Alexander (Byzantine emperor)

Born in the purple, Alexander was the third son of Emperor Basil I and Eudokia Ingerina. Unlike his older brother Leo VI the Wise, his paternity was not disputed between Basil I and Michael III because he was born years after Michael's death.{{cite encyclopedia|last=Schmitz|first=Leonhard|title=Alexander|editor=William Smith|editor-link=William Smith (lexicographer)|encyclopedia=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology|volume=1|pages=115|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|location=Boston|year=1867|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa;cc=moa;idno=acl3129.0001.001;size=l;frm=frameset;seq=130}} As a child, Alexander was crowned as co-emperor by his father in early 879, following the death of Basil's son Constantine.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=233}}

File:Emperor Alexander deposes Patriarch Euthymios.jpg.]]

Upon the death of his brother Leo on 11 May 912, Alexander succeeded as senior emperor alongside Leo's young son Constantine VII. He was the first Byzantine emperor to use the term "autocrator" ({{lang|grc|αὐτοκράτωρ πιστὸς εὑσεβὴς βασιλεὺς}}) on coinage to celebrate the ending of his thirty-three years as co-emperor.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=261}} Alexander promptly dismissed most of Leo's advisers and appointees, including the admiral Himerios, the patriarch Euthymios, and the empress Zoe Karbonopsina, the mother of Constantine VII, whom he locked up in a nunnery.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=261}} The patriarchate was again conferred on Nicholas Mystikos, who had been removed from this position due to his opposition to Leo's fourth marriage.

File:Emperor Alexander receives the Bulgarian envoys.jpg envoys, refusing to pay tribute.]]

During his short reign, Alexander found himself attacked by the forces of Al-Muqtadir of the Abbasid Caliphate in the east, and provoked a war with Simeon I of Bulgaria by refusing to send the traditional tribute on his accession. Alexander died soon after, allegedly from a stomach disease caused by excessive eating and alcohol.{{Cite book|last=Skylitzes|first=Ioannes|url=https://archive.org/details/skylitzes-2010/page/190|title=Synopsis of History|year=2010|pages=190|translator-last=John Wortley|author-link=John Skylitzes|orig-date=1100|quote=[Alexander] came down to play ball (tzykanion). A pain arose in his entrails which had been overloaded with an excess of food and excessive drinking. He went back up into the palace haemorrhaging from his nose and his genitals; after one day he was dead.}}

File:Emperor Alexander on his deathbed hands over power to his nephew Constantine.jpg.]]

The sources are uniformly hostile towards Alexander, who is depicted as lazy, lecherous, drunk, and malignant; they also accuse him of idolatry, including making pagan sacrifices to the golden statue of a boar in the Hippodrome, and providing it with new teeth and genitals, in hope of curing his impotence.{{sfn|Karlin-Hayter|1969}} It was his rumored intention to castrate the young Constantine VII in order to exclude him from the succession. This did not happen, but Alexander did leave Constantine a hostile regent (Nicholas Mystikos) and the beginning of a long war against Bulgaria.

{{portal|Byzantine Empire}}

• List of Byzantine emperors

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{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite journal|title=The Emperor Alexander's Bad Name|first=P.|last=Karlin-Hayter|journal=Speculum|volume=44|number=4|pages=585–596|year=1969|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2850385|doi=10.2307/2850385|jstor=2850385 |s2cid=161599458 }}
• {{Cite book|author-link=George Ostrogorsky|last=Ostrogorsky|first=George|title=History of the Byzantine State|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=1969|isbn=0-8135-0599-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbyzanti00ostr/page/233}}
• {{Cite book|last=Granier|first=Thomas|title=Transformations of Romanness: Early Medieval Regions and Identities|publisher=De Gruyter|year=2018|editor1-last=Pohl|editor1-first=Walter|chapter=Rome and Romanness in Latin southern Italian sources, 8th–10th centuries|editor2-last=Gantner|editor2-first=Clemens|editor3-last=Grifoni|editor3-first=Cinzia |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-11-059838-4}}
• {{Cite book|author-link=Philip Grierson|last=Grierson|first=Philip|title=Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection

|volume=3, Leo III to Nicephorus III, 717–1081.|year=1973|isbn=0-88402-012-6|page=475|url=https://archive.org/details/docoins-3}}

• {{citation | editor-first = Alexander | editor-last = Kazhdan | editor-link=Alexander Kazhdan | title = Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1991 | isbn = 978-0-19-504652-6|chapter=Alexander|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/odb_20210521/page/56/mode/1up|pages=56–57}}
• {{Cite book|last=Browning|first=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qAlcKDsubMgC|title=The Byzantine Empire|publisher=The Catholic University of America Press|year=1980|isbn=978-0813207544|edition=Revised|location=|pages=}}
• {{Cite book|last=Haldon|first=John|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xjAWDAAAQBAJ&q=Constantius+III+Doukas&pg=PA176|title=The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2005|isbn=978-0230243644|location=|pages=}}
• {{Cite book|last=Jenkins|first=Everett|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giEkCQAAQBAJ|title=The Muslim Diaspora: A Comprehensive Chronology of the Spread of Islam|volume=1|publisher=McFarland|year=1999|isbn=978-0786447138}}
• {{Cite book|last=Lawler|first=Jennifer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sEWeCQAAQBAJ&q=%22Tiberius+I+Constantine%22&pg=PA323|title=Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire|publisher=McFarland|year=2015|isbn=978-0-7864-6616-0|place=Jefferson|pages=|orig-year=2004}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |editor1-link=Ralph-Johannes Lilie

| editor1-last = Lilie | editor1-first = Ralph-Johannes | editor2-last = Ludwig | editor2-first = Claudia | editor3-last = Zielke | editor3-first = Beate | editor4-last = Pratsch | editor4-first = Thomas|title=Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit|language = de |publisher = De Gruyter |year = 2013 |ref = {{harvp|PmbZ}}}}

• {{Cite book|title=Byzantium, The Apogee|author= John Julius Norwich|author-link= John Julius Norwich|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1993|isbn=0140114483}}
• {{Cite book|last=Tougher|first=Shaun|title=The Reign of Leo VI (886-912): Politics and People|year=1996|location=Leiden; New York; Köln|publisher=Brill|isbn=9004108114|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPquae5A4zIC&pg=PA219}}

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{{S-hou|Macedonian dynasty| |870|6 June |913|name=Alexander}}

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{{Succession box

| title = Byzantine emperor

|years = 11 May 912 – 6 June 913

| before = Leo VI

|after=Constantine VII

}}

{{S-end}}

{{Roman emperors}}

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Category:10th-century Byzantine emperors

Category:Macedonian dynasty

Category:870 births

Category:913 deaths

Category:Porphyrogennetoi

Category:9th-century Byzantine people

Category:910s in the Byzantine Empire

Category:Sons of Byzantine emperors