While the Byzantine troops were assembling for the expedition, Alexios was approached by the Doukas faction at court, who convinced him to join a conspiracy against Nikephoros III.

During this time, Alexios was rumored to be the lover of Empress Maria of Alania, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, renowned for her beauty.

However, his mother consolidated the Doukas family connection by arranging the Emperor's marriage to Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, who would not have supported Alexios otherwise.

As a measure intended to keep the support of the Doukai, Alexios restored Constantine Doukas, the young son of Michael VII and Maria, as co-emperor and a little later betrothed him to his own first-born daughter Anna, who moved into the Mangana Palace with her fiancé and his mother.

Alexios became estranged from Maria, who was stripped of her imperial title and retired to a monastery, and Constantine Doukas was deprived of his status as co-emperor.

Alexios attempted to organize a resistance to the new regime from Adrianople and then Mosynopolis, where he was joined by the later usurper Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos in April 1204, after the definitive fall of Constantinople to the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire.

Trying to escape Boniface's " protection ", Alexios III attempted to seek shelter with Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the ruler of Epirus, in 1205.

* Eudokia Angelina, who married ( 1 ) King Stefan I Prvovenčani of Serbia, then ( 2 ) Emperor Alexios V Doukas, and ( 3 ) Leo Sgouros, ruler of Corinth.

Alexios V Doukas, surnamed Mourtzouphlos (, d. December 1205, Constantinople ) was Byzantine Emperor ( 5 February – 12 April 1204 ) during the second and final siege of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade.

Alexios Doukas emerged as a leader of the anti-Latin movement and personally led some skirmishes against the crusaders.

When the populace rebelled in late January 1204, the emperors barricaded themselves in the palace and entrusted Alexios Doukas with a mission to seek help from the crusaders.

Instead, Alexios Doukas used his access to the palace to arrest the emperors.

Alexios V Doukas was crowned in early February 1204.

Alexios Doukas

Alexios Doukas

nl: Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos

Michael VIII Palaiologos was the son of the megas domestikos Andronikos Doukas Komnenos Palaiologos by Theodora Angelina, the granddaughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.

At the end of January, 1204, the influential court official Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos took advantage of riots in the capital to imprison Alexios IV and seize the throne as Emperor Alexios V. At this point Isaac II died, allegedly of shock, while Alexios IV was strangled on 28 or 29 January.

As Alexios was entrusted with substantial armed forces to combat the impending Norman invasion, the Doukas faction, led by the Caesar John, conspired to overthrow Nikephoros and replace him with Alexios.

Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus (, 1056 – 15 August 1118 — note that some sources list his date of birth as 1048 ), was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118, and although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power.

The title ' Nobilissimus ' was given to senior army commanders, the future emperor Alexios I Komnenos being the first to be thus honoured.

Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to halt the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration.

Alexios was the son of Ioannis Komnenos and Anna Dalassena, and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos ( emperor 1057 – 1059 ).

Alexios ' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors of other families between 1059 and 1081.

Alexios was ordered to march against his brother-in-law Nikephoros Melissenos in Asia Minor but refused to fight his kinsman.

This did not, however, lead to a demotion, as Alexios was needed to counter the expected invasion of the Normans of Southern Italy, led by Robert Guiscard.

The mother of Alexios, Anna Dalassena, was to play a prominent role in this coup d ' état of 1081, along with the current empress, Maria of Alania.

Furthermore, to aid the conspiracy Maria had adopted Alexios as her son, though she was only five years older than he Maria was persuaded to do so on the advice of her own " Alans " and her eunuchs, who had been instigated to do his by Isaac Komnenos.

Anna then protested that the family was in fear for their lives, her sons were loyal subjects ( Alexios and Isaac were discovered absent without leave ), and had learned of a plot by enemies of the Komnenoi to have them both blinded and had, therefore, fled the capital so they may continue to be of loyal service to the emperor.

Alexios arranged for Maria to stay on the palace grounds, and it was thought that Alexios was considering marrying the erstwhile empress.

However, this situation changed drastically when Alexios ' first son John II Komnenos was born in 1087: Anna's engagement to Constantine was dissolved, and she was moved to the main Palace to live with her mother and grandmother.

This coin was struck by Alexios during his war against Robert Guiscard.

Andronikos was now formally proclaimed as co-emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexios II to be strangled with a bow-string ( October 1183 ).

While preparing for yet another offensive against Bulgaria in 1195, Alexios Angelos, the Emperor's older brother, taking advantage of the latter's absence from camp on a hunting expedition, proclaimed himself emperor, and was readily recognised by the soldiers as Emperor Alexios III.

John II succeeded his father as ruling basileus in 1118, but had already been proclaimed co-emperor by Alexios I on September 1, 1092.

Because at the time of the engagement Emperor Alexios I had no rightful male heirs to inherit the throne, young Constantine was proclaimed the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

Alexios IV was soon strangled by Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos, the lover of Euphrosyne's daughter Eudokia, who then proclaimed himself emperor as Alexios V. In April 1204 Euphrosyne fled the city along with her daughter and Alexios V, and they made their way to Mosynopolis, where Euphrosyne's husband Alexios III had taken refuge.

As a result, Alexios and Constantine, Maria's son, were now adoptive brothers and both Isaac and Alexios took an oath that they would safeguard his rights as emperor.

From there she negotiated with the emperor for the safety of family members left in the capital, while protesting her sons ' innocence of hostile actions ; under the falsehood of making a vesperal visit to worship at the church, she deliberately excluded the grandson of Botaneiates and his loyal tutor, met with Alexios and Isaac and fled for the forum of Constantine.

Alexios ' policy of integration of the nobility bore the fruit of continuity: every Byzantine emperor who reigned after Alexios I Komnenos was related to him by either descent or marriage.

Alexios II Komnenos or Alexius II Comnenus () ( 10 September 1169 – 24 September 1183, Constantinople ), Byzantine emperor ( 1180 – 1183 ), was the son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and Maria, daughter of Raymond, prince of Antioch.

In 1195, while Isaac II was away hunting in Thrace, Alexios was acclaimed as emperor by the troops with the conniving of Alexios ' wife Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera.

To compensate for this crime and to solidify his position as emperor, Alexios had to scatter money so lavishly as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically defenceless.

At that point the deposed emperor was ransomed by Michael I of Epirus, who sent him to Asia Minor, where Alexios ' son-in-law Theodore I Laskaris of the Empire of Nicaea was holding his own against the Latins.

The refugees reached Mosynopolis, the base of the deposed emperor Alexios III Angelos, where they were initially well received, and Alexios V married Eudokia Angelina.

Andronikos, now ( 1183 ) sole emperor, married twelve year old Agnes of France, previously betrothed to Alexios II.

* 1081 – Alexios I Komnenos is crowned Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, bringing the Komnenian dynasty to full power.

The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.

* 1169 – Alexios II Komnenos, Byzantine emperor ( d. 1183 )

* Mai or June – Raymond de Saint-Gilles sails to Byzantium to obtain the support of the emperor Alexios in his attempt to seize Tripoli.

In 1199-1201 another unsuccessful revolt was led by Manuel Kamytzes, son-in-law of Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos.

Despite his stalwart devotion to the young emperor and his mother the empress Anna of Savoy, his friendship with the late emperor had aroused both the jealousy of the Patriarch of Constantinople and his former protégé Alexios Apokaukos, and the paranoia of the empress who suspected him to be an usurper.