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Isaac Komnenos or Comnenus (ca. 1050 – 1102/1104) was a notable Byzantine general in the 1070s and one of the major supporters of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118), who was his younger brother. Alexios created the title of sebastokrator for Isaac.
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1 Life
2 Family
3 References
4 Sources

[edit] Life

Isaac was the second-eldest son and third child of the Domestic of the Schools John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene. As such he belonged to the highest aristocracy of mid-11th century Byzantium, being the nephew of Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (r. 1057–1059).[1] In 1071 or 1072, the Emperor Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071–1078) married him to Irene, a Georgian princess and cousin to Michael's empress, Maria of Alania.[2]

In the 1070s, following the disastrous Battle of Manzikert, Isaac was employed as military commander in Anatolia against the Seljuk Turks. In 1073, as Domestic of the Schools of the East (i.e. commander-in-chief of the eastern field army), he was captured by the Turks, and was released only after ransom was paid. In the next year, he was again sent East as doux of Antioch, he quelled local unrest, but was again captured by the Turks and had to be ransomed by the citizens of the city.[2]

In the reign of Nikephoros III Botaneiates (r. 1078–1081) he enjoyed the emperor's favour, and plotted at court, using his influence with Empress Maria to advance the position of the Komnenos clan; especially that of his younger brother Alexios, who was directly related to the ruling Doukid dynasty through his marriage to Irene Doukaina.[2] When Alexios finally made his move and rebelled against Nikephoros III, it was Isaac who placed the emperor's purple boots on him; and thereafter he proved one of his most loyal, steadfast and enthusiastic supporters. Alexios in turn rewarded him by awarding him with the new title of sebastokrator which marked him as a near-equal; in the words of Anna Komnene, an "emperor without the purple".[2]
[edit] Family

By his wife Irene, he had several children:[3][4][5]

John Komnenos, protosebastos and governor (doux) of Dyrrhachium from 1092 to 1105/6
Alexios Komnenos, pansebastos and doux of Dyrrhachium after 1105/6
Constantine Komnenos, pansebastos and doux of Beroea, later megas droungarios
Adrianos Komnenos, became a monk, later Archbishop of Bulgaria as John IV
Sophia Komnene, married Nikephoros Dokeianos
Eudokia Komnene, married Nikephoros Botaneiates
Two unnamed daughters, one of them was engaged to Gregory Gabras.

Adrianos Komnenos sometimes anglicized as Adrian or latinized as Adrianus Comnenus, was a Byzantine aristocrat and general, and a younger brother of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118).
He was the fourth and second-to-last son (and seventh overall child) of the domestikos ton scholon John Komnenos, the younger brother of Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (r. 1057–1059) and Anna Dalassene.[1] According to the historian Nikephoros Bryennios, after John's death, Anna entrusted Adrianos and his younger brother Nikephoros to tutors, and gave them an encyclopedic education.[2]

After Alexios' rise to power in 1081, Adrianos was raised to the new dignity of protosebastos, given the proceeds of the entire Kassandra peninsula in Chalcidice.[3] He was also entrusted with military commands in the campaigns of 1082–1083 against the Normans of Robert Guiscard and Bohemund in Thessaly.[4] In 1086, he succeeded Gregory Pakourianos as domestikos ton scholon of the West, and in 1087, he fought in the Battle of Dristra against the Pechenegs, commanding the Frankish mercenary contingent in the Byzantine centre. The battle ended in a disastrous defeat, and Adrianos barely escaped being captured.[4] Adrianos is mentioned in the Alexiad as having participated in the 1091 campaign against the Pechenegs (along with the protostrator Michael Doukas, he supervised the construction of a bridge over the Evros river), but is not recorded in the final Battle of Levounion.[5]

Shortly after that, Adrianos had a major falling-out with his elder brother, the sebastokrator Isaac: the sebastokrator held Adrianos responsible for the accusations of conspiring against the emperor that were raised against his son John, governor of Dyrrhachium.[5] In 1094, Adrianos presided over the court that tried Nikephoros Diogenes, the son of former emperor Romanos IV (r. 1068–1071), who had tried to assassinate the Emperor. In the same year, he is recorded as having participated in the synod that condemned Leo of Chalcedon.[6]

His date of death is disputed: the commonly accepted date stems from a manuscript which records him retiring to a monastery under the monastic name John, and dying on 19 April 1105. B. Skoulatos however doubts this information, since Adrianos' name is absent from the dead listed in the Kecharitomene typikon (written ca. 1118), but is present in the Pantokrator typikon of 1136. Hence Skoulatos has placed Adrianos' death some time between 1118 and 1136.[7]
[edit] Family

Adrianos married the porphyrogenita princess Zoe Doukaina, the third daughter of Emperor Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059–1067) and Eudokia Makrembolitissa (born ca. 1062).[7] A number of authors, including Paul Magdalino, Jean-Claude Cheynet and Konstantinos Varzos, identify Adrianos and Zoe with a John Komnenos and Anna "of the Doukai" (the latter being Zoe's supposed monastic name) who are mentioned in tomb inscriptions in the Pammakaristos Church in Constantinople as the church's founders, along with their descendants.[8][9] If this identity is correct, then the Adrianos' children were:[8]

Eudokia Komnene, married Alexios Tarchaneiotes
Andronikos Komnenos, married Eudokia Doukaina
Alexios Komnenos, a sebastos. He was betrothed to Irene Axouchina and married Irene Synadene
Adrianos Komnenos.

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