Pseudo-Alexios II was a young man from Constantinople, whose resemblance to the deceased emperor and his father Manuel I Komnenos convinced many of the veracity of his claims.
He visited Iconium and sought an audience with Sultan Kilij Arslan II.
The sultan, struck by the resemblance to Manuel, allowed him to enroll troops, but he refused to break the treaty he had concluded with Isaac II, and thus lose the tribute he was receiving from the Byzantine Empire.
The false Alexios' career came to a sudden stop when he was assassinated by a priest, who was infuriated with Alexios' alliance with the Muslim Turks, his permission for them to plunder the richest cities in Asia Minor, and his tolerance of the desecration of the churches in these cities that the Turks committed.
The assassin carried the head of the pretender to the sebastocrator Alexios, who was so taken aback by the similarities of its features to those of Manuel I, that he exclaimed "Those who followed him may be innocent after all."