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Chapter Twenty Six: Rulers in Threes
Chapter Twenty Six: Rulers in Threes

“The government of the triumvirate was odious to the Romans”

Plutarch, Life of Antony​


Pope Samuel’s voyage was a smooth one, and the young Patriarch landed at Constantinople on the fourth of October 1327. The City, it had to be said, was unusually quiet. David Pegonites’ sons’ right to rule had not been challenged by any rivals, and preparations were underway to find a wife for Rōmanos IV, the younger of the two Emperors. The marriage took place in February 1328, following a special dispensation by the Patriarchs of both Rome and Constantinople that allowed Rōmanos to marry despite not yet having reached the legally permissible age of fifteen [1]. The bride, three years his elder, was the ravishingly beautiful Anna Dasiotissa, daughter of an astoundingly rich senator, George Dasiotes, who held the grand title of Megalodoxotatos [2]. The match provided the young Emperor with links to the Senate that had so singularly broken down under his father, and in turn gave the spectacularly well connected Dasiotes and his allies with a reason to be very grateful to the Church. All, it seemed, could be well content.

Trouble, however, was not long in coming. Shortly after the marriage of Rōmanos and Anna, news reached Constantinople of another Iranian incursion on the Syrian frontier, this time coupled with a revolt of some Armenian contingents of the army, who feared an end to the favouritism they had enjoyed under the Emperor David. Hurriedly, troops were transferred from the now apparently pacified Bulgarian lands to deal with the disturbances, and over the summer the threat gradually dissipated, thanks to concerted action on the part of the Doux of Mesopotamia, Michael Kyriakides [3]. But it would not be a simple matter of enjoying the triumph. Encouraged by the denuding of troops from imperial territory in Europe, King Ladislaus III of Hungary had made a rapid and devastating raid, supported by the Croatian and Wallachian monarchs. [4]The Haemic peninsula, so recently pacified, was now aflame again, and with it, the credibility of the regime of Damianos and Rōmanos Pegonites.

In an effort to stabilise matters, the brothers now gained a third imperial colleague in George Dasiotes, father of the Empress Anna. Dasiotes was at least able to quieten the chorus of mounting unrest that was building in the Senate, but he was not a militarily minded man and was reluctant to risk further loss of life, despite the urgings of Damianos, notionally the most senior of the three Emperors [5]. In January 1329, an embassy made its way north from Rhōmanía to Esztergom, where a peace treaty was put together that promised King Ladislaus’ daughter to Damianos Pegonites, and recognised Hungarian influence over Croatia. A large sum of money had been saved, not to mention many lives, but it was a bitter disappointment to a court raised on the military exploits of the Maleinoi and Michael X Photopoulos.

Shortly afterward, the three Emperors became two, when Rōmanos fell ill and died. Rumours quickly began to swirl of poisoning from his father-in-law and (pregnant) wife. Why Dasiotes, a relatively elderly and infirm man himself, should have wished to do this is unclear, and in any case the Pegonitoi remained steadfastly unpopular, with little sympathy for the young Emperor. When Damianos went too far in attacking his remaining co-Emperor, Dasiotes’ patience snapped, and Damianos was swiftly disposed of, being mutilated and banished to a monastery near Trebizond on the Black Sea coast. After a brief experiment of rule by three, Constantinople once more found itself under the rule of a sole Emperor.

George II Dasiotes was fifty nine years old in 1329. As a boy he had aided with the defence of Constantinople against Ākǔttǎ Khan by bringing food and provisions to the soldiers on the walls, and rallying the defenders by, we are told, the angelic charm of his voice as he sang hymns and psalms on the frigid evenings of the siege. Since then, however, he had seen no military action. The rebel Constantine Maleinos, a rough contemporary, had seen George as an effeminate monstrosity and his hostility had caused Dasiotes to flee into hiding with the Emperor Constantine X on Maleinos’ one day reign [6]. The ageing Emperor, after this, had seen Dasiotes as a markedly noble loyalist, and thereafter had kept him in high favour, showering him with titles. Thereafter, Dasiotes’ rise was slow and steady, with the three years in power of Alexander IV perhaps marking a high. He was a warm, amiable and generous man, and came to be one of the few Senators on good terms with David Pegonites: thus putting him in perfect position at the time of Pegonites’ untimely death.

After the exile of Damianos Pegonites, George did not appoint an imperial colleague, apparently because he was loath to make enemies of any of the by-now numerous descendents of various past Emperors. There were some rumours that the new Emperor would crown his unborn grandson by Rōmanos Pegonites, but in the event, the baby was a girl, Sophia [7].

George II would rule alone: but he would not do so for long. After a sole reign of just over two years, he too was dead, in a major outbreak of disease that swept the capital. As guardian of his daughter and granddaughter, the deceased Basileus named the ally who had brought him to power in the first place: Pope Samuel.

Samuel was already travelling to Constantinople when the news of the death of George II reached him, and he made all haste, entering the City within a few weeks. He found the imperial capital in chaos: the disease that had killed Dasiotes had claimed a number of other prominent casualties, notably Patriarch Isidoros II, the second part of the triumvirate that had taken charge of affairs after the death of David Pegonites. Samuel thus found Constantinople effectively decapitated, and eager for a saviour: a role the Patriarch of Rome was eager to play. Out of his personal fortune he paid for two weeks of public entertainments in the Hippodrome to honour the memory of the deceased: entertainments he presided over, together with the Augusta Anna, from the imperial box- an ominous sign of what was to come. Samuel took time to wash the feet of lepers, pay for repairs on a number of slum districts, and despatch free bread to the urban poor [8].

Unsurprisingly, this won Samuel a great deal of popular acclaim, even amongst the ever xenophobic Byzantines. He was able to quickly sway the urban mob towards supporting the coronation of George Dasiotes’ cousin Basil as Emperor, despite the fact that Basil III had hitherto been an utter nonentity, and through Basil he was able to secure the appointment of the popular and respected Bishop of Prousa as Patriarch Christopher I [9]. A new triumvirate had thus been put together that cemented Samuel’s position as one of the top power-brokers at the summit of the Empire. Through it, he could effectively run Italy at least as a private fiefdom, and hope to have significant influence elsewhere, in both political and spiritual matters. It was, it seemed, a job well done.

Except Samuel had failed to take into account the wishes of that institution that had brought the hated David Pegonites and his sons into power: the army. It would prove to be a fatal miscalculation, for in the summer of 1331 a new and eloquent champion of the soldiers had arisen. His name was Andronikos Xanthis.

From an undistinguished family, Xanthis had first come to prominence in the reign of Michael IX, where he had served as Captain of the Varangian Guard. Unlike his contemporaries in that effete regiment, Xanthis had shown genuine military flair, and was appointed by David Pegonites to be Katepánō of Italy, where he had come to know well the young Patriarch of Grado. Recalled to Constantinople in 1324, Xanthis was one of the leading voices urging the Emperor David to resist the appointment of Samuel of Grado to the Papal throne, and at the time of David’s death he had risen dazzlingly high, holding the coveted office of Domestikos tēs Dyseōs. He had been ready in 1329 to meet the invading armies of Ladislaus III head on, and had been disgusted by what he saw as the cowardice of George Dasiotes and his civilian regime. Now, faced with the prospect of a second government of womanish courtiers, Xanthis decided to act. Arriving at Constantinople with six thousand veterans at his back, the general demanded to speak with the Senate. In an electrifying speech, he denounced the Pope’s total control over the affairs of state, accusing the old Dynatoi of betraying the Empire for the favours of a devious and manipulative Pope.

How exactly the assembled Senators reacted to Xanthis’ denunciation is nowhere explicitly mentioned, but their response is easy to see. His speech was a miserable failure. Seized by Italian heavies, he was stripped of his command, and bundled together with a couple of junior officers into a suite of draughty rooms within the Great Palace. It was, however, another uncharacteristic miscalculation by Pope Samuel and his allies. In their treatment of Xanthis, they did much to squander the popular goodwill that had been so plentiful earlier in the summer, and Samuel himself was forced to quickly retire from Constantinople thereafter, taking a fast ship back to Italy and leaving the rapidly deteriorating situation in the capital to his new lieutenants.

It was a task for which they proved woefully unprepared, especially when Xanthis gained an unexpected ally from within the imperial palace itself. George Dasiotes’ daughter Anna remained, so far as anyone was concerned, Augusta, and commanded all of the considerable power and patronage of that title [10]. No sooner had her technical guardian Samuel left Constantinople than Anna began to aggressively undermine his alliance. The reason, so the writers tell us, was a simple one: the Augusta had fallen deeply in love [11].

The object of Anna’s desire was Constantine of Syria, who was, like Xanthis, a commoner who had risen in the military. Constantine had come west with David Pegonites, and his friendship with Xanthis was a deep one: his first wife had been Xanthis’ sister, and she had delivered to Constantine his five sons, Michael, John, Alexios, Rōmanos and Manuel. The bond between the two men had remained strong despite her death in childbirth in 1326, and Xanthis showed no opposition whatsoever to the unlikely match between the forty year old Constantine and Anna Dasiotissa, still only twenty three. The Augusta, rallying her supporters, first forced her lover and his allies out of prison, and then, in a hurried ceremony, first married Constantine, and then herself named him Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans, an acclamation enthusiastically confirmed by Andronikos Xanthis’ hitherto quiet veterans [12]. Seeing his position in the Senate crumble, the old Basil III quickly gave way and on December 29th announced he would retire from the throne into a monastery [13]. Patriarch Christopher was also forced to admit defeat, and the following day he cut his losses and accepted the changed situation, crowning the new Emperor Constantine XI in a hastily arranged ceremony in Hagia Sophia.

Pope Samuel’s second ruling coalition had thus lasted less than six months, and had been replaced with a new regime, headed up by Constantine XI but dominated in truth by Andronikos Xanthis, that was distinctly hostile not only to his allies, but to him personally. He would have to act quickly.

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[1] This was defined in the eighth century Ekloga of Leo III, issued in 726, and confirmed by the Basiliká of George I, published in 1221. For women, the age of marriage was set at thirteen.
[2] Literally meaning “Most High and Glorious One”, the title in itself is fairly meaningless. Dasiotes is a creature of the court, who rose in the legal and rhetorical profession in the confused last years of Constantine X.
[3] Byzantine Mesopotamia was some way north of modern OTL Iraq, in eastern Turkey.
[4] Ladislaus needs to gain a “quick win”, militarily, as he is merely the most successful of several claimants to the throne of the recently deceased Andrew IV.
[5] The fact that Damianos was so comprehensively ignored is perhaps further evidence for madness: or at least evidence that he was considered unfit to rule by contemporaries who had accepted his father.
[6] 5th of May 1303.
[7] A child of major future importance.
[8] The late antique grain dole, the Annona has not been re-established, despite the conquest of Egypt. Instead, cheap bread is despatched across the coastal regions of the Empire, particularly in Greece, in an attempt to undermine the appeal of the revolutionary Helots.
[9] Popular and respected amongst commoners, that is, for Christopher has long campaigned against corruption and greed within the Church. This has earned him very little support amongst the clergy. Prousa is modern Turkish Bursa, to the south west of Nicaea.
[10] The Augusta seems to have run essentially a parallel “womens’ court”. Though this was doubtless considerably less important than the main imperial court, all of the women serving the Augusta must have had powerful husbands, brothers and sons.
[11] Whether this is a reflection of the inherent sexism of the male chronicle writer, I leave for the reader to judge.
[12] This second acclamation was no doubt politically necessary for Constantine: Anna may have been a blue blooded Dynatos, but she was also a weak and feeble woman.
[13] A wise decision on Basil’s part. As Brother Antony, he retreated to Crete where he lived in peace until 1365, thus avoiding the chaos that would lead to the bloody deaths of most of his contemporaries. Upon his death at the ripe old age of ninety two, his body was conveyed back to Constantinople and interred with full imperial honours.
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