in his peace treaty with Theodore. Theodore conquered western Paphlagonia on the Black Sea coast from AlexiosI of Trebizond. Around 1220, Theodore tried to persuade the Latins of Constantinople to acknowledge his rule, but they refused. Theodore established a powerful state, located in the vicinity of Constantinople, which enabled his successors to expel the Latins from the city and revive the Byzantine Empire in 1261. Early life Parentage Theodore Komnenos Laskaris was born to a noble, but not particularly renowned, Byzantine family around 1175. His parents' names are unknown. If Theodore followed the Byzantine custom of giving his father's name to his firstborn son, his father was called Nicholas. Theodore's mother belonged to an unidentified branch of the imperial Komnenos family and he proudly adopted her surname. Theodore had no less than six brothers—Constantine, George, Alexios, Isaac, Manuel and Michael. Manuel and Michael must have been born to a different mother, as they bore the surname Tzamantouros instead of Komnenos. Theodore was also related to the aristocratic Phokas family, most likely through the marriage of one of his aunts. The Laskaris held estates in western Asia Minor. Both Theodore and his brother, Constantine, had a seal representing Saint George and bearing the inscription Diasorites. The seal expressed their connection to the monastery of Saint George Diasorites, located in Pyrgion in the valley of the river Kaistros. Early career The contemporaneous historian Niketas Choniates introduced Theodore as a "daring youth and fierce warrior" in his chronicle. The slightly later historian George Akropolites recorded that Theodore was "small in body but not excessively so, quite dark, and had a flowing beard forked at the end". Theodore rose to prominence through his family ties with the Komnenoi. His first extant seal mentions his titles of sebastos and protovestiarites. The first one was a court title, originally reserved for the Byzantine emperors' relatives, but Emperor Alexios III Angelos () started to sell it to wealthy merchants. As protovestiarites, Theodore was the commander of a cadet unit of the guards of the imperial palace. Emperor AlexiosIII, who had no sons, wanted to solve the problem of succession by marrying off his two eldest daughters. Late in 1200, he gave his firstborn daughter, Irene, in marriage to Alexios Palaiologos, and her younger sister, Anna, to Theodore. Palaiologos was elevated to the rank of despot, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne. When Palaiologos