Alexios Mosele (Caesar)

Alexios Mosele (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξιος Μωσηλέ) or Musele/Mousele (Μουσελέ) was a Byzantine aristocrat and general, chosen by Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) for a time as his heir, betrothed to his daughter Maria and raised to the supreme dignity of Caesar.

Recalled to Constantinople on suspicion of plotting to usurp the throne, he was imprisoned but later pardoned and allowed to retire to a monastery, where he spent the remainder of his days.

[2][4][5] He was the only person known to have been promoted to the rank during Theophilos's reign, and may indeed have been raised to it as early as 831, when the presence of an unnamed Caesar is attested at an imperial triumph.

Instead of confronting them, however, he focused on recovering for the Byzantine Empire the coastal strip between the rivers Nestos and Strymon, which had been abandoned to the local Slavs by the Byzantine-Bulgarian Treaty of 816.

[2][10] Theodore Crithinus publicly confronted the emperor for his breach of his word at the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae, but the enraged Theophilos had him beaten and exiled as well.