Alexios Strategopoulos
Alexios Komnenos Strategopoulos () was a Byzantine aristocrat and general who rose to the rank of megas domestikos and Caesar. Distantly related to the Komnenian dynasty, he appears in the sources already at an advanced age in the early 1250s, leading armies for the Empire of Nicaea against Epirus. After falling out of favour and being imprisoned by Theodore II Laskaris, Strategopoulos sided with the aristocrats around Michael VIII Palaiologos, and supported him in his rise to the throne after Theodore II's death in 1258. He participated in the Pelagonia campaign in 1259, going on to capture Epirus, but his successes were undone in the next year and he was captured by the Epirotes. Released after a few months, he led the unexpected reconquest of Constantinople from the Latin Empire in July 1261, restoring the Byzantine Empire. He was captured again by the Epirotes in the next year and spent several years in captivity in Italy, before being released. He retired from public affairs and died in the early 1270s. Origin and family Nothing is known of the early years of Alexios Strategopoulos' life, nor of his exact descent, except that he belonged to the nobility: other Strategopouloi are mentioned in the 11th and 12th centuries; a John Strategopoulos became megas logothetes (chief minister) of the Empire of Nicaea , although his relation with Alexios is unknown. Strategopoulos was apparently related to the illustrious Komnenian dynasty, as a seal dated to has been found bearing the inscription "Alexios Strategopoulos from the Komnenos family". Two later sources, Gennadios Scholarios in the 15th century and the 16th-century scholar Pseudo-Sphrantzes, report that he was a descendant of the Caesar Nikephoros Melissenos and Eudokia Komnene, a sister of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (), through their son John Komnenos. Pseudo-Sphrantzes asserts that Strategopoulos was the great-grandson of John Komnenos, and that it was he derived his surname of "Strategopoulos" from the wife of his grandfather Alexios. Scholarios on the other makes John Komnenos his great-great-grandfather, and claims that it was only Strategopoulos' alleged father, Theodosios, who was nicknamed "Strategopoulos" ("little general") by the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes () for his military acumen. The date of his birth is likewise unknown, but as he is called an "old man" in 1258, it must have been around the turn of the 13th century. Of his own family, it is known that he had one son, Constantine, who according to George Pachymeres was married to a daughter of the sebastokrator Isaac Doukas Vatatzes, brother of John III Doukas Vatatzes. Early career Alexios Strategopoulos first appears in the chronicles in 1252–53, during the reign of John III Doukas Vatatzes, when he led a detachment of the army sent to plunder the areas of Nicaea's Greek rival, the Despotate of Epirus, around Lake Ostrovo. In 1254, he was based at Serres in Macedonia, and in the next year he participated, along with megas primmikerios Constantine Tornikes, in a campaign against the fortress of Tzepaina in the