Founding of the Empire of Trebizond

In April 1204, just days before Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade, two brothers, Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons of the former emperor Andronikos I, seized the city of Trebizond, modern Trabzon, on the southeastern coast of the Black Sea. With support from their relative, Queen Tamar of Georgia, they established an independent Greek state known as the Empire of Trebizond. Its rulers claimed the title of emperor and the name Megas Komnenos, or Grand Komnenos. The empire was small, squeezed between the Black Sea and the mountains, but it grew rich from trade, standing on routes linking Persia and Central Asia with the Black Sea and the West. Its rulers survived for centuries through skillful diplomacy and strategic marriages with neighboring powers, including the Turkic rulers of Anatolia. Trebizond was famous for its wealth and the beauty of its princesses. It outlived Constantinople itself. In 1461, eight years after the fall of the Byzantine capital, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II captured Trebizond, ending the last independent Byzantine successor state.