John, having prepared his army for a…
April 1143 CE
John, having prepared his army for a renewed attack on Antioch, amuses himself by hunting wild boar on Mount Taurus in Cilicia, where, on April 8, 1143, he accidentally cuts himself on the hand with a poisoned arrow.
John initially ignores the wound and it becomes infected.
He dies a number of days after the accident, probably of septicemia.
It has been suggested that John was assassinated by a conspiracy within the units of his army of Latin origins who were unhappy at fighting their co-religionists of Antioch, and who wanted to place his pro-western son Manuel on the throne.
However, there is very little overt support for this hypothesis in the primary sources.
John's final action as emperor had been to choose Manuel, the younger of his surviving sons, to be his successor.
John is recorded as citing two main reasons for choosing Manuel over his older brother Isaac: Isaac's irascibility, and the courage that Manuel had shown on campaign at Neocaesarea.
Another theory alleges that the reason for this choice was the AIMA prophecy, which foretold that John's successor should be one whose name began with an "M".
Fittingly, John's close friend John Axouch, although he is recorded as having tried hard to persuade the dying emperor that Isaac was the better candidate to succeed, is instrumental in ensuring that Manuel's assumption of power was free from any overt opposition.
Manuel takes his father's army back to Constantinople to secure his authority, and the opportunity for the Empire to conquer Antioch outright is lost.