The New International Encyclopædia/Andronicus (emperors)

AN′DRONI′CUS. The name of four Byzantine emperors.—Andronicus I. (1110–85) was the son of Isaac Comnenus. His life was full of vicissitudes. During part of his youth he was a prisoner of the Turks in Asia Minor. He afterward spent some time at the court of his cousin, the Emperor Manuel, and a niece of the Emperor became his mistress. He was appointed to a military command in Cilicia; but, although the favorite of the army, his imprudence and waste of time in dissolute pleasures involved him in defeat. Having engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the King of Hungary and the German Emperor, he was thrown into prison by Manuel, and remained there more than twelve years. At last he succeeded in making his escape, and reached Kiev, the residence of Prince Yaroslav. He regained the favor of his cousin by persuading the Russian Prince to join in the invasion of Hungary, but incurred his cousin’s displeasure again by refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Prince of Hungary, the intended husband of Manuel’s daughter, as presumptive heir to the Empire. He was sent in honorable banishment to Cilicia, where he found a new mistress in a sister of the Empress. The resentment of the Emperor breaking out against him, he sought refuge in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His professions of zeal caused his former conduct to be forgotten, and he was invested with the lordship of Berytus; but his profligacy became, if possible, more scandalous than ever. He seduced Theodora, the widow of Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, who lived with him for years as his mistress. The Emperor’s anger made the Syrian coast unsafe for him, and he fled with Theodora to Damascus, and finally settled down among the Turks in Asia Minor, with a band of outlaws, making frequent inroads into the Roman province of Trebizond, from which he carried away spoil and slaves. Theodora and her children were at last taken and sent to Constantinople, and thither he followed, imploring the forgiveness of the Emperor, which he obtained: but he was sent to Œnoë, in Pontus. After the death of Manuel, popular indignation was excited against the Empress, who acted as regent for her son, Alexius II., and Andronicus was recalled, in 1182, to deliver the Empire from her tyranny. He was appointed guardian of the young Emperor, and soon after his colleague in the Empire. He caused the Empress-mother to be strangled, and afterward Alexius himself, whose widow he married. His reign, though short, was vigorous, and restored prosperity to the provinces; but tyranny and murder were its characteristics in the capital. He set no bounds to the gratification of his revenge against all who had ever offended him, and his jealousy of possible rivals was equally sanguinary. At last, a destined victim, Isaac Angelus, one of his relatives, having fled to the church of St. Sophia for sanctuary, a crowd gathered, and a sudden insurrection placed Isaac on the throne, while Andronicus was put to death by the infuriated populace, after horrible mutilations and tortures, on September 12, 1185. He was the last of the Comneni that sat on the throne of Constantinople; but the succeeding dukes and emperors of Trebizond were descendants of his son, Manuel.—Andronicus II. (1260–1332), the son of Michael Palæologus, ascended the throne in 1282; but, after a weak and inglorious reign, was driven from it, in 1328, by his grandson.—Andronicus III. (1296–1341), after a reign equally inglorious, died in 1341.—Andronicus IV., as the result of a conspiracy against his father, John Palæologus, was proclaimed Emperor, 1377, but was obliged to abdicate and beg forgiveness the following year. Consult Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.