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AIMA: the blood of the Grand Komnenoi1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Rustam Shukurov
Rustam Shukurov*
Affiliation:
Department of Medieval History, Moscow State University
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Extract

The emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-80) asked a certain fortune teller, how long the dynasty of Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) would reign. The prophetic response was the word (blood), the first three letters designating the first initials of the Komnenian emperors in the order of succession, namely, Alexios I, John II (1118-43), Manuel I, the last alpha for the name of Manuel’s future successor.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 19 , 1995 , pp. 161 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1995

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References

1. The research on which this article is based was made possible by the generous support of the International Science Foundation. My special thanks are due to Professor S.P. Karpov and Professor A.A.M. Bryer who helped me with suggestions and comments.

2. Choniates, Nicetas, Historia, ed. Dieten, J.L. van, 1 (Berlin-New York 1975) 169 Google Scholar. English translation: Magoulias, H.J., O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates (Detroit 1984) 96 Google Scholar.

3. The prophecy already existed before 1167, when Manuel I accused the Protostrator Alexios Axouchos, the husband of his niece Maria, of conspiracy. Niketas ended his narration of the ‘conspiracy’ of Axouchos with a rhetorical reproach: ‘It behooved Manuel, who was worldly wise and not an ignorant and unlettered man, not to waste his labour seeking out him whose name began with alpha as the one to succeed him and bring an end to his rule, but to leave the charge of the reins of government to him who says he is the alpha and omega as John instructs me in the Apocalypse.’

There are some reasons to believe that the prophetic word and its interpretation appeared even earlier, before 1163. In 1163, Manuel I, who then had no male heir to succeed him, resolved the question of the succession by betrothing his daughter Maria to the Hungarian prince Bela. Bela was designated the heir of the Constantinopolitan throne. Taking the place of Manuel’s heir-son, Bela was baptised according to the Orthodox rite and was renamed Alexios.

It is most likely, that the emperor gave Bela this name in accordance with the AIMA prophecy. When Maria-Agnes of Antioch, the emperor’s second wife, gave birth to his long-awaited son, the latter accepted the same name Alexios and adopted the right to the imperial crown from Manuel’s son-in-law. Apparently, even before the betrothing of his daughter, Manuel I had been sure that his legitimate heir had to bear the name Alexios whoever he would be: either his own son or his son-in-law and foreigner. Manuel actually created a paradoxical situation: a name, already chosen to correspond to a certain place in the state hierarchy lacked only a person to bear it. See: Chômâtes, Historia, 81, 146, 169 (Magoulias, 47, 83, 96); C. Barzos. 1984), 1, 516-17; 2, 441-443, 459; Cheynet, J.-Cl., Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (Paris 1990) 109 Google Scholar. On the time of the appearance of the oracle see also below, note 22.

4. Barzos, , 2, 527; Idem, ‘La politique dynastique des Comnènes et des Anges, la prédiction AIMA (Sang) et l’héritage des Grands Comnènes de Trebizonde et de Anges-Comnènes-Doukas d’Epire face aux Lascarides de Nicée’, JOB 32/2 (1988) 357-358.

5. Bryer, A.A.M., ‘Family Planning in Trebizond: The AIMA of the Grand Komnenoi’, To Hellenikon. Studies in Honour of Speros Vryonis, Jr., v. 1: Hellenic Antiquity and Byzantium, ed. Langdon, J.S. (1993), 85–90 Google Scholar.

6. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., 1 (St. Petersburg 1891) 421–30 Google Scholar.

7. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, op. cit., 421, 424-25.

8. Alexios II was the son of Eudokia, the third daughter of Michael VIII Palaiologos; due to this relationship, the name Palaiologos became the part of Alexios’s dynastic title. See: Lampsides, O., ‘Grand Comnène Paléologue’, REB 42 (1984) 225–28 Google Scholar.

10. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, op. cit., 425.

Ibidem:

11. Ibidem. Besides, Loukites mentioned in his text all other Trapezuntine Komnenian rulers (Gidos [Andronikos I], Axouchos [John I], George [I]) and omitted to name Andronikos II (1263-66) and Theodora (1285) (Ibid., 425.15-16); Oikonomidès, N., ‘The Chancery of the Grand Komnenoi’, Archeion Pontou 35 (1975) 323 Google Scholar note 3.

12. Oikonomidès, , op.cit., 323. Cf.:Rosenqvist, J.O., ‘Three Trapezuntine Notes’, BS 54 (1993) 294–99 Google Scholar.

13. John, the second son of Andronikos, the emperor; Papadopoulos-Kerameus, , op. cit., 425–26 Google Scholar. Another interpretation in: Rosenqvist, J.O., ‘Three Trapezuntine Notes’, 297–98 Google Scholar.

14. Panaretos, ed. O. Lampsides (Athens 1958) 62.9-63.9.

15. Panaretos, 64.

16. Barzos, op. cit., 2, 527.

17. Chômâtes, , Historia, 1, 425–26 Google Scholar (Magoulias, 234).

18. According to Barzos’s suggestion, the prophetical books of Mámalos, the secretary of Alexios the Protostrator, which contained a list of future Byzantine emperors, were based on the AIMA idea. It does not seem impossible that Andronikos borrowed the idea of the second AIMA sequence from the books of Mámalos. See: Choniates, , Historia, 1, 310–312 Google Scholar (Magoulias, 172-73); Barzos, op. cit., 2, 489-490.

19. Eustathios of Thessalonica, La espugnazione di Tessalonica, ed. Kyriakides, S. (Palermo 1961) 52 Google Scholar; Barzos, , op. cit., 2, 488 Google Scholar.

20. Libadenos:

21. Cf.:Barzos, , ‘La politique’, 356 Google Scholar.

22. Possibly, the AIM A prophecy at the time of the birth of Manuel (1145) was not current for Andronikos or, more likely, did not then exist. This assumption may explain why the name Manuel preceded, out of order, the name John.

23. See, for example: Paphlagonos, Nicetas, PG 105, 565–568 Google Scholar; Magistros, Symeon (Bonn 1838) 689–690 Google Scholar; Manasses (Bonn 1836), 5309-5319 (p.226-227); Georges Pachymérès: Relations historiques, ed. A. Failler, 1 (Paris 1984) 48-49, note 2.

24. Toumanoff, C., Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie pour l’histoire de la Caucasie chrétienne.(Armenie-Géorgie-Albanie) (Roma 1977) 578 Google Scholar; Barzos, 1, 638; 2, 535-7.

25. Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 85 Google Scholar.

26. Uspenskij, F., Ocherki iz istorii Trapezundskoj imperii (Leningrad 1929) 40–41 Google Scholar. Oikonomidès, , op. cit., 324 Google Scholar. Cf.:Bryer, A. and Winfield, D., The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos 1 (Washington D.C. 1985) 184 Google Scholar.

27. According to Panaretos, in January 1332 Manuel D was eight years old and, therefore, was born about 1324 (Panaretos, 64.11-12).

28. See Case 2 in: Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 87 Google Scholar.

29. Panaretos, 62.2.

30. See also: Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 86–87 Google Scholar.

31. Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 87 Google Scholar.

32. See note 11; Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 87–88 Google Scholar.

33. This order of succession was preferred in classic Komnenian times as well. See, for example, Choniates, Historia, 1, 44, 49.

34. See also: Bryer, , ‘Family planning’, 86 Google Scholar.

35. Panaretos, 64. Bryer, A.A.M,, ‘Eclipses and Epithalamy in fourteenth-century Trebizond’, in: Byzantium. A Tribute to Andreas N. Straws, II (Athens 1986) 347–352 Google Scholar — idem, Peoples and Settlement in Anatolia andthe Caucasus, Collected Studies (London 1988), VI; Kislinger, E., ‘Macht und Moixeia am Hof von Trapezunt’, JÖB 44 (1994) 245–253 Google Scholar.

36. See: Bryer, A.A.M., ‘The Faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi’, in: Maistor: Classical, Byzantine, Renaissance Studies for R. Browing (Canberra 1984)Google Scholar especially, 310-13 = idem, Peoples and Settlement, VII.

37. Panaretos, 69.11; Bryer, , ‘The Faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi’, 310 Google Scholar.

38. Moreover, Palaiologina and Anna chiefly relied on the barbarian soldiers in the Trapezuntine service. The Laz won the throne for the empress Anna. Irene’s army consisted of a part of the palace allagion and the detachment of the amirtzantarantai; it is very possible that the main body of the amirtzantarantai was recruited from Turkish mercenaries. It appears that during these two reigns the Pontic aristocratic clans acted as guarantors of the legitimacy of the supreme power. Great archontic families (the Scholarioi, Tzanichitai, Doranitai, Kamachenoi, Kabazitai, Meizomatai) fought in alliance against both empresses. With the accession of John III the Pontic noble families took vengeance on the amirtzantarantai, putting to death their commanders (archontes). From that time, this detachment was under the command of the members of the archontic clans. See: Panaretos, 65-67; Bryer, ‘The Faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi’, 312; cf.Shukurov, R., ‘Between Peace and Hostility: Trebizond and the Pontic Turkish Periphery in the Fourteenth Century’, Mediterranean Historical Review 9/1 (1994) 54–62 Google Scholar.

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40. Panaretos, 69.11-12, 65.8; cf. Bryer, , ‘Family Planning’, 87; idem, ‘Eclipses and Epithalamy’, 348–50 Google Scholar.

41. Bryer, ‘Family Planning’, 89.

42. Panaretos, 65.15.

43. Panaretos, 65.14-15; Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., Fontes Historiae Imperii Trapezun-tini, 1 (St. Petersburg 1897) 134.17–18 Google Scholar.

44. Bryer, ibid.

45. Bryer, ‘Family Planning’, 88.

46. Panaretos, 73.1, 78.11-17, 80.5; cf. Bryer, , ‘Family Planning’, 89 Google Scholar.

47. Lampakis, S., 8 (1989) 319–33 Google Scholar.

48. Panaretos, 73.1, 80.5.

49. Bessarion, ed. Lampsides, O., Archeion Pontou 39 (1984) 60.4 Google Scholar.

50. I deliberately omit the details of the intricate dynastic struggle in the Sultanate and give here a somewhat simplified list of the Seljuq rulers.

51. On the role of the Persian ancestry among the Anatolian Muslims during the Seljuqid period see: Cahen, CI., Pre-Ottoman Turkey (London 1968) 152-153, 216, 238, 248-60, 369–70 Google Scholar.

52. See: Moravcsik, Gy., Byzantinoturcica, 2 (Berlin 1983) 252-54, 322–23 Google Scholar. Cf.Lehmann, B., Die Nachrichten des Nicetas Choniates, Georgios Akropolites und Pachymeres über die Selcuqen in der Zeit von 1180 bis 1280 n. Chr. (Leipzig 1939) 14 Google Scholar.

53. Turan, O., ‘Les souverains seldjoukides et leurs sujets non-musulmans’, Studia Islamica 1 (1953) 79–80 Google Scholar; Barzos, , 2, 499 note.

54. See, for example: Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modem Turkey, 1 (Cambridge 1978) 56 Google Scholar; Barzos, op. cit. 1, 484-85, note 27; 2, 504-5, note 1.

55. Chômâtes, Historia, 1, 147-148, 340; Pachymeres, ed. Failler, 47-49; Lampakis, S., (1987) 77–100 Google Scholar. For general discussion see Magdalino, P., ‘The History of the Future and its Uses: Prophecy, Policy and Propaganda’, in: The Making of Byzantine History. Studies Dedicated to D.M. Nicol (London 1993) 3-34, esp. 26–27 Google Scholar.

56. See also: Bryer, , ‘Family Planning’, 86 Google Scholar.

57. Bryer, , ‘Family Planning’, 85–6 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Eclipses and Epithalamy’, 350 and note 3.

58. Libadenos, 60. 1-3.

59. Karpov, S.P., ‘Kultura Trapezundskoj imperii’, in: Kultura Vizantii 3 (Moscow 1991) 113–14 Google Scholar.

60. Gregoras, Nicephorus, Byzantina Historia, ed. Shopen, L., 1 (Bonn 1829) 447 Google Scholar; Minns, E., ‘Big Greek Minuscule, Pembroke College, Cambridge MS 310’, The Annual of the British School of Athens 46 (1951) 215 Google Scholar; Chrysanthos, (Athens 1933) 358.

61. See: Karpov, ‘Kultura Trapezundskoj imperii’; Oikonomidès, op. cit.; Bryer, ‘Family Planning’.

62. See also: Bryer, , ‘Family Planning’, 85–86 Google Scholar.