In the following year he reached an agreement with his cousins, the three sons of Béla I. Géza, Ladislaus and Lampert acknowledged Solomon's rule, but in exchange received one-third of the kingdom as a separate duchy.

[4][7][8] However, Solomon's coronation provoked his uncle, Béla, who had until that time held a strong claim to succeed his brother Andrew according to the traditional principle of seniority.

[10]According to the Illuminated Chronicle, in order to secure Solomon's succession, his father arranged a meeting with Duke Béla at the royal manor in Tiszavárkony.

[16] The same source adds that the German monarch "seated" Solomon "upon his father's throne",[15] but did not require him to take an oath of fealty.

[16][18] As a token of their reconciliation, Duke Géza put a crown on Solomon's head in the cathedral of Pécs on Easter Sunday.

[18] The episode is described in the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle as follows: [Sudden] flames seized that church and the palaces and all nearby buildings, and they collapsed in one devastating conflagration.

[20][21] Both Solomon and Géza were, in 1065 or 1066, present at the consecration of the Benedictine Zselicszentjakab Abbey, established by Palatine Otto of the Győr clan, a partisan of the king.

[20][23] During the following year, nomadic tribes broke into Transylvania and plundered the regions, but Solomon and his cousins routed them at Kerlés (present-day Chiraleş, Romania).

[20][23] As the king and the duke suspected that the soldiers of the Byzantine garrison at Belgrade incited the marauders against Hungary, they decided to attack the fortress.

[28] However, the Byzantine commander, Niketas, surrendered the fortress to Duke Géza instead of the king; he knew that Solomon "was a hard man and that in all things he listened to the vile counsels of Count Vid, who was detestable in the eyes both of God and men",[29] according to the Illuminated Chronicle.

[30] Division of the war-booty caused a new conflict between Solomon and his cousin, because the king granted only a quarter of the booty to the duke, who claimed its third part.

[35][27] Here the locals made them "rich gifts of gold and silver and precious cloaks"[37] and Solomon seized the arm of Saint Procopius of Scythopolis.

[38] The royal army crossed the river Tisza and routed the troops of Géza, who had been abandoned by many of his nobles before the battle, at Kemej on 26 February 1074.

[39] After the battle of Mogyoród, Duke Géza's soldiers pursued Solomon and his men "from dawn to dusk",[40] but they managed to take refuge in Moson, where his mother and wife had been staying.

[43][44] Solomon sent his envoys to Henry IV and promised "six of the strongest fortified cities in Hungary" if his brother-in-law would help him to depose Géza.

[46] Nevertheless, the German invasion strengthened Solomon's rule in the region of his two fortresses,[45][46] where he continued to exercise all royal prerogatives, including coinage.

[41] According to Berthold of Reichenau's Chronicle: That summer [Henry IV] undertook an expedition into Hungary to help King Salomon, who also because of his insolent and shameful crimes had been deposed from his office by his father's brother (sic) and the other magnates of the kingdom, for whose counsels he cared little.

Finally, bringing back his sister, Queen Judith, the wife of Salomon, he returned home to Worms[47]Solomon attempted to convince Pope Gregory VII to support him against Géza.

[52] Solomon's wife, Queen Judith, who was about to return to her husband, undertook to take the imprisoned bishop to Hungary, but the prelate managed to escape.

[51] From Germany, Solomon fled to the "Cumans"—in fact Pechenegs, according to the historians Gyula Kristó and Pál Engel—who were dwelling in the regions east of the Carpathian Mountains and north of the Lower Danube.

[51][60] They invaded the regions along the Upper Tisza "with a great multitude"[59] of the "Cumans", but King Ladislaus routed and forced them to withdraw from Hungary.

[60][62] At the head of "a large contingent of Dacians"[63] (Hungarians), Solomon joined a huge army of Cumans and Pechenegs who invaded the Byzantine Empire in 1087.

[67] For instance, the Illuminated Chronicle writes that Solomon "repented of his sins, so far as human understanding may reach" after the battle, and passed the last years of his life "in pilgrimage and prayer, in fastings and watchings, in labour and contrition".

There, the story goes, his brother (sic) Ladislas was distributing alms to the poor with his own hands on the porch of the church of the Blessed Virgin, and Solomon was among the recipients.

There he passed the rest of his days in complete poverty in a city named Pula; he died in destitution and was buried there, never having returned to his wife.

[74] In contrast with all contemporaneous sources, the late 13th-century Simon of Kéza writes that Judith "spurned all suitors" after her husband's death, although "many princes in Germany sought her hand".