died before 1203, Theodore received the same title. Fall of Constantinople To seize the Byzantine throne, Emperor AlexiosIII had blinded and imprisoned his elder brother, Isaac II Angelos (). Isaac's son, Alexios, fled from Constantinople to Germany to seek his Catholic relatives' assistance. He concluded an agreement with the leaders of the Fourth Crusade, promising a large sum, 800,000 hyperpyra, for their support. The crusaders reached Constantinople and captured Pera on the opposite coast of the Golden Horn on 6July 1203. Theodore conducted raids against the invaders, but they laid siege to the Byzantine capital. The walls of Constantinople were vulnerable, and AlexiosIII fled in panic to Thrace during the night of 17–18 July. He drained the treasury and took the imperial insignia with him. IsaacII was released and his son was crowned his co-emperor as AlexiosIV. Theodore was imprisoned after his father-in-law's flight, but he escaped in September 1203. The details of his escape are unknown, but Choniates stated that Theodore left Constantinople "armed only with practical wisdom and a brave spirit". For a while, Theodore was hiding in a church dedicated to Saint Michael. Theodore himself claimed that God "miraculously removed" him from the prison and guided him across the Bosporus to Asia Minor. His wife and daughters accompanied him. They reached Nicaea, but the burghers of the town only admitted his family, because they feared AlexiosIV's revenge. Theodore, as he later remembered, moved "from one region to another", avoiding the traps that his (unidentified) enemies laid for him. AlexiosIV could not pay off the crusaders. They refused to leave Constantinople and raided and plundered the nearby Thracian villages. The Byzantines blamed AlexiosIV for the crusaders' acts. The army rebelled and proclaimed the general Alexios Mourtzouphlos Doukas emperor on 28January 1204. IsaacII had already died, and the new emperor had AlexiosIV murdered, providing the crusaders with an excuse to make a new assault on Constantinople again. When they breached the walls on 12April, AlexiosV fled. A group of burghers offered the imperial crown to Theodore's brother, Constantine, but he rejected it. The crusaders captured Constantinople and plundered it completely. Although the Byzantine capital fell to the crusaders, neither AlexiosIII Angelos nor AlexiosV Doukas abandoned their claim to the throne. A third claimant soon appeared on the scene: a grandson of Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (), Alexios, seized Trebizond on the Black Sea coast in Asia Minor and assumed