BELA III. (d. 1196), king of Hungary, was the second son of King Geza II. Educated at the Byzantine court, he married Agnes of Chatillon, duchess of Antioch, and in 1173 was placed by the emperor Manuel by force of arms on the Hungarian throne. Bela began by adopting Catholicism and seeking the assistance of Rome. He then made what had hitherto been an elective a hered itary throne by crowning his infant son Emerich his successor. The attempt to recover Dalmatia, which involved Bela in two bloody wars with Venice (I 181-88 and I r 9o-91), was only par tially successful. But he assisted the Rascians or Serbs (see HUNGARY : History) to throw off the Greek yoke and establish a native dynasty, and attempted to make Galicia an appanage of his younger son Andrew. It was in Bela's reign that the emperor Frederick I., in the spring of 1189. traversed Hungary with 100,00o crusaders. In his last years Bela assisted the Greek emperor Isaac II. Angelus against the Bulgarians. His first wife bore Bela two sons, Emerich and Andrew. On her death he married Margaret of France, sister of King Philip Augustus. Bela was in every sense of the word a great statesman, and his court was ac counted one of the most brilliant in Europe. The Ilungarian dramatist, Ede Szigliger (q.v.), immortalized his memory in a play.