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Selected biography
Manuel I Komnenos or Comnenus (Greek: Μανουήλ Α' Κομνηνός, Manouēl I Komnēnos, 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180) was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent west, invaded Italy, successfully handled the passage of the dangerous Second Crusade through his empire, and established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader kingdoms of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the east Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. However, towards the end of his reign Manuel's achievements in the east were compromised by a serious defeat at Myriokephalon, which in large part resulted from his arrogance in attacking a well-defended Seljuk position.
Alexios I Komnenos or Alexius I Comnenus (Greek: Αλέξιος Α' Κομνηνός, Alexios I Komnēnos; 1048 – August 15, 1118), Byzantine emperor (1081–1118), was the son of John Komnenos and Anna Dalassena and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos (emperor 1057–1059). The military, financial and territorial recovery of the Byzantine Empire known as Komnenian restoration began in his reign.
Alexios' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors of other families between 1059 and 1081. Under one of these emperors, Romanos IV Diogenes (1067–1071), he served with distinction against the Seljuk Turks. Under Michael VII Doukas Parapinakes (1071–1078) and Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–1081) he was also employed, along with his elder brother Isaac, against rebels in Asia Minor, Thrace and in Epirus.
Constantine XI Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος ΙΑ' Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος, Kōnstantinos XI Dragasēs Palaiologos), (February 8, 1405– May 29, 1453) was the last reigning Byzantine Emperor, from 1448 to his death.
Constantine was born in Constantinople as the eighth of ten children of Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš, the daughter of the Serbian prince Constantine Dragaš of Kumanovo. He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under the supervision of his parents. During the absence of his older brother in Italy, Constantine was regent in Constantinople from 1437-1440.
Isaac II Angelos or Angelus (Greek: Ισαάκιος Β’ Άγγελος, Isaakios II Angelos) (September 1156 – January 1204) was Byzantine emperor from 1185 to 1195, and again from 1203 to 1204.
His father Andronikos Dukas Angelos, a military leader in Asia Minor (c. 1122 – aft. 1185), married bef. 1155 Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa (c. 1125 – aft. 1195), was a son of Theodora Komnene (b. January 5, 1096/1097), the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina, by her marriage c. 1120 to Konstantinos Angelos, Admiral of Sicily (c. 1085 – aft. July 1166), son of one Manolis Angelos from Philadelphia. Thus Isaac was a member of the extended imperial clan.
George of Trebizond (1395 – 1486), Greek philosopher and scholar, one of the pioneers of the Renaissance, was born on the island of Crete, and derived his surname Trapezuntius from the fact that his ancestors were from Trebizond.
At what period he came to Italy is not certain; according to some accounts he was summoned to Venice about 1430 to act as amanuensis to Francesco Barbaro, who appears to have already made his acquaintance; according to others he did not visit Italy till the time of the Council of Florence (1438-1439).
He learned Latin from Vittorino da Feltre, and made such rapid progress that in three years he was able to teach Latin literature and rhetoric. His reputation as a teacher and a translator of Aristotle was very great, and he was selected as secretary by Pope Nicholas V, an ardent Aristotelian. The needless bitterness of his attacks upon Plato (in the Comparatio Aristotelis et Platonis), which drew forth a powerful response from Johannes Bessarion, and the manifestly hurried and inaccurate character of his translations of Plato, Aristotle and other classical authors, combined to ruin his fame as a scholar, and to endanger his position as a teacher of philosophy. (Pope Pius II was among the critics of George's translations.) The indignation against George on account of his first-named work was so great that he would probably have been compelled to leave Italy had not Alfonso V of Aragon given him protection at the court of Naples.
Maria Palaiologina was an illegitimate daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (ruled 1258-1282). She was betrothed by her father to the Mongol ruler Hulagu, the destroyer of the caliphate of Baghdad, as part of an alliance between the Byzantines and the Mongols.
Maria left Constantinople in 1265, escorted by the abbot of Pantokrator monastery, Theodosius de Villehaurdoin. In Kayseri they got the news that Hulagu was dead, so that Maria got married with the son of the Khan, Abagha. She resided in Persia at the Il-Khan court of Abagha for a period of 15 years, until her husband was poisoned by her brother Achmed. She led a pious life and was quite influential on the politics and the religious outlooks of the Mongols, who were mostly already Nestorian Christians. They had previously looked to Doquz Khatun, Hulagu's wife, as a religious leader. After the death of Doquz, this sentiment turned to Maria, who was called "Despina Khatun" from the Greek appellation Despoina, "Lady".
Theoktistos (Greek: Θεόκτιστος, died November 20, 855), was an influential senior Byzantine official during the reigns of Michael II and his son Theophilos, and regent for the underage Michael III. He is noted for his administrative and political competence, for ending the Iconoclasm (the "Triumph of Orthodoxy"), and for promoting a major renaissance in education within the Empire with the foundation of the University of Magnaura.
Theoktistos was also the uncle of Cyril and Methodius. Following the death of their father, in 843 he invited them to Constantinople to help them in their studies. During the regency, the empress' brother, Bardas, was Theoktistos' primary antagonist. In 855, Michael III came of age at 16, and turned the control of the government over to his uncle Bardas, raising him to the highest rank - that of caesar. It was then that Bardas and Michael decided to eliminate Theoktistos, who was arrested and killed.
Flavius Belisarius (Greek: Βελισάριος) (505(?) – 565) was one of the greatest generals of the Byzantine Empire and one of the most acclaimed generals in history. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian I's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Western Roman Empire, which had been lost just under a century previously.
Although comparatively less well-known than other famed military leaders such as Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte, his skills and accomplishments were matched by very few other military commanders in history.
One of the defining features of Belisarius' career was his operating under conditions of little or no support from his emperor Justinian and Byzantium, and nonetheless succeeding through military genius. He is among a select group of men considered to be the "Last of the Romans".
Basil II, later surnamed the Bulgar-slayer (Greek: Βασίλειος Β΄ Βουλγαροκτόνος, Basileios II Boulgaroktonos, 958 – December 15, 1025), known in his time as Basil the Porphyrogenitus and Basil the Young to distinguish him from his ancestor Basil I the Macedonian, was a Byzantine emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from 10 January 976 to 15 December 1025.
The first part of his long reign was dominated by civil war against powerful generals from the Anatolian aristocracy. Following their submission, Basil oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontier, and above all, the final and complete subjugation of Bulgaria, the Empire's foremost European foe, after a prolonged struggle. At his death, the Empire stretched from Southern Italy to the Caucasus and from the Danube to the borders of Palestine, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests, four centuries earlier.
Despite near-constant warfare, Basil also showed himself a capable administrator, reducing the power of the great land-owning families who dominated the Empire's administration and military, and filling the Empire's treasury. Of far-reaching importance was Basil's decision to offer the hand of his sister Anna to Vladimir I of Kiev in exchange for military support, which led to the Christianization of the Kievan Rus', and the incorporation of Russia within the Byzantine cultural sphere.
Zoe Karbonopsina, i.e., "with the Coal-Black Eyes" (Greek: Ζωή Καρβωνοψίνα, romanized: Zōē Karbōnopsina), was the fourth wife of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise and the mother of Constantine VII.
Zoe Karbonopsina was a relative of the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor and a niece of the admiral Himerios. Desperate to sire a son, Leo VI married his mistress Zoe on 9 January 906, only after she had given birth to the future Constantine VII at the end of 905. However, this constituted his fourth marriage, and was therefore uncanonical in the eyes of the Church, which had already been reluctant to accept his third marriage to Eudokia Baïana, who died in childbirth in 901.
Although the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos reluctantly baptised Constantine, he forbade the emperor from marrying for the fourth time. Leo VI married Zoe with the assistance of a cooperative priest, Thomas, but Nicholas' continued opposition to the marriage led to his removal from office and replacement by Euthymios in 907. The new patriarch attempted a compromise by defrocking the offending priest but recognizing the marriage.