henceforth reserved exclusively for the
sovereign of the city of the Golden Horn, while that of Trebizond
assumed the title of "Emperor of all the East, Iberia, and Perateia."
Furthermore, the inhabitants of the city saw in the respective marriage
robes a certain inferiority of the Trebizontine monarch to the family of
his wife; for while the robes of John were embellished with
single-headed eagles, the bride appeared in a dress covered with
double-headed eagles to mark her rank in the Empire of the East and West
as a princess of the Palaeologi, born in the purple chamber.

John and his royal bride had not been long settled on the throne when he
experienced a sudden and unexpected discomfiture at the hands of an
aspiring sister. Theodora, the oldest child of Manuel I. by his marriage
with Roussadan, an Iberian princess, jealous of the popularity of her
sister-in-law, and proud of the superiority of Comneni traditions to
those of the usurper of Constantinople, availed herself of the party
intrigues of the nobles, and the popular dissensions in the capital, to
assemble an army, surprise her imperial brother, and mount the throne.
Her glory was of brief duration, but the existence of coins bearing her
name and effigy demonstrates that her power was stable and that she was
fully recognized as a sovereign of the Empire. No clue exists which
enables us to determine how Theodora obtained the throne or how she was
at length driven from power, but John appears to have finally recovered
his throne and capital and to have expelled the ambitious princess.

During succeeding years the influence of Byzantine womanhood and the
relations between the two kingdoms continued prominent. John died in
1297, leaving two sons, Alexius II. and Michael. The former succeeded
his father at the age of fifteen, and was placed under the guardianship
of his mother Eudocia's brother, the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II.
Andronicus ordered his ward, the young emperor of Trebizond, though an
independent sovereign prince, to marry Irene, the daughter of a
Byzantine subject, Choumnus, one of his favorite ministers. But the idea
of a Comnenus marrying below his station was offensive both to Alexius
and his people. In obedience to the blood within his veins, and in
contempt of his guardian's command, Alexius rejected the proposed
mesalliance, and married the daughter of an Iberian prince.

The young married couple presented a beautiful example of conjugal