Alexios I Megas Komnenos (; ; c. 1182 – 1 February 1222) or Alexius I Megas Comnenus with his brother David, the founder of the Empire of Trebizond and its ruler from 1204 until his death in 1222. The two brothers were the only male descendants of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I, who had been dethroned and killed in 1185, and thus claimed to represent the legitimate government of the Empire following the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Although his rivals governing the Nicaean Empire succeeded in becoming the de facto successors, and rendered his dynastic claims to the imperial throne moot, Alexios' descendants continued to emphasize both their heritage and connection to the Komnenian dynasty by later referring to themselves as Megas Komnenos ("grand Komnenos").R. Macrides, "What's in the name 'Megas Komnenos'?" Archeion Pontou 35 (1979), pp. 238–245
While his brother David conquered a number of Byzantine provinces in northwestern Anatolia, Alexios defended his capital Trebizond from an unsuccessful siege by the Seljuk Turks around the year 1205.Kuršanskis, "L'empire de Trébizonde et les Turcs au 13e siècle", Revue des études byzantines, 46 (1988), pp. 110f Further details of his reign are sparse. Muslim chroniclers record how, in 1214, Alexios was captured by the Turks in the field while defending Sinope; despite sending an envoy to seek their surrender the city refused to capitulate to Sultan Kaykaus I, and Alexios was tortured in sight of the Sinopians. The city submitted to Kaykaus and Alexios was freed after becoming Kaykaus' vassal. Alexios died at the age of forty.
From Constantinople to Georgia Alexios was the eldest son of Manuel Komnenos, and a grandson of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I (reigned 1183–1185). Andronikos had taken refuge at the court of King George III of Georgia in the 1170s, and was a governor in the Pontus when his cousin the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) died; upon hearing the news, he marched on Constantinople and seized the imperial throne. His reign was a turbulent one, and in 1185 Andronikos was dethroned and killed while his son Manuel was blinded and may have died from this mutilation.A. A. Vasiliev, "The Foundation of the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1222)", Speculum, 11 (1936), pp. 5–8
Manuel left two children, Alexios and David. Their mother's name is not recorded in the primary sources; Byzantinist Alexander Vasiliev speculates that it is "possible" that their mother was a Georgian princess.Vasiliev, "Foundation", p. 17 Somehow the boys arrived at the court of their relative Queen Tamar of Georgia; scholars have speculated when and how they made their way there. One school of thought endorses the hypothesis of Fallmerayer, who believed the boys were taken from Constantinople during the chaos of their grandfather's fall from power in 1185, when Alexios was about three years old, and came to Georgia early in Tamar's reign. Another school of thought follows George Finlay's belief that the boys remained in Constantinople, and although educated in the capital, were somehow safe from Andronikos' successor, emperor Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195 and 1203–1204); Finlay argued that they were not at risk from "a government which, like that of the Byzantine empire, was recognized to be elective, and in which their father had been excluded from the throne by the exercise of an acknowledged constitutional prerogative."George Finlay, The History of Greece and the Empire of Trebizond, (1204–1461) (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1877), p. 317 Older writers who had no knowledge of the chronicle of the Trapezuntine chronicler Michael Panaretos nor access to Georgian records, such as Edward Gibbon, assumed the brothers were simply made governors of Trebizond, and when the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople, Alexios declared himself emperor there. Vasiliev discussed these opinions in a 1936 article published in Speculum and considered Fallmerayer's hypothesis as closer to the truth.Vasiliev, "Foundation", pp. 9–12
Exactly how Alexios and Queen Tamar of Georgia were related is not clear. According to Michael Panaretos, Queen Tamar was Alexios' "paternal relative" (προς πατρός θεὶα), a phrase that has baffled scholars. As early as 1854 the Russian scholar Kunik proposed that this phrase meant that Alexios' mother was Rusudan a little-known sister of Tamar, a theory Vasiliev endorsed. Cyril Toumanoff argued that their grandfather Andronikos, while in Georgia, had married an unnamed sister of king George III.Toumanoff, "On the Relationship between the Founder of the Empire of Trebizond and the Georgian Queen Thamar", Speculum, 15 (1940), pp. 299–312 More recently Michel Kuršanskis has argued against Toumanoff's theory, producing evidence that Alexios' mother and/or grandmother were daughters of the houses of Palaiologos or Doukas, yet failing to offer an explanation why Panaretos describes Tamar as Alexios' paternal aunt.Kuršanskis, "L'Empire de Trébizonde et la Géorgie", Revue des études byzantines, 35 (1977). pp. 237–256
Despite the research of Vasiliev, Toumanoff, Kuršanskis and others, Alexios' life is a blank between 1185, when Andronikos was deposed and murdered, and 1204 when he and David arrived at Trebizond—although this lack of information has not prevented scholars from proposing various hypotheses. All authorities agree that Alexios and his brother found refuge at Tamar's court. Vasiliev even speculates that "Georgian became their native tongue" and that they "were thoroughly Georgian in language and education as well as in political ideals", but possibly "some Greeks were among their attendants in order that they might be familiar with the language of their own country".Vasiliev, "Foundation", p. 18 However, Kuršanskis notes that there are few traces of Georgian influence in the administration and culture of the Empire of Trebizond, and points out that its elite always looked towards Constantinople for their political and religious models.Kuršanskis, "Trébizonde et la Géorgie", p. 238
Return from Georgia After marching from Georgia, and with the help of their paternal relative Queen Tamar, Alexios and David occupied Trebizond in April 1204.Michael Panaretos, Chronicle, ch. 1. Greek text and English translation in Scott Kennedy, Two Works on Trebizond, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 52 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2019), p. 3 That same month Alexios was proclaimed emperor at the age of 22, an act considered by later writers as the moment the Empire of Trebizond was founded.Finlay, History, p. 370; Miller, Trebizond, pp. 14–19
Vasiliev was one of the first historians to suspect that Tamar assisted her young relatives for reasons beyond familial loyalty. "Religiously minded, Tamar had the habit of bestowing alms on monasteries and churches not only in her own country but also all over the Near East", Vasiliev wrote in 1936. One such gift she bestowed on a group of monks before they left for Jerusalem was taken from them by the Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos (r. 1195–1203) as they sailed past Constantinople; although Tamar subsequently made up for the theft by giving the monks a much more lavish gift, Alexios' theft insulted the queen. She decided to avenge the insult by supporting her nephews in their invasion of Byzantine territories.Vasiliev, "Foundation", pp. 18–20
The date Alexios entered Trebizond may be narrowed down even further. Sergey Karpov has identified a lead seal of Alexios, on one side "the image of a strategos in the peaked helmet leaded by hand by St. George" with the inscriptions Ἀλέξιος ὁ Κομνηνός [Alexios Komnenos] and Ὁ Ἅ(γιος) Γεώργιος [Saint George] on either side; on the obverse is a scene of Ἡ Ἁγία Ἀνάστασις [The Holy Resurrection] with the corresponding inscription. Karpov interprets the significance of this image and the inscription as portraying the most important achievement of his life, St. George inviting the victorious prince to enter Trebizond and opening the gates of the city with his left hand. The importance of St. George was that Easter—the date of the Resurrection—in 1204 fell on 25 April, while the memorial date of St. George was 23 April. "So I dared to assume," writes Karpov, "that the seal points out the date of the capture of Trebizond."Karpov, "New Archival Discoveries of Documents concerning the Empire of Trebizond", Gamer, 1 (2012), pp. 75f
Vasiliev points out that the brothers occupied Trebizond too early to have done so in response to the Crusaders capturing Constantinople; Alexios and David began their march on Trebizond before news of the sack of Constantinople on 13 April 1204 could reach either Trebizond or Georgia. According to Vasiliev, however, their original intention was not to seize a base from which they could recover the capital of the Byzantine Empire, but rather to carve out of the Byzantine Empire a buffer state to protect Georgia from the Seljuk Turks.Vasiliev, "Foundation", p. 19 Kuršanskis, while agreeing with Vasiliev that Tamar was motivated by revenge for Alexios Angelos's insult, proposed a more obvious motivation for the brothers' return to Byzantine territory: they had decided to raise the banner of revolt, depose Alexios Angelos, and return the imperial throne to the Komnenos dynasty. However, not long after they had gained control of Trebizond and the neighboring territories, news of the Latin conquest of Constantinople reached them, and the brothers entered the competition for recovery of the imperial city against Theodore I Laskaris in western Anatolia (ruler of the "Empire of Nicaea") and Michael Komnenos Doukas in mainland Greece (ruler of the "Despotate of Epirus").Kuršanskis, "Trébizonde et la Géorgie", pp. 243–245
Over the following months, David marched westward making himself master of the rest of the Pontus and of Paphlagonia. Anthony Bryer suggests the account in the Georgian Royal Annals of the invasion could be separated into the two routes the individual brothers took. Both started in Imereti and reached Trebizond; David proceeded along the coast, perhaps leading a fleet, capturing Kerasous, Cide, Amasra and Heraclea Pontica; meanwhile Alexios took possession of Limnia, Samsun and Sinope.Bryer, "David Komnenos and Saint Eleutherios", Archeion Pontou, 42 (1988–1989), p. 179 Although a minor port, Samsun was the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum's doorway to the Black Sea, and Alexios' occupation blocked the Sultanate from the trade and the opportunities of expansion Samsun represented; in the words of the Muslim historian Ali ibn al-Athir, he "closed the sea" to the Seljuks.Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071–1330, 1968 (New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 2014), p. 117 Gaining Paphlagonia gave the brothers access to an important base of support. The Komnenos family was popular in Paphlagonia, with which they had long-established ties, as it was their home province: Kastamone was said to be the ancestral castle of the Komnenoi;William Miller, Trebizond: The last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era: 1204–1461, 1926 (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), p. 15 during the reign of Isaac II Angelos a pretender to the throne had appeared in Paphlagonia, calling himself Alexios, and he succeeded in uniting several districts behind him.Vasiliev, "Foundation", pp. 21–23