Empire of Trebizond

The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.

The Trapezuntine Empire was formed in 1204 with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia, which was commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself emperor and established himself in Trebizond (now Trabzon in Turkey).

Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons and last male descendants of the deposed emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, pressed their claims as Roman emperors against Alexios V Doukas. While the rulers of Trebizond bore the title of emperor until the end of their state in 1461, their rivals, the Laskarids in Nikaia and the Palaiologoi in Constantinople contested their claim to the imperial title until the later fourteenth century. In the thirteenth century, George Pachymeres would call them the princes of the Laz, while Demetrios Kydones in the mid fourteenth century would claim that the emperors at Constantinople had given the rulers of Trebizond their state. For the rulers in Constantinople, Trebizond was often viewed as a rebellious former vassal or barbarian who had broken loose and proclaimed themselves as emperors but the emperors in Trebizond never renounced their imperial claim.

After the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade overthrew Alexios V and established the Latin Empire, the Empire of Trebizond became one of three Byzantine successor states to claim the imperial throne alongside the Empire of Nicaea under the Laskaris family and the Despotate of Epirus under a branch of the Angelos family. The ensuing wars saw the Empire of Thessalonica, the imperial government that sprang from Epirus, collapse following conflicts with Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire and the final recapture of Constantinople by the Nicaeans in 1261.

Despite the Nicaean reconquest, the Emperors of Trebizond continued to style themselves as Roman emperor for two decades and to press their claim on the imperial throne. Emperor John II of Trebizond officially gave up the Trapezuntine claim to the Roman imperial title and Constantinople itself 21 years after the Nicaeans recaptured the city, altering his imperial title from "Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans" to "Emperor and Autocrat of all the East, Iberia and Perateia".

The Trapezuntine monarchy survived the longest among the Byzantine successor states. The Despotate of Epirus had ceased to contest the Byzantine throne even before the Nicaean reconquest and was briefly occupied by the restored Byzantine Empire c. 1340, thereafter becoming a Serbian Imperial dependency later inherited by Italians, ultimately falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1479.

The restored empire ended in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Trebizond lasted until 1461, when the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II conquered it after a month-long siege and took its ruler and his family into captivity.

The Crimean Principality of Theodoro, an offshoot of Trebizond, lasted another 14 years, falling to the Ottomans in 1475.