Leo Diogenes
1069 – 1087 · Generation XXVIII · Co-emperor (r. 1070–1071) · Komnenos
Leo Diogenes was a son of the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes and Eudokia Makrembolitissa, born in the purple about 1069, probably as the twin of his brother Nikephoros. He was likely made co-emperor as a small child, and although he never appears on his father’s coins, a letter calls him emperor, and Anna Komnene says both brothers wore the diadem and the red sandals kept for emperors.
When Romanos fell in 1071, the boys were sent to a monastery with their mother. They stayed there until 1081, when Alexios I Komnenos took the throne and raised them as his own sons. According to Anna Komnene, Leo was a loyal supporter of Alexios and urged him to confront both the Normans and the Pechenegs, who had crossed the Danube into the empire.
He died in battle against the Pechenegs on 14 August 1087, after riding away from the emperor’s side towards the enemy wagons. Years later his name was borrowed by an impostor: in 1095 a Pseudo-Diogenes persuaded the Cuman chiefs Boniak and Tugorkan to invade the empire to make him emperor, before Alexios drove them back.
One of 14 people of Komnenos (1081–1185) in this archive. The house of the Komnenian restoration, ruling through a web of marriages to its own kin.
Line of descent: Constantine Diogenes → Romanos IV Diogenes → Leo Diogenes.
Parents
- Romanos IV Diogenes (1030 – 1072)
- Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021 – 1096)
Siblings
- Michael VII Doukas (1050 – 1090) (half)
- Andronikos Doukas (1057 – 1077) (half)
- Konstantios Doukas (1060 – 1081) (half)
- Nikephoros Diogenes (1069 – 1094)
Sources
- Leo Diogenes · Wikipedia
- Romanos IV Diogenes · Wikipedia