Constantine Palaiologos (son of Andronikos II)

[2] As his father was already a reigning co-emperor alongside his grandfather Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1282), he was styled a porphyrogennetos ('purple-born'), as attested on his seals.

[2] In 1294 he was named Despot, the highest court rank in the Byzantine Empire,[2] on the occasion of his first marriage to Eudokia, the daughter of Theodore Mouzalon.

In 1305, he fought in the disastrous Battle of Apros against the Catalan Company under the command of his oldest brother, the co-emperor Michael IX.

[2] In 1317, he intercepted his half-sister Simonida, the queen-consort of Serbia, who wished to retire to a monastery after the death of her mother, Irene of Montferrat, and returned her to the Serbs.

[2] It was in this position that the outbreak of the Byzantine civil war of 1321–1328 found him; in 1322 he was imprisoned by his nephew, Andronikos III Palaiologos, at Didymoteichon.