he was crowned co-emperor, and in 1175 he accompanied his father at Dorylaion in Asia Minor in order to have the city rebuilt. On 2 March 1180, at the age of ten, he was married to Agnes of France aged eight, daughter of King Louis VII of France. She was thereafter known as Anna, Other historians variously identify them as a young Andronikos IV Palaiologos or Andronikos II Palaiologos with their respective parents. |leftWhen Manuel I died in September 1180, Alexios II succeeded him as emperor. At this time, however, he was an uneducated boy with only amusement in mind. The imperial regency was then undertaken by the dowager empress and the prōtosebastos Alexios Komnenos (a namesake cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover.

In the years following Alexios' mysterious disappearance, many young men resembling him tried to claim the throne. In the end, none of those pseudo-Alexioi managed to become emperor.

Portrayal in fiction Alexios is a character in the historical novel Agnes of France (1980) by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis. The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel I, Alexios II, and Andronikos I through the eyes of Agnes.

Ancestry