Basil Megas Komnenos

Basil Megas Komnenos (died 6 April 1340), younger son of Alexios II and Jiajak Jaqeli, ruled Trebizond from 1332 amid a long civil war among its great nobles. When his brother Andronikos III took the throne in 1330 and killed two of their brothers, Basil was in Constantinople and escaped.

Invited home after Andronikos's death, he deposed the child Manuel II in 1332. A revolt in Manuel's favour was crushed and Manuel was killed in 1333, probably on Basil's orders. The city came to hate Basil: when a solar eclipse was read as divine wrath, the crowd forced him into the citadel.

In 1334 he married Irene Palaiologina, illegitimate daughter of the Byzantine emperor, but took a mistress also named Irene, marrying her around 1339. He died on 6 April 1340, apparently poisoned by his wife, who at once seized the throne.