Episode 298 - The Providence of God

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the History of Byzantium, episode 298.

The Providence of God.

Last time we saw the aftermath of the Mongol invasions of Europe and the Middle East.

By attacking the Seljuks and Bulgarians, the men of the steppe inadvertently cleared the field for Nicaea to rise and rise.

John Vitats was able to lead his troops all the way to the outskirts of Dirachium, seizing territory for his empire.

He died after a long reign in which he'd achieved much, but he left a complex legacy for his son.

The European territories of the empire were not going to be easy to reincorporate into a centralized state, nor were the Roman aristocracy of that region.

Confusingly, John Vitats' son is always referred to in the scholarship as Theodore Lascaris

the second.

You may recall that Vitatsis is used by scholars for disambiguation.

John actually used the name Dukas on most of his documents to associate himself with that side of his lineage.

His son seems to have preferred his mother's name and chose to associate himself with with the founder of the Nicene revival.

We are now firmly in an era where choosing surnames to suit your political goals is the norm.

Theodore I S was born around the time his father became emperor, making him about thirty three when he ascended to the throne.

He was given a first rate education and took to the scholarly life.

We actually have more surviving texts self authored by Theodore than for any other other emperor since Julian the Apostate back in the fourth century.

He was not just a bookworm, though.

While his father was campaigning in the Balkans, Theodore was left in charge of Anatolia, travelling the length of the realm, inspecting troops and dispensing justice.

He was more than ready to take charge of the ship of state.

And he needed to be, because as soon as Vitatsi's death hit the headlines, everyone in the Balkans began agitating.

The first to move was the Bulgarian Tsar Michael, who retook a number of Thracian forts while his forces further west ejected the Roman garrison from Skopje.

Theodore sailed over to Europe in early twelve fifty five and rushed to chase the Bulgarians away from Adrianople.

The swiftness of his response alarmed the Tsar, who bid a hasty retreat.

It was arduous work retaking each each of the lost forts, but that's what the Niceneans did, with the exception of a particularly impregnable mountain stronghold which Theodore's generals refused to tackle, as in, they disobeyed orders.

More on that in a moment.

The new emperor next marched to Thessaloniki to establish his authority.

He was forced to campaign for most of the year, visiting distant forts to ensure men remained loyal.

He wrote home complaining both about the arduous nature of the campaign and of the incompetence and disloyalty of his European generals.

This included Bulgarians who'd defected to his father's banner, who now turned back to the authority of the Tsar.

One by one, forts had to be retaken or commanders brought to heel.

It was a bracing lesson for the young Vasilevs in how difficult it was to govern the European provinces.

At the end of the campaign, Theodore cleaned house.

This meant removing a string of very senior men from their posts.

His father had allowed lots of aristocrats to hold on to their positions for a decade or more, but they had repeatedly patronized, disobeyed, or even plotted against Theodore, or at least that was his account of a year of hard graft.

Two senior generals were imprisoned for insubordination, two others were blinded on a charge of conspiracy, while another had all four of his sons locked up.

A senior official had his tongue slit and his property confiscated.

The old guard were ruthlessly moved out of office and replaced by Theodore's close friends and family members.

This included lots of men from much lower down the totem pole.

The Emperor's long time best friend, George Moussalon, received a series of astonishing promotions, making him Prime Minister and giving top jobs to his relatives, but also forcing the court to address him by the title the Emperor's brother.

As you can imagine, these moves put the noses of the established aristocracy right out of joint.

And Theodore didn't stop there.

During his reign he arranged prominent marriages for all of his favourites while keeping his own daughters out of circulation.

This caused great resentment.

It was one thing to relieve men of their military posts.

hey, that happens.

But allowing interlopers to marry up, while you deny the rest of us the chance to well, that could reorder the aristocratic pecking order, and we don't like that one bit.

In spring twelve fifty six the Bulgarians invited four thousand Cumans to enter Thrace on a plundering expedition.

Again Theodore crossed the Hellespont and chased after them.

His new generals, knowing what was expected of them, tracked the invaders carefully, forced them into battle, and slaughtered them.

The Nicene's own Cuman auxiliaries were vital in their improved performance against the nomads.

Theodore spent the summer in Thrace negotiating a peace treaty with the Bulgarians, which saw the return of both the impregnable mountain fortress and the town of Skopje, a tribute to the success of the Nicene army.

The Bulgarians fell into civil war over the next few years and ceased to be a threat.

In September, Theodore marched again for Thessalonica.

There he met with papal envoys in another attempt to negotiate for church union, while also overseeing a wedding between his daughter and the son of Michael of Epirus.

Michael's son, Nicephorus, was given the title of despot and thus an official place in the Nicene hierarchy.

This was meant to secure peace between the two sides, but Theodore's heavy-handed diplomacy rather spoiled the party.

You see, Michael didn't attend the festivities in person.

He sent his wife.

She negotiated the marriage, and the Emperor demanded that the Epirates surrender Dirachium as part of the deal.

Capturing the great port city would give Nicaea control of the entire Via Ignatia, and it seemed to Theodore a reasonable price for peace.

But with Michael's wife and son in Thessalonica as honoured guests, well, it had the air of a hostage negotiation.

Dorachium was duly surrendered and the marriage concluded, but the peace would not last.

As expected, Michael of Epirus launched an attack on the border forts of the Western Balkans in spring 1257.

He wasn't just insulted by the loss of Dirachium, he was really worried about the growing power of Nicaea.

With the Latins enfeebled and the Bulgarians murdering one another, who could stand against them?

Michael enjoyed his independence.

He didn't want the return of central imperial control, and so he looked for allies.

He found willing accomplices amongst the Albanian chieftains of the mountains around Dorachium.

They were even less keen than he was to see Roman officials swanning about the place.

He also found receptive ears further north in Serbia.

He managed to stir both sides up, taking the newly minted Nicene garrisons by surprise.

Our historian George Acropolites was now the governor of Thessaloniki, and led the response to these rumblings.

He was shocked to discover the incompetence and disloyalty of the men who Theodore had placed in charge of these border forts.

They seemed willing to switch sides or abandon their positions at the first whiff of danger.

Epirate forces seized Veria and Ochrid, and so so Acropolites set up his forces at Prelep.

But it was at this point that a Serbian army appeared and the Nicene general was trapped inside the fortress.

Theodore ordered his other generals to offer support, but afraid that they might not be entirely trustworthy, he refused to allow any of them to command enough troops to relieve the siege.

Eventually Acropolites surrendered to the forces of Epirus, a great humiliation for Nicaea, and a green light for the other Balkan powers to begin nibbling away at the borders.

The Emperor was unable to respond immediately.

The Mongols had invaded Anatolia again, and he needed to be on hand in case the worst happened.

The Seljuks were defeated again, and Mongol troops now moved onto the plateau, from where they would launch operations into other areas of the Middle East.

The walls of Iconium were knocked down to prevent further Seljuk resistance.

The Sultan Caicus II fled to Nicaea after the battle.

The Romans were able to act as intermediaries and get the Sultan reinstated.

They also used classic diplomatic tricks to impress and intimidate the Mongol ambassadors.

As they headed for Nicaea, the Romans took them through multiple mountain passes, implying that all of western Anatolia would be difficult for the horsemen to navigate.

At each turn in the road, troops in full armor would greet the ambassadors to suggest that the Nicene were tough and highly organized.

Once they reached the Emperor, he used all the old tricks.

Seated high above them he appeared from behind a curtain so as to seem mysterious and powerful.

The smoke and mirrors seems to have worked since the Mongols accepted their peace overtures and even began to negotiate a marriage alliance.

Caecus had not travelled alone to Nicaea.

He brought with him a Byzantine exile, one Michael Palaeologos.

As you may recall, Michael was the son of the man that Vitatses had installed as his first governor of Thessaloniki.

The Palaeologi had ancestral lands there, and of course had long associations with the Komninoi.

Michael was capable and ruthless, and so was a natural rival to the Lascarid regime.

In our last episode, I mentioned that Michael was under suspicion of treason towards the end of Vitatsi's reign.

John took him away from Europe and gave him a junior position in Anatolia, anxious to keep his corner of the aristocratic matrix happy while also steering him away from his home base.

When the new emperor Theodore cleaned house after his first campaign, Michael fled to the Turks.

He suspected that he would be purged along with the other duplicitous army chiefs.

Palaeologos ended up leading the Roman contingent in the Seljuk army as they were swatted aside by the Mongols.

He now returned under guarantees of safety, and again Lascaris felt he was too important a figure to simply demote or ignore.

So he put Michael in charge of the Empire's Latin troops.

The Vasilevs should have been planning a campaign against Epirus in early 1258, but he'd fallen sick, with what turned out to be a debilitating illness.

It may have been cancer, since he suffered multiple symptoms which slowly escalated.

Lascaris became increasingly paranoid as his life force dwindled.

He had known all along that the rival aristocrats had it in for him, and now he began to suspect poison or magic was at work.

One of those who was accused of witchcraft was the sister of Michael Palaeologos.

In summer twelve fifty eight Theodore stopped tormenting those around him and made plans for the succession.

His son John was only eight, but he made the court swear solemn oaths to protect his rights.

Naturally, George Musalon would be regent and would take on full imperial powers.

On the 16th of August, in the palace at Magnesia, Theodore passed away.

He was only thirty-six years old, and had ruled for just under four years.

He was buried in the Sosandra monastery, next to his parents.

Sadly, after his death, most of his worst fears were realized.

It took just a few days for the bitter aristocrats to make their move against the Lascarids.

At a memorial service for the dead emperor, a commotion was caused and the Latin mercenary corps moved in and murdered George Moussalon and his brothers.

It was a shocking act of treachery, but it clearly had the full backing of an influential group of noble families.

Of course, the commander of the Latins was presumably responsible for the assassinations.

Remind me, who was that commander?

Oh yes, one Michael Palaeologos.

Palaeologos acted quickly to have himself chosen as the new regent for the boy emperor, and then by January 1259 had managed to convince enough people that he must be crowned as the senior Roman Emperor, literally receiving his crown before Lascaris' son in a dual ceremony.

Michael then purged all of Lascaris' supporters from government, reinstating many of the families who had been prominent in Vitazi's reign and extending this largesse to others who needed to be courted.

There was dissent and disgust at this course of events.

The patriarch Arsenius refused to perform his duties at a certain point in proceedings, but the force was with Michael, since so many Roman aristocrats were now eagerly lining up to gain preferment.

And, with the military situation in the Balkans worsening, many sensible men agreed that it was better to have an active general on the throne, especially one with family connections to Thessalonica.

I always feel sorry for the child emperors in these situations, and to cut to the chase, poor young John Lascaris would eventually be blinded on the senior emperor's orders.

There will be consequences for this, as we'll get to in a future episode.

I mention it now, though, because this entire episode tells us important things about the enduring legacy of the Komnenian system of government.

Let's have a moment to think.

Did any of the events we just covered sound familiar at all?

In a sense, the reign of Theodore Lascaris II and the coup which followed his death managed to re-enact many of the events which followed the death of Manuel Komninos some eighty years earlier.

Like Theodore, Manuil spent the last few years of his reign trying to appoint men he trusted to administer the realm rather than relying just on family members of dubious competence.

This left the door open for Andronicus Komninos to appeal to those who felt left out when he took power.

And then he liquidated Manuel's young son.

Fast forward to Isaac Angelos' reign, and he was blinded on the orders of his brother, Alexius Angelos Komninos, who came to power at the head of an aristocratic coalition.

Some of the families who backed him then had descendants backing Michael Palaeologos now.

Having a coalition of aristocratic families so heavily involved in the running of a supposedly autocratic centralized state had created a series of problems that the Romans had not been able to solve.

Theodore Lascaris II was trying to run the state with men loyal to him, something emperors of the past had always done.

But now the army was led almost entirely by by men with aristocratic names, men who had connections to different parts of the Roman world which the Nicene-based emperors needed on side.

The echoes of the past in these events show that despite being a new state in some ways, Nicene politics was still operating on the Komnenian model, something I'm sure we will return to in the future.

Now, for reasons which will soon become obvious, I'm not going to fully introduce our new emperor.

He will get that treatment in a future episode, though, I promise.

But for now, let's just continue the story.

Michael's first order of business was to gather his army and get it across to Europe, because the situation there was looking dangerous.

The death of Theodore II had given Michael of Epirus an opportunity.

The time to strike was now.

The despot had already seized a few targets the previous summer, and he now built an anti-Nicene coalition.

He reached out to the remaining Latin powers in the south those of Athens, the Peloponnese, and the Aegean Islands.

He also received aid from the ruler of Sicily, another plot thread we'll pick up on in the future.

This gave Michael a solid corps of Latin knights who could be the shock troops he needed to defeat the forces of Palaeologos.

This was no casual coalition.

Oaths were sworn, brides were exchanged, every one sensed that if Nicaea was not checked now, then eventually they would all be absorbed by the growing power of Anatolia.

The new emperor sent his brother John to face down their enemies.

The Megas Domesticos rode with a full Nicene army to Thessaloniki to prepare for the fight.

The two sides circled each other that summer.

John Palaeologos wisely decided to avoid the Latin heavy cavalry charge and stuck to the hills.

From there, his Cuman and and Turkic troops could harass and frustrate the Westerners.

Meanwhile, offers were made to every officer in the Allied camp.

Switch sides, and there are big rewards on offer.

Nicene gold did the trick.

Michael of Epirus fled in the night when he heard rumours of defections.

This in turn prompted other Roman units to flee.

The Latins awoke the next morning to a camp in chaos.

The Niceneans descended from the hills of Pelagonia and utterly routed those left standing.

Several senior Latins were taken alive and led off to Anatolia.

It was just the sort of providential victory which a new emperor needs.

Michael Palaiolokos was thrilled.

The victorious Roman generals descended into Greece in the aftermath.

John marched into Thessaly and sacked the city of Thebes, which he could easily do since its Latin garrison were either dead or in jail, while his deputy, Alexius Stratiopoulos, captured Arta itself, a humiliation for Michael of Epirus and a joy for our historian Acropolites, who was sprung from captivity.

Though this sounds like an overwhelming Nicene victory, it wasn't a permanent occupation.

The armies of Epirus and Thessaly had withdrawn from the field to avoid open battle.

Once the senior Nicene generals had gone home, they they returned.

They made short work of the garrisons which had been left behind and retained wide support amongst the local population.

Nicene forces completely withdrew from Greece, and though they took back the forts on the road to Durachium, they were well aware of how vulnerable those outposts were.

War with Epirus would surely resume soon enough.

In the meantime, though, the road to Constantinople was entirely clear.

The Latins had been humbled yet again, Bulgaria was quiet, and Michael Palaeologos saw this as the chance to try and force his way back into New Rome.

One of the Latin barons he'd captured at Pelagonia promised to open a gate in the city walls if he was released unharmed.

So the Romans let him go and led their army to Constantinople in early twelve sixty.

But

the baron went back on his word, leaving Palaeologos to attack Galata instead.

Even then, the northern suburb of the city, across the Golden Horn, was defended stubbornly by Latin troops and their Venetian allies.

So the Vasilevs began negotiations with the Genoese, offering all sorts of concessions to get them to aid him in an assault on the city.

If the Genoese could neutralize the Venetians, then the Romans were confident that they could knock the Latins out of the picture.

While he was working on this deal, Michael of Epirus yet again broke out of his home province and began testing the loyalty of the Nicene garrisons.

So the Emperor dispatched his general, Alexius Stratiopoulos, to patrol the frontiers.

Alexius crossed the Hellespont and began marching through Thrace.

As he did so, he was approached by local Romans who told him that Constantinople currently stood unguarded.

As you know, the Latin army that occupied New Rome was so small that they hadn't been able to take action in Thrace in well over a decade.

The Emperor Baldwin II spent most of his time begging allies in the West to send him aid, as we'll hear more about next week.

What Baldwin did have at his disposal were thirty Venetian warships, so he'd sent them out into the Black Sea to retake an island that had been captured by the Niceneans.

The garrison left behind to man the Theodotian walls was tiny, and these local Romans offered to assault the guards at a certain gate and open it to the Niceneans.

With little hesitation, Stratiopoulos drove his men towards New Rome.

They arrived on the twenty fifth of july twelve sixty one and lay in wait for the signal.

Inside the city, the Roman volunteers and a few of the general's men used ladders to climb an unguarded part of the Theodosian walls.

They then crept along to the guard post at the Salimbria gate.

There they murdered the guards, hacked the locks off the gates, and flung them open.

It was the early hours of the morning, and the Nicene army entered the city and pushed north towards the Vlachernai Palace.

Panic spread as news of their advance became apparent.

Baldwin II woke up to discover the palace in tumult and Byzantine troops breaking down doors.

He fled in a panic down to the harbour and boarded a Venetian ship, leaving his imperial regalia behind.

Stratiopoulos followed him but began to worry.

He was not at the head of the full Nicene army, just a detachment.

What if the Venetians came back and fought with them in the streets?

He took advice and began setting fire to the Venetian quarter of the city.

This drove the people there out out onto the streets in terror.

The people here were the wives, children, and servants of the absent Venetian sailors.

These families ran down to the harbour on the Golden Horn, desperate to be rescued.

By now, the fleet had been tipped off about what was happening and was racing back.

But when they arrived to find their wives and children weeping on the docks and the city on fire, they decided not to stay and fight.

They loaded their dependents on board their ships and set sail for the Aegean.

To the shock of everyone, not least Michael Palaolochos, the Romans of Nicaea had retaken Constantinople.

The Emperor had to be told the news by multiple couriers to be sure it was true.

He then gathered the court to tell them the joyous news.

As Acropolites puts it, by the providence of God, the city of Constantine again became subject to the Emperor of the Romans in a just and fitting way after being held by the enemy for fifty-seven years

Something of an anticlimax after five decades of struggle but such was the weakness of the Rump Latin Empire that it only took one mistake for the entire edifice to crumble The Nicene were able to enter the city, move their capital there, and announce with confidence that they had always been the legitimate successors to the Roman Empire.

Certainly no power in the region was in any position to challenge them for control of New Rome.

Hopefully these past thirteen episodes have shown you that this was far from an inevitability.

Nicaea could have been rattled by the Turks or scorched by the Mongols and would never have been in a position to retake Constantinople.

Already we've seen that the sack of New Rome had released the provinces from its orbit, and the further west into the Balkans you travelled, the more men enjoyed the absence of central authority.

Now the court of Western Anatolia, the most centralized part of the Roman world, is going to move back to New Rome.

This will be no simple process.

The Roman Empire was not magically back on the map.

Michael Palaiologos will have to contend with a whole slew of new problems that this move created.

But for those of us with deep Roman sympathies, this is still a moment to savour.

The next few episodes are going to cover a few aspects of this strange new Roman world that we haven't touched on yet before we move forward with Michael entering Constantinople in triumph.

So if you have any questions about the past 57 years, do send them in now.

Thehistory of Byzantium at gmail.com is the best way to reach me, but you can comment on the posts at the website or on social media.

The best discussions between listeners always take place on Patreon, if you're interested in signing up there.

In our next episode, we will take a look at the one figure whose vantage point I've studiously ignored: Baldwin II,

the longest reigning and last Latin Emperor of Constantinople.

Historian John Giebried returns to tell us about Baldwin's life, and there are few figures more Constantinople than Baldwin.

And his life story will underline how many times the fate of New Rome could have changed had Western Europe sent more assistance.

For now, though, let's leave the Nicene's to bask in an understandably glowing moment.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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