Byzantine Emperors

Emperors and empresses of the Byzantine Empire, the Greek speaking eastern Roman state ruled from Constantinople from Constantine the Great's fourth century refounding of the city through Justinian I's sixth century reconquests, the Macedonian, Komnenian, Angelid and Palaiologan dynasties, the Empire of Nicaea that preserved Byzantine rule in exile after the Fourth Crusade's 1204 sack of Constantinople, and the line's end with Constantine XI's death defending the city against Mehmed II's Ottoman conquest in 1453. The group is kept distinct from the separate European Monarchs group because Byzantine history and succession, though the empire is geographically part of Europe and Anatolia, form their own continuous and self-referential imperial tradition, the same convention this atlas already uses in treating Byzantine history as a distinct thread from the western European kingdoms it neighbored and often fought.