Alexios III Angelos
Alexios III blinded his own brother to take the throne, spent nine years selling the state, and ran away when the crusaders arrived. He seized power in 1195 while his brother Isaac II was out hunting, had him blinded and imprisoned, and took the family name Komnenos to borrow the prestige of a better dynasty. His method of government was to buy off whoever was in front of him. The treasury was empty, so he raised a special tax to pay tribute to the Germans, stripped precious metal from imperial tombs, and let court officials sell justice and offices. The provinces went their own way; the Bulgarians took territory in the north; and the fleet declined to the point where the admiral was selling its equipment, so that when the Venetians arrived the empire had almost no ships. Isaac's son Alexios escaped to the west in 1201 and offered the leaders of the Fourth Crusade money, troops for Egypt and the submission of the Greek church to Rome in exchange for restoring his father. The fleet arrived in June 1203, broke the harbour chain, and attacked the sea walls. Alexios III led a sortie with a much larger army, declined to engage, and turned back into the city, which finished him politically; he left that night with the crown jewels and a daughter. He then spent years wandering between Greek courts trying to raise support, was captured, and died in a monastery at Nicaea around 1211. His flight is the single decision that made the sack possible. The city had walls that had held for eight centuries and a population many times the size of the crusader army, and what it lacked in 1203 was anyone prepared to command it.
- Lived: 1153 CE – 1211 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state
