Succession to the Byzantine Empire

[4] In Ancient Rome, before Christianization, the emperors were proclaimed as divine figures in their own right through the imperial cult, meaning that religious and political obedience were turned into the same thing.

[2] As the imperial office of Byzantium was an evolution of that of Ancient Rome, it was rooted in the bureaucracy of the Roman Republic rather than typical Western European ideas of hereditary monarchies.

[7] Likewise, succession in the later Byzantine Empire was also often de facto hereditary, with emperors crowning their sons as co-emperors for generations to ensure their inheritance, leading to the creation of dynasties.

[25] Even after the direct line of descendants of Ivan III and Zoe died out in 1598, the rulers of Russia continued to link their imperial status to the relationship between their predecessors and the last Byzantine emperor.

In the 18th century, Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796) advanced the "Greek Plan", which would involve driving the Ottomans out of Europe, liberating the Christians in the Balkans, and setting up two new states in its place: a "Kingdom of Dacia" in the north and a restored Byzantine Empire in the south.

Instead of taking the city, Nicholas I made an advantageous peace deal with Sultan Mahmud II, which involved the Ottomans closing the straits around Constantinople to other countries, except Russia.

One prophecy held that the empire would be restored 320 years after Constantinople's conquest, in 1773, but when the ongoing Russo-Turkish war at that time fell short of prophetic expectations, many Greek chroniclers commented on their disappointment.

[39] Thomas's eldest son, Andreas Palaiologos (1453–1502), actively aspired to restore the Byzantine Empire, proclaiming himself as not only the Despot of the Morea in 1465 in succession to his father,[40] but also the rightful 'Emperor of Constantinople' in 1483,[41][42] the first and only of the post-1453 Palaiologoi to do so.

[43] Little came of Andreas's dreams, he died poor in Rome in 1502, having twice given up his imperial (though not despotal) claims, first to Charles VIII of France in 1494 and later as part of his will, granting the titles to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon,[40] and their descendants in perpetuity.

Jerina married Gjon Kastrioti II, the son of Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, and the couple's descendants survive today as the modern Italian Castriota family.

[44] The Albanian pretender Constantine Arianiti claimed the title of 'Despot of Morea' upon Andreas's death in 1502, though it is unclear on what grounds, possibly through a spurious connection to the old Komnenos dynasty, or through his marriage to Francesca of Montferrat, an illegitimate princess of the House of Palaeologus-Montferrat.

The Paleologu also live in Malta and France, one of the most famous members of the family being the French diplomat Maurice Paléologue, who in his lifetime repeatedly asserted his imperial descent.

In the 18th century, several Phanariots (members of prominent Greek families in the Fener quarter of Constantinople) were granted governing positions in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (predecessors of Romania) by the Ottomans.

[77] In 1830, an Irish man by the name Nicholas Macdonald Sarsfield Cod'd, living in Wexford, petitioned George Hamilton-Gordon, the Earl of Aberdeen, and Henry John Temple, the Viscount of Palmerston, to press his "ancestral" claim on the newly created Kingdom of Greece, after the throne had been offered to and declined by Leopold I of Belgium.

[91] An obscure Irishman claiming the throne of Greece is noteworthy as actual European royalty were offered the title at the time, with many refusing to accept it due to the personal danger presented by becoming king of a new and war-torn country.

He created large and elaborate genealogies and referred to himself as the "Comte de Sarsfield of the Order of Fidelity Heir and Representative to his Royal Ancestors Constantines, last Reigning Emperors of Greece subdued in Constantinople by the Turks".

[91] A wealthy 19th century Greek merchant by the name Demetrius Rhodocanakis, originally from Syros but living in London, styled himself as "His Imperial Highness the Prince Rhodocanakis" and actively sought support for his family's claim to not only be the legitimate grand masters of the Constantinian Order of Saint George, a Catholic knightly order with invented Byzantine connections, but also to be the rightful Byzantine emperors, through descent from the Paleologus family of Pesaro.

Upon the deposition of the first King of Greece, Otto, in 1862, a man by the name Theodore Palaeologo, probably from Malta but living in England, attempted to press his claim to the Greek throne.

Theodore died in 1912, aged 89, and was probably related to the later pretender "Princess" Eugenie Paleologue, born in 1849 and dead in 1934 and described by her tombstone as a "descendant of the Grecian Emperors of Byzantium".

He styled himself as "His Imperial Majesty Petros I, Despot and Autokrator of the Romans, The Prince Palaeologus" and claiming to be the Grand Master of the Constantinian Order of Saint George and the "Duke of the Morea".

[99][100] Among the most damning evidence is Rogerio's clearly Italian (rather than Greek) first name, the unlikelihood of a potential imperial heir being kept as hostage in Italy and that there are no mentions of him in Byzantine records.

In 1197, Irene Angelina, a daughter of Emperor Isaac II Angelos, married Philip of Swabia, King of the Romans, through which she is ancestral to many of the later royalty and nobility in Western Europe.

[109] Their earliest certain ancestor was the Albanian Andres Engjëlli (hellenized as "Andreas Angelos"), alive in the 1480s, who later generations claimed held the titles "Prince of Macedonia" and "Duke of Drivasto".

[91] The Angelo Flavio Comneno family is generally regarded to have gone extinct in the male line with the death of Giovanni Andrea II Angeli in 1703,[89][112] though some people claiming descent are attested thereafter.

Gian Antonio Lazier (or "Johannes Antonius Angelus Flavius Comnenus Lascaris Palaeologus"), who died in Vienna in 1738, that claimed descent not only from the Angeloi but also from Theodore II Palaiologos.

The Angelo-Comneno family in Italy, established by the forger Mario Bernardo Pierangeli, claim in their self-published genealogy to descend from John Doukas, a son of Michael II Komnenos Doukas, Despot of Epirus, whose father Michael I was a cousin of emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos and claim the title "Prince of Thessaly and Epirus".

[123] Several princesses of Trebizond married into the ruling family of the Aq Qoyunlu and other Turkoman tribes, but the inadequate sources makes tracing most of their lines of descent impossible.

Some lineages are documented; for instance, Theodora Megale Komnene, a daughter of Emperor John IV Megas Komnenos (r. 1429–1459), was an ancestor of the Safavid Shahs of Iran, through her marriage to Uzun Hasan of the Aq Qoyunlu.

This marriage is uncertain, but if the interpretation of the sources is correct, the numerous families of the Russian and Georgian aristocracy who can trace descent from Mamia's son Kakhaber II Gurieli are also descendants of the Komnenoi of Trebizond.

The most prominent western branch of the Laskaris descendants were the house of Ventimiglia-Lascaris, extinct in 1838, founded through the marriage of Eudoxia Laskarina, one of Theodore II's daughters, and Count Guglielmo Pietro I of Ventimiglia and Tenda.