page_title: Empire of Thessalonica
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Empire of Thessalonica / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Billon trachy of en:Theodore Komnenos Doukas, Emperor of Thessalonica, ca.1225/7-1230. Original description: Theodore Comnenus-Ducas. As emperor of Thessalonica, 1225/7-1230. AR Trachy (22mm, 1.71 g, 6h). Type B. Thessalonica mint. Struck circa 1227. Standing facing figure of the Theotokos, orans / Theodore and St. Demetrius standing facing, holding castle between them. DOC 2b; SB 2159. Good VF, toned, flattened. Rare.
context_page_description: Empire of Thessalonica is a historiographic term used by some modern scholars to refer to the short-lived Byzantine Greek state centred on the city of Thessalonica between 1224 and 1246 and ruled by the Komnenodoukas dynasty of Epirus. At the time of its establishment, the Empire of Thessalonica, under the capable Theodore Komnenos Doukas, rivaled the Empire of Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire as the strongest state in the region, and aspired to capturing Constantinople, putting an end to the Latin Empire, and restoring the Byzantine Empire that had been extinguished in 1204.
  Thessalonica's ascendancy was brief, ending with the disastrous Battle of Klokotnitsa against Bulgaria in 1230, where Theodore Komnenos Doukas was captured. Reduced to a Bulgarian vassal, Theodore's brother and successor Manuel Komnenos Doukas was unable to prevent the loss of most of his brother's conquests in Macedonia and Thrace, while the original nucleus of the state, Epirus, broke free under Michael II Komnenos Doukas.
context_section_description: After the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople in April 1204, the Byzantine Empire dissolved and was divided between the Crusader leaders and the Republic of Venice. The Latin Empire was set up in Constantinople itself, while most of northern and eastern mainland Greece went to the Kingdom of Thessalonica under Boniface of Montferrat. At the same time, two major native Byzantine Greek states emerged to challenge the Latins and claim the Byzantine inheritance, the so-called Empire of Nicaea under Theodore I Laskaris in Asia Minor, and the so-called Despotate of Epirus in western Greece under Michael I Komnenos Doukas, while a third state, the so-called Empire of Trebizond, established a separate existence on the remote shores of the Pontus. Michael I Komnenos Doukas soon extended his state into Thessaly, and his successor Theodore Komnenos Doukas captured Thessalonica in 1224.
caption: Billon trachy coin of Theodore Komnenos Doukas as Emperor of Thessalonica
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1694", "Image ImageLength": "865", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:06:30 15:15:11", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9628", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "256"}