Andronikos I (Trebizond)

Andronikos I. Gidos († 1235 ) was emperor and "Grand Comnene" of Trebizond from 1222 to 1235 . He was the son-in-law of Alexios I , the first emperor of Trebizond, whom he succeeded on the throne. It is unclear whether it is the same Andronikos Gidos who served as general for the Emperor of the Empire of Nicaea Theodor I. Laskaris .

Life

Andronikos was married to the daughter of the Trapezuntian emperor Alexios I. When he died in 1222, his two sons, the later Trapezuntian emperors John I and Manuel I , were passed over to the throne. Instead of them, Andronikos succeeded Alexios.

He had to cope with the first serious crisis during his reign in 1223 when there was a dispute with the Rum Seljuks ruling over the Sultanate of Iconium . These had established themselves in the place Sudak in the Crimea since 1221 and built a fortified base there until 1223. In 1223 the Seljuk governor of Sinope sent a fleet to the coasts of the Crimea to attack the Trapezuntian possessions there. His aim was to hinder trade in the ports in the Crimea controlled by Trebizond so that it now had to be handled via the port of Sudak. In the same year a ship carrying the annual tribute to the Crimean possessions in the Crimea was driven into the port of Sinope by a storm. In disregard of the agreements made between the Seljuks and Andronikos, the governor of the city, along with the cargo and some passengers, including the archon of the Trapezuntian province in Crimea and several officials from the city of Kherson , was arrested.

Now Andronikos himself collected a fleet, which he immediately sent to Sinope. Once there, his soldiers overcame the walls of the city, which they sacked. In addition, the ships that were in the port there at the time fell into their hands. The archon held captive by the Seljuks was freed, and both the seized tribute and the booty they carried to Sinope after the attack on Crimea fell into the hands of the Trapezuntian troops.

As a result, the Sultan of Iconium marched himself with his main army against Trebizond in 1224. Andronikos opposed the Seljuks with his own troops on the fortified passes, which they had to pass in order to get to Trebizond. After the Seljuks had suffered considerable losses in fighting there, Andronikos withdrew his soldiers behind the city walls of Trebizond. At the time, these were considered impregnable.

The Seljuq army began to siege the city. From a camp near the St. Eugenios Monastery, they first incinerated the unfortified suburbs of Trapezunts and, after exploring the city walls, finally began to attack the city from the seaside. A series of attacks and counter-attacks followed, culminating in a final night attack by the Seljuks. During this advance a thunderstorm suddenly broke out, which brought torrential rain and hail with it. This disoriented the attackers, some of whom were washed away by flash floods that rolled down from the mountains, so that some of them lost their bearings in the darkness and fell from the cliffs on the seafront of the city into deep gorges .

The Sultan was brought as a prisoner to Trebizond, where Andronikos received him with all honors. A treaty was signed, according to which the empire of Trebizond no longer had to pay tribute or military service. Andronikos was able to strip away the vassal status that tied him to the Sultanate of Iconium. The sultan is said to have been so impressed by his treatment that he later regularly gave Andronikos Arab horses as gifts and gave several donations to St. Eugenios.

Trapezunts gained independence in this way until 1230. In that year the last Khorezm Shah Jalal ad-Din invaded Anatolia, which he wanted to wrest from the Iconium Sultanate. Jalal ad-Din, who had previously conquered Georgia , had since become a direct neighbor of Trapezunt. Since Andronikos believed that he could not remain neutral in the conflict between the two sultanates, he concluded an alliance with the Khorezm Shah against the Seljuks. In the battle of Yassı Çemen (1230), however, the army of Iconium managed to decisively defeat the Khoresmians. Many of the defeated troops first fled to Trebizond, as a contingent of Andronikos on the side of the Khoresmians had taken part in the battle.

The alliance with the losers cost Andronikos the advantages that he had negotiated with the Sultan of Iconium in 1223. Trebizond became his vassal again and, according to a report from 1240, had an armed force of 1,000 men available to him.

Andronikos soon suffered another loss. After the conquest of a large part of Georgia by the Mongols and the ensuing turmoil, large areas of Iberia and Lazia , which had previously been under the rule of Andronikos , broke away from Trebizond. They went in the Kingdom of Imereti under David VI. Narin up.

Andronikos died in 1235. John I, the eldest son of his predecessor Alexios, succeeded him on the throne.

literature

• W. Miller, Trebizond: The Last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era , Chicago 1926.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , pp. 245-246.

predecessor	Office	successor
Alexios I.	Emperor of Trebizond 1222–1235	John I.