Nikephoros III Botaneiates

1002 – 1081 · Generation XXVIII · Emperor (r. 1078–1081)

Nikephoros (AD 1002 – 1081). Emperor (r. 1078–1081). Married Maria around AD 1078. Usurped Michael VII; married Maria of Alania; deposed by Alexios I. A soldier long before he was an emperor, he served with distinction against the Pecheneg revolt under Constantine IX and helped Isaac Komnenos to the throne at the Battle of Petroe. As doux of Antioch he beat back raid after raid from the Emirate of Aleppo. Coming to power in old age with the Senate and the people of Constantinople behind him, he governed like a man buying legitimacy: lavish largesse for the army and his partisans, a decree wiping out every overdue debt, modest repairs to the legal code — all while surviving the risings of Bryennios, Basilakes and Constantine Doukas and a murder attempt by the Varangian Guard. He even brought the effectively independent governors of Trebizond and Antioch back to nominal submission. When Alexios Komnenos seized Constantinople he abdicated and ended his days as a monk in the Monastery of Peribleptus.

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Partners

• Married Maria (1053 – 1103) in 1078

Life

• 1002 — Born
• 1078 — Married Maria
• 1081 — Died