Alexander
870 – 913 · Generation XXII · Emperor (r. 912–913) · Macedonian
Alexander (AD 870 – 913). Emperor (r. 912–913). Son of Basil I and Eudokia Ingerina. After thirty-three years as co-emperor — he had been crowned as a child in 879 — Alexander ruled in his own right for barely thirteen months, the first Byzantine emperor to style himself autokrator on his coinage. He swept out his brother Leo’s men, dismissing the admiral Himerios and the patriarch Euthymios, shutting the empress Zoe Karbonopsina in a nunnery and restoring Nicholas Mystikos to the patriarchate. By refusing the customary tribute he provoked war with Simeon of Bulgaria, while Abbasid forces pressed the empire in the east. Uniformly hostile sources paint him as idle and dissolute, and rumour held he meant to castrate his young nephew Constantine VII; instead he died, allegedly of a stomach ailment brought on by excess, leaving the boy a hostile regent and a Bulgarian war.
One of 16 people of Macedonian (811–1057) in this archive. The empire’s widest reach — a house of soldier-emperors and scholars.
Parents
- Basil I (811 – 886)
- Eudokia Ingerina (840 – 882)
Siblings
- Constantine (860 – 879) (half)
- Leo VI (866 – 912)