Andronikos I Komnenos

Andronikos I Komnenos spent decades as the black sheep of the imperial family — a nephew of one emperor, cousin to another — burning through the 1140s–1170s in political failure, scandalous love affairs, and open rivalry with Manuel I. When Manuel died in 1180 and a boy took the throne, the elderly Andronikos saw his opening. He seized Constantinople in 1182 as supposed protector of young Alexios II, murdered the boy's mother, then in September 1183 had Alexios himself killed and took the crown. His reign lasted two years of savage anti-aristocratic purges so vicious that later historians call…