Byzantium Emperor Alexius Comnenus " Why isn't he called "the great"?

[ByzantineCaesar]

Indeed. Unfortunately Andronikos Komnenos and the Angeloi came to power. Had a capable Emperor taken over, perhaps a more stable system that wasn't so dependable on a capable Emperor could have been introduced.

I've been developing a theory in which King Bela III of Hungary became Roman Emperor. Béla was the second son of King Géza II of Hungary. In 1164, Emperor Manuel I of the Romans signed a treaty with the new King of Hungary, Stephen III, and Bela was sent to be educated in the Byzantine court. Emperor Manuel saw a true potential in Bela and, as he had no sons, married him to his daughter, Maria Komnena, thus making him heir to the throne. Manuel created the title of despotes, seconded only by the Emperor, and granted it to Bela. Bela was also given a Byzantine name, Alexius (according to the AIMA prophecy). However, in 1166 Manuel finally got a son called Alexius and he cancelled the engagment of Bela-Alexius and Maria, depriving him of his title of despotes. In 1172, Bela's brother, King Stephen III of Hungary, died childless and Béla returned to Hungary to claim the throne. He later died in 1196, aged 47/48, being one of the best Kings of Hungary. Ever.

So, let's say that ITTL (in this time-line, as we call it on alternatehistory.com) Alexius II Komnenos was never born and that King Stephen III lived longer (quite possible. He died with 24 years). That way Manuel I dies without a male son and Béla becomes Emperor Alexius II of the Romans. That means no Andronikos Komnenos as Emperor and no Isaac II/Alexius III. There will be no Latin Massacre of Constantinople and the 4th Crusade could be butterflied away. What would happen?

[Heiro de Bodemloze]

Well, Hannibal wasnt called "the Great" either.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Well, Hannibal wasnt called "the Great" either.

Hannibal didn't achieve anything, aside from making Rome the dominant force around the Mediterranean Sea for the next hundreds of years. He lost the war and destroyed Carthage hopes for survival.

[Scipio Afracanis]

Because he failed to conquer Byzantium back to the size of 10th Century?

But be honest half of "the Great" are just overrated.

This thread got me thinking about a few of the "Greats".

Namely Alexander and Frederick. Both inherited there armies and nations in good to great conditions so I guess Alexius like Frederick William and Phillip II get over looked for there accomplishments and there sons get all/ lions share of the credit.

[Treize]

The three Comnenan emperors are all great. But abolishing (most of) the proffesional tagmata was not that wise I believe. Feudalisation had its downsides.


And let's not forget the Venetians who began to colonise the empire...

[Manuel I Komnenos]

The three Comnenan emperors are all great. But abolishing (most of) the proffesional tagmata was not that wise I believe. Feudalisation had its downsides.


And let's not forget the Venetians who began to colonise the empire...

The professional tagmata were destroyed at the time Alexius was raised to the throne, just as the majority of the Byzantine army. Alexius created new Imperial units, such as the Vestiaritai, the Vardariots, the Archontopouloi and a few more units. During the reign of Basil II, the Byzantine Army was able to keep around 50.000-100.000 men in the tagmata which were the professional units of the Byzantine Army and were kept in reserve, camped in Thrace, ready for expeditions whenever it was needed. Unfortunately the cost of such units to be maintained was enormously huge. Though still rich, the Byzantine Empire at the time of the Komnenoi cannot even be compared with the economic capabilities of the Byzantine Empire in previous years.

[Heiro de Bodemloze]

Hannibal didn't achieve anything, aside from making Rome the dominant force around the Mediterranean Sea for the next hundreds of years. He lost the war and destroyed Carthage hopes for survival.

Hannibal won three great victories over Rome: Lake Trasimine, Trebia and Cannae. Hannibal brought Rome to the brink of destruction if he only had marched on Rome he would have won the war. Hannibal hold his ground against Rome for sixteen years nearly without reinforcements, because the Senate of Carthage had abandoned him. If I were Hannibal I would feel a bit insulted for you saying he didnt achieve anything.

[AnthoniusII]

I quess that historians or common people do not give the nickname "the Great" to anyone . I t has to do what people waited from him and what they got. In some cases victors avoid to give to an ennemy of theirs the nick name "The Great".
Lets see...
Many medieval Roman emperors and generals acomplished triumphs and huge victories on campaigns that seamed imposible to win.
Did historians named Justinianus or even his general Belisarius "Great"?
Did historians named Basill II great that faught in 4 warfronts in the same time and defeaded all his ennemies plus when he died his state was the richest and stongest in the western semishear?
Did historians named Heraclius "Great" ?
All these and many more generals and emperors did not recieved the name Great because they were not western people.
In some cases in middle ages common people did name some of the "great" but they used a diferend word.
The greek word Stratelates was not a millitary rank. For the common people stratelates was the general or emperor that achieved huge victories and crashed the ennemy repeatetly. So when anyone searches the middle ages in the Roman Empire he must seek this word and not the word "great".

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Hannibal won three great victories over Rome: Lake Trasimine, Trebia and Cannae. Hannibal brought Rome to the brink of destruction if he only had marched on Rome he would have won the war. Hannibal hold his ground against Rome for sixteen years nearly without reinforcements, because the Senate of Carthage had abandoned him. If I were Hannibal I would feel a bit insulted for you saying he didnt achieve anything.

He didn't achieve anything lasting.
He was a great general, but his strategy was wrong. Rome won and destroyed Carthage after a few years.
Alexander destroyed an Empire and his legacy lived through his successors in the Seleucid, Macedonian and Ptolemy Kingdoms.

[Heiro de Bodemloze]

He didn't achieve anything lasting.
He was a great general, but his strategy was wrong. Rome won and destroyed Carthage after a few years.
Alexander destroyed an Empire and his legacy lived through his successors in the Seleucid, Macedonian and Ptolemy Kingdoms.

Ok, I agree to that.

[bigdaddy1204]

Actually, I think there is an argument to be made that Alexios was not such a great emperor after all. Much of the favourable view that we get from reading John Julius Norwich comes straight from the pages of Anna Comnena’s biography of Alexios. Written by his daughter, obviously she wanted to make Alexios look as good as possible.

While I agree that from the book, he does emerge as perhaps the most heroic leader in the whole of Byzantine history, with only Heraclius facing a similarly disastrous situation, when you dive deeper into the details you find that actually Alexios’ record is pretty disappointing in some important ways.

Much of Asia Minor was still under imperial rule when Alexios came to the throne in April 1081. Alexios withdrew the remaining Anatolian troops to fight the Normans, only to be defeated at Dyrrhachium and several other battles. His defeat and the ineffective withdrawal of troops allowed the Turks to establish themselves, with fatal consequences.

Alexios also failed to recapture much of Asia Minor, a failure that is crystalised by the fact that even Nicaea was not retaken until 1097. By this time Alexios had been on the throne for 16 years – and the city is barely across the straits from Constantinople. Hardly a breath-taking record of success.

The results of the Crusade were also disappointing. Despite the huge effort, Alexios failed to even take Iconium back for the empire, despite it being taken by the Crusaders along with Caesarea in Cappadocia and many other cities. This is a poor performance, and the Turks established themselves in the city as their new capital. Alexios had a golden opportunity at this time to hold the city – but he failed.

The main success of Alexios was that he simply survived. Although he was frequently defeated, he managed to keep his hold on the throne where others had failed. But the price was heavy – by the time he died in 1118, the Turks were now firmly established in most of Anatolia.

Had Alexios focused on Asia Minor early on in his reign, or had he been more successful in his initial battles against the Normans, it’s likely more of Anatolia could have been salvaged and the Turks possibly denied a permanent base there.

The territories Alexios gained by focusing on the Balkans were far less important to the empire’s long-term survival than the Anatolian territories that he abandoned. Even Antioch was not lost until 1085 – well into Alexios’ reign. Alexios failed to recover it, and instead the city ended up under independent Norman princes who were hostile to the Byzantine Empire.

It’s hard not to see Alexios’ reign as a failure – and indeed the Komnenian period as a whole as a failure. Even the subsequent emperors John II and Manuel I achieved minimal gains in Anatolia, utterly failing to dislodge the Turks from Ankara, Iconium and Ceasarea.

Had Alexios truly been great, he would have reclaimed all the Byzantine heartlands in Asia Minor to their pre-1071 borders. His actual achievement was a small strip of coast land in the west and north. It was during his reign that the Byzantine Empire shifted from being a true Empire and world power, to a small diminished Greek state huddled around the Aegean and beset by enemies.

To be sure, things could have been worse – perhaps were it not for Alexios’ efforts, Byzantium would have fallen altogether in the 1080s and Constantinople been taken by the Normans or some other power. But with the technology of the time, this was never seriously likely. He basically achieved the minimum – survival. But I don’t think he, or any of his three successors, truly deserve the label “The Great”.

[Cyclops]

The three Comnenan emperors are all great. But abolishing (most of) the proffesional tagmata was not that wise I believe. Feudalisation had its downsides.


And let's not forget the Venetians who began to colonise the empire...

Very good points. The Comneni were just one family in a pack of greedy dynatoi who made the throne the plaything of military families intent of enriching themselves. The exhibited some military skill but typically were utterly ignorant of economic matters and lacked administrative finesse. They made short-sighted deals with Venice that doomed the empire more surely than any loss to the Turks.

Alexios himself had some ability as a ruler but I think he traded away much of his patrimony because "ZOMG I have an army now I rulz". His invitation to the Franks to supply military aid had a surprising result that he was able to manipulate to his advantage but he wasn't a farsighted ruler, more a capable bloke making it up as he went along. The arrogance of his daughter's outlook expressed in the Alexiad is a clue to the way the ERE aristoi viewed themselves: like pre-Revolutionary France society was marred by a cascade of disdain from "superiors" toward "inferiors".

[Akrotatos]

@ Cyclops and bigdaddy

You have to put everything into context. Alexios unlike many other greats and generals, not only did NOT have an army to start with, he had an empty treasury and far more capable enemies than many other Emperors.

Normans, Pechenegs, Seljuks, Crusaders each one alone was capable of causing a total collapse. Undr Alexios the empire went from being in its final moments to a rich, prosperous state with a solid dynasty. He was not a military genious perhaps to win against impossible odds but he was among the top emperors of ERE for sure.

[Roma_Victrix]

Let's put it this way guys: if someone like Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons (originally just of Wessex) can be given the same appellation as Alexander the Great, then surely the same can be extended to Alexios I Komnenos.

[neoptolemos]

Let's put it this way guys: if someone like Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons (originally just of Wessex) can be given the same appellation as Alexander the Great, then surely the same can be extended to Alexios I Komnenos.

How many are interested in Komnenoi Eastern Romans and how many in Alfred the Great my friend?
Alexios figure suffered from the predicament of being a "Byzantine" in western historiography which for centuries was heavily biased against ERE.

[Claudius Gothicus]

The anti-Byzantine bias was quite true for many years, that's right. Alexios and other Eastern Roman figures were painted as greedy and scheming rulers with petty military resources and little regard for morals or ethics, their image suffered from orientalist distortions as well : decadent, treacherous and self-centered. Crusader accounts, the lack of cohesion in the Constantinople court and Rome's main interest in painting the eastern church as deranged were main contributors.

[Roma_Victrix]

and Rome's main interest in painting the eastern church as deranged were main contributors.

This last part I find the most convincing, considering how the East-West Schism of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches had just recently occurred, a mere two years before Alexios I Komnenos was born in 1056. Since the Roman Catholic Church viewed the Byzantines as recently excommunicated, their attitude towards them was somewhat similar to how they would treat an excommunicated monarch in Western Europe. This would entail, of course, all sorts of snubs and arguments painting the picture that said rulers were unfit to rule and providential signs from God proved as much (in their minds).

[NikeBG]

How many are interested in Komnenoi Eastern Romans and how many in Alfred the Great my friend?
Alexios figure suffered from the predicament of being a "Byzantine" in western historiography which for centuries was heavily biased against ERE.

I don't get it. Are the Westerners the only ones who can call someone "the Great"? I mean, even our own Tsar Simeon is called "the Great", despite being not even a Byzantine, but something even less. Still, our historians dubbed him "the Great" and now he is "Tsar Simeon the Great". I don't see why we should wait or expect for someone else to be "interested in us", in order for us to call someone ("of our own") the way we want.

[neoptolemos]

I don't get it. Are the Westerners the only ones who can call someone "the Great"? I mean, even our own Tsar Simeon is called "the Great", despite being not even a Byzantine, but something even less. Still, our historians dubbed him "the Great" and now he is "Tsar Simeon the Great". I don't see why we should wait or expect for someone else to be "interested in us", in order for us to call someone ("of our own") the way we want.

Well indeed you have a point but regarding the Byzantines and Byzantine history then we have to bare in mind that it was viewed for a long time as something "exotic" as there was no "physical" presence of a "Byzantine" state in the early era of modern historiography even in the East.

[Claudius Gothicus]

It's undeniable that from the beggining of the XX century, even a little before, the Byzantines have been slowly but steadily "rehabilitated" into the western popular view as a sort of old and battled empire that still managed to last the ages and survive while defending the then precarious western European states from eastern menaces, and holding back the Islamic juggernaut for centuries, due to a eclectic combination of good military leaders, strong starting position and daring political moves. Over time both historians and the general public have decidedly shifted their biased view of the eastern empire to a more comprehensive one, and even a positive one in some cases.