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Chapter Thirteen: Eirene Naupliotissa
Chapter Thirteen: Eirene Naupliotissa

“…A woman who was undoubtedly a fiend in human form”

Constantine X Palaiologos, Roman History​

On April 16th, 1212, Constantinople fell to an invading army. The conqueror, a brusque young barbarian whose grasp of Romaic[1] was distinctly shaky and who had never set foot in the city before, was quick to march to the palace, whereupon he ordered the immediate execution of the Basileus of the Roman Empire. That ruler, crying piteously for help, had ruled Constantinople with an iron fist for the better part of thirty years, and ranked as one of the most powerful Emperors in history. But this Emperor was not a man. Eirene Nafpliotissa, despite ruling in a thoroughly masculine manner, had risen to power on account of her beauty, had deceived many who had expected merely womanly weakness, and had generally been a ferocious monarch. Now, though, it was all over. With the Empire collapsing in all directions, and Constantinople itself in the hands of a barbarian army, Eirene’s reign had ended in disaster. She was executed swiftly, and her remains, far from being buried in some great mausoleum, were carried far out to sea, and then cast away by an exorcist. It was, all in all, perhaps the most shocking end to a reign that the Roman Empire had yet seen. How on Earth had things come to this pass?

Eirene had been put on the throne by the armed interventions of the Army of the East, partly out of respect for her father Constantine Nafpliotis, Doux of Antioch, but largely due to the sacred memory of her grandfather Jordan of Aversa, a great Eastern general deposed by a jealous John II thirty years previously[2]. Those Eastern armies had made her, but just eighteen months after her accession as Empress in the spring of 1184, she would almost be brought down by them too.

The cause of the trouble was, unsurprisingly given the inheritance of John II, the powerful Sultan of Egypt, Kürboğa. For seven years, the Salghurids[3] had been relatively quiet thanks to a peace treaty signed in the autumn of 1178[4] and an attempt by Kürboğa to take over the lucrative pilgrimage roots to the Hejaz. But the removal of the Eastern armies in the spring of 1182, and the fact that they had still not returned under any sort of unified command three years later[5] was soon proving to be an impossible temptation for the Sultan, especially following the completion of his personal campaign in the Hejaz in autumn 1184, when he had made pilgrimage to the holy places. With Mecca and Medina subdued, it was perhaps inevitable that Kürboğa should turn his attention to the third Muslim holy site- Jerusalem. At about this time, news had reached him that the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan was more than just another usurper, and was becoming a serious thorn in the side of Constantinople. With this in mind, the Sultan struck.

Theoretically, the defences of Palestine should have been under the command of Constantine Nafpliotis, but in his absence, confusion reigned, with David Bringas, Theodore Evagoras and ibn Yusuf all having the support of various regiments. The results were predictable. David Bringas was quickly brought to defeat, while his peers watched and waited. They then eagerly moved in and arrested the general once orders arrived from Constantinople[6], clarifying that Evagoras should take command. Meanwhile, Kürboğa had surrounded Jerusalem, and arranged for the city’s peaceful surrender. Restored Roman rule over the city had failed to last even nine years[7].

Back in Constantinople, the news of the fall of Jerusalem had brought about another round of plotting, centred on the figure of the Empress Theodora. Unsurprisingly she attempted to scapegoat her new in-law Constantine Nafpliotis, who had spent the whole time engaged in the construction of a vast new pleasure palace for himself outside the city walls on the Golden Horn. Public unrest quickly began to build, for the mob of Constantinople had little sympathy with the dynasts of the East, and rioting broke out, protesting against the side-lining of John’s widow[8].

The situation quickly turned very nasty for both Eirene and her husband Alexander III, and it must surely have been tempting to them to have followed Michael VIII, who once against beat a hasty retreat to Mytilene[9]. Fortunately for Eirene, the return of ibn-Yusuf to Constantinople, leading an army of perhaps three thousand men, was enough to turn the tide. Mercilessly, the Arab commander’s Armenians mowed down the rioters of the capital until (we are told) the streets flowed with gore. Eirene was safe, and duly delivered a second healthy daughter at the beginning of 1186, who took her mother’s name.

In the East, though, things were going from bad to worse. Theodore Evagoras had managed to win a couple of small tactical victories over Kürboğa, slowing the Sultan’s advance, but at about the same time Eirene was going into labour, he had suffered a major defection of troops, when a third of his army went over to Kürboğa[10]. In the circumstances, Evagoras could do little but limp back north to Antioch, and leave Syria to the Muslims. Damascus and Heliopolis[11] duly fell soon afterward[12].

The situation on the Eastern front was given a brief pause in 1187, when Kürboğa fell seriously ill and felt it prudent to remain hunkered in Jerusalem. Evagoras was able briefly to launch a desultory campaign against Smbat of Syunik, pushing back the Armenian from the upper Euphrates, but it is plain that the general was engaged in little more than a desperate holding operation. What Evagoras badly needed was serious and sustained support from Constantinople, but, given everything that had gone on there, events on the East must have been the very last thing on the minds of the Empire’s great and good.

Since the riots of 1185, Theodora had largely been confined to quarters in a particularly remote and indeed partly derelict part of the Palace[13]. Early in 1187, following the birth of her son Isaac and perhaps emboldened by a seeming end of bad news from the East, Eirene decided that the time had come to put her mother-in-law permanently out of the picture. Shortly after the infant Isaac had been crowned as co-Emperor with his father, Eirene struck.

What ensued was as violent an act of bloodletting as anyone in Constantinople could remember. First Theodora herself was seized by soldiers loyal to Eirene, apparently while at prayer. The old woman died a dignified death, taking a sword across the throat in full view of her wailing servant girls. In death, as in life, Theodora had been careful to guard her pride. But from what should have been a neat act of violence, savagery quickly sprung.

With the news of Theodora’s execution, the mob burst into violence once more, and this time, they did something serious about it. Theodora the Younger, sister of Michael VIII, was dragged out of her monastery and proclaimed Empress by the Patriarch Andronikos II himself[14], who went as far as to suggest Eirene was a demon in human form[15]. A civil war now broke out within Constantinople itself. Compressed and compacted, the loss of life was horrible.

The first casualty was the Emperor Michael VIII himself, sent out at the head of the imperial bodyguard to attempt to persuade his sister to return to her monastery and abandon her claim to the throne. Theodora the Younger may have personally liked nothing better, but Michael saw himself dragged from his horse, blinded, and beheaded for his troubles by the defecting bodyguard, with his mangled body being hurled over the palace walls[16] with a fistful of arrows shoved violently into the rectum. Momentum now seemed to be on the side of Theodora, who sent out a message to the recently crowned king Ladislaus of Hungary, with a proposal of marriage[17]. It would all end badly, though, with the timely arrival of another of Eirene’s military saviours. Alexios Doukas, fresh from saving Adrianople from the Bulgarians, swept into Constantinople in early June, capturing Theodora the Younger as she attempted to flee. Taken prisoner along with the Patriarch, the pair were forced by the sadistic general into a blasphemous marriage ceremony in the grounds of Constantine Nafpliotis’ obscene pleasure palace, before they were blinded and sent back into the City for their execution.

A few loose ends now remained to be tied up. With their father dead, Eirene was quick to act against Michael Komnenos’ two young sons- the boys were confined to the palace and are never heard of again. Slightly more mercy was shown to their sister, who was placed in the care of a remote monastery in the bleak and faraway mountains of coastal Pontus[18]. As for her sister in law and namesake, Eirene of Corinth, the woman is never heard of again. We may hope that she went into exile with her daughter, but the overwhelming likelihood is that after 1187 there was only room for one Eirene in the imperial family, and the Corinthian met her maker. Several more distant figures were killed off too, including Alexander’s aunt Maria, the elder sister of John II. By the middle of the summer, the flies were well fattened on the blood of the House of Komnenos.

Writing three generations later, it is hardly surprising that the Emperor Constantine X saw the year 1187 as marking the end of over a century of Komnenid hegemony. For after that date, though the family would remain the same, it was clear to all that power certainly did not reside in the hands of the feeble Alexander III Komnenos, or with the infant Isaac. In the long dance to rule John II’s Empire, Eirene Nafpliotissa had finally emerged triumphant.
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[1] The term used ITTL for the language we call Greek.

[2] See Chapter Nine.

[3] The Salghurids are the originally Turkish dynasty of Kürboğa, who had controlled Jerusalem for a better part of a century prior to John II’s conquest of Palestine.

[4] See Chapter Eleven

[5] The majority of the actual men have returned to their stations in Cilicia and on the Upper Euphrates, but their commanding officers remain close to the regime around the Sea of Marmara, awaiting further spoils.

[6] See Chapter Twelve

[7] John II captured Jerusalem on September 15th 1176. Kürboğa enters the city on September 11th 1185.

[8] I’m echoing here the OTL riots of the eleventh century in favour of Theodora and Zoe, daughters of Constantine VIII. The figure of the much loved “Empress Mother” seems to have had a lot of traction amongst the Byzantines.

[9] This could be simply cowardice on Michael’s part, but on the other hand, he would have a definite interest in wanting to remain well above the fray. He is, after all, the primary claimant to the throne behind his uncle.

[10] The Sultan had promised the battle-weary men land on the Nile, and they are duly settled there.

[11] Baalbek.

[12] By the end of 1186, imperial control is largely back where it was before John II’s great campaigns, although a few strongholds continue to hold out on the Lebanese coast.

[13] The Imperial Palace of Constantinople seems to have been made up of numerous sections, constantly coming into and out of use. By the end of the twelfth century, there will be very little, if any of the palace used by Justinian and Theodora still standing.

[14] Andronikos II was always an ally of the Empress Mother.

[15] This turn of phraseology from Andronikos, blurted out in a rage, will have serious long term implications for the Church.

[16] High walls had been erected around the imperial palace by Nikēphoros II in the 960s.

[17] Piroska reigned as Queen of Hungary from January 4th 1184 until February 18th 1187. Not having any children of her own, she is succeeded by her adopted son Ladislaus.

[18] Pontus is the region of north eastern Anatolia. In Byzantine times the chief cities of this area were at Kerasous and Trebizond.
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