Rhomania’s General Crisis, Part 22.0: Ending the Crisis, Part 1:
It was not quite the end. After the fall of Constantinople, Herakleios III issues orders to all remaining forces to yield to Sophia-loyalist troops, which they all promptly do on receipt of those orders. However, it does take time for the orders to arrive with some fighting occurring in the interim. None of the engagements are serious, but there are a few.
When Trebizond, which turns out to be the last bastion, yields a month after Constantinople, the War of Wrath really is over. But while the war is over, the wrath is not. While the top leadership of the Tourmarches mostly killed themselves, there are many on Sophia’s side, including herself, that feel that reckoning is due.
One issue that comes up quickly, albeit somewhat unexpectedly, regards the Queen of Cities herself, although some historians debate how serious it really was. The City had voluntarily surrendered, admittedly, but it had taken a direct order from the Emperor and even then it seems to have been a near-run thing. Throughout the war, the City had remained loyal, or at least quiescent under the Regime of the Tourmarches.
There are some in Sophia’s camp who feel the City should be punished for this, arguing that the capital should be moved to a more loyalist camp. Some attribute this to overexuberant civic pride from citizens of Thessaloniki. Inhabitants of the ‘Second City’ have a rivalry with the capital and enjoyed being the capital of the loyalist Empire with the sovereign living among them. Those inclined that way may wish that state of affairs to continue.
That sentiment, or the perception of it, is what fatally undermines the idea. The inhabitants of Smyrna argue that if the capital should be moved elsewhere, it should be moved to Smyrna. Their city had suffered far more in the war than Thessaloniki. This brings in the Antiochenes. They don’t have any recent arguments for taking precedence, but on principle are unwilling to cede it to Thessaloniki or Smyrna. The proposal goes nowhere.
A far more serious issue is what to with Emperor Herakleios III. There are some in Sophia’s camp who just want to get rid of him altogether, although anyone making the proposal is nonspecific of what that would entail. There is the possibility of a forced retirement. Herakleios III doesn’t seem like the type to stage a political comeback, but then they probably said that about Justinian II. Or there is the removal by a more permanent variety.
The reluctance to articulate what would be involved helps to show how awkward the topic is. Sophia, for both personal and political reasons, is against the idea of deposing and possibly murdering sovereigns. Especially since throughout the War of Wrath, Sophia and her loyalists publicly recognized the legitimacy of Emperor Herakleios III. Even when Sophia was crowned as Emperor in her own right, instead of being just Empress, it was as a co-Emperor of Herakleios, not as a replacement.
Plus, there is the issue of Constantinople. While the upper echelons of Constantinople’s officialdom had not seemed to take him seriously, especially in the last moments of the Regime of the Tourmarches, the bulk of the capital’s population is a different matter. For unclear reasons, they view him as their Emperor, in a way that reminds the historically-minded of young Konstantinos Porphyrogenites or his descendants Zoe and Theodora a century later. His actions in ending the siege and the war have catapulted these sentiments much higher.
It is decided to put into practice what had been claimed was the arrangement after Sophia was crowned as Emperor. Sophia and Herakleios will rule as co-Emperors, but Herakleios is quietly shoved into the background as the junior Basileus. Coin issues from this period are a good illustration. Both Sophia and Herakleios appear on the obverse, each with the imperial halo, but Sophia is slightly larger. Also, both are beardless, which is atypical for Herakleios who is an adult male who in the flesh has a full beard. But portraying Herakleios with a beard would suggest seniority over a beardless Sophia, even with the size difference, while giving Sophia a beard as well is just too weird.
Herakleios gets to stay, but he is an exception. Konstantinos Plytos may be dead, but his corpse is set up for a trial and then decapitated for good measure. The remains are then dumped in either the Marmara or the Black Sea, depending on the account one uses. His wife Xenia is confined to a nunnery in the Danube delta known for its ascetic and rigorous life. One significant contributory factor to that lifestyle is the malarial swamps of the delta; she is dead by 1667 at the latest. Unlike Nereas or Gyranos, Plytos had children although none played a noticeable political role. They migrate to Siberia, finding the climate there more congenial.
After that, the reprisals of Sophia and her loyalists against their defeated opponents display more magnanimity and nuance, at least some of the time. A good example of this is in regard to the navy. Rebuilding the fleet after Lepanto is a top priority but most of the fleet that fought for Sophia at Lepanto were either Sicilians or Spaniards. A complete purge of those who fought for the Tourmarches would seriously undermine efforts to rebuild.
Andronikos Platanas, commander of the Constantinople fleet at Lepanto, is the only navy man to be executed. This is partially due to his senior position which makes him impossible to ignore, although his intransigence toward his captors certainly makes him more irritating. His prickly personality also made him unpopular even with those on the same side. Few tears are shed at his death, although all agree that he met his end with courage and defiance.
Petros Laskaris is far more contentious. Starting the war as Kometes of the Crete naval squadron, his capture of Patras and raids against the Hellenic coast had very likely been the most damaging naval blows inflicted on the Sophia-loyalist side. He is credited, on both sides, as the most skillful naval commander that had fought for the Tourmarches. Many of the victims of his depredations would like to see his head severed from his body.
But his skill and popularity with the sailors and officers who served the Tourmarches during the war, who will be needed for naval rebuilding, mean that he is too valuable to be killed. He is kept on in the navy as Navarchos, the rank he had obtained in Tourmarch service by that point. His actions are described as part of the ugly nature of war, rather than as crimes against the Roman people. Other senior naval officials are dismissed, but given honorable discharges with the rank and associated pensions that they held the day before Sophia’s acclamation as Emperor. Below that level, officers and men are kept in place with the focus on reintegrating the combatant fleets.
The army looks much like the navy, just larger and more complicated. The senior officers are dismissed with the exception of the Thracian Strategos Isaakios Laskaris, a distant cousin of Petros Laskaris, but also the brother of Anastasia Laskarina. That family connection gets him the long knife treatment. Further down the chain of command is a mix, with the behavior of officers being examined for whether or not they have committed ‘crimes against the Roman people’.
The charge is vague and the dividing line between crimes and the ugliness of war, as Petros Laskaris’s actions were defined, is very fuzzy which leads to criticism both then and now. Those found to be on the wrong side of the line are executed, while others are treated like Petros Laskaris. Especially hard hit is the Varangian guard tagma, Nereas’s old unit. The unit is too venerable to be disbanded but it is absolutely gutted, Pirokolos remarking that the formation will be useless for at least half a decade. An unintended side effect is that the regular recruitment of Irish and Scots into the Varangian Guard, which is the trend to this day, dates from the rebuilding later in the 1660s.
Another senior official executed is Megas Tzaousios Iakobos Makres, not for family relations, but because he was an extremely important prop for the Regime of the Tourmarches, despite being initially appointed to the post by Athena. Makres’s support for the Tourmarches had been driven partly by his animus to the Patriarch of Constantinople Adam II, who had opposed Iakobos’s marriage to his twelve-year-old niece. Makres had wanted that to keep the property portfolio associated with her within the family. The Patriarch had not cared.
Makres gets his head chopped off (his niece’s feelings on the matter are lost to history) but he does get the satisfaction of living long enough to see Adam II die. His poor health finally fails and he dies just two weeks after Sophia enters Constantinople. Aside from Makres, most mourn his passing, but leaven their grief with the observation that while his heart may have been good, he had been overall a weak man when a stronger and more assertive Patriarch would’ve been extremely helpful to the Empire.
Someone like Father Andronikos Hadjipapandreou. Examination of Tourmarch papers finally reveal definitively what had been his fate. What are cited as his bones are dug up to be given a public burial, which is attended by tens of thousands of Constantinopolitans, including Emperor Herakleios III, which is considered by the people of the capital to be much to his credit. They are there to honor the memory of the pugilist priest but there is a hint of subversion here too. He had been murdered by the Tourmarches as a clear threat to their regime, but before that he had also criticized publicly Athena for what he perceived as failings in her duties. In Constantinople to this day, where other lands would call up the Ravens or Masaniello or Konon, they call up Father Andronikos Hadjipapandreou as a warning and promise to leaders who fail in their duties.
Nereas is still alive when Hadjipapandreou is reburied and Laskaris and Makres executed. That is not because there is debate about whether or not to execute him. The question is how, and who gets to do it. The queue for the latter is a long one. Eventually it is decided to let God, and his victims, decide. One of the villages of the Killing Fields of Thrakesia is selected at random and Nereas is handed over to the survivors for them to do as they please. The head, as required, is returned to the authorities so that it can be put on a lance to be displayed in the Hippodrome. It does not have a scratch on it, with its hair even having been nicely combed and trimmed. No trace of the body has ever been found.
In the end, only Gyranos, or the question of Gyranos remains. Plytos and particularly Nereas are easy to damn as traitors, but the verdict on Gyranos is not settled in the aftermath of the War of Wrath. It is still out today. Was he just another traitor who got cold feet at the last moment, or was just trying to save his skin, or his wife, at the end? Was he a visionary who had some good ideas and a zeal for reform that took a wrong step and found himself trapped? Or was he just interested in power, perhaps to implement some reforms, who only grew concerned because he found himself on the side he expected to lose? Did he redeem himself, or was he still damned?
All accounts of Gyranos agree on one thing. He was in love with his wife and extremely close to Irene, to a degree that was noticeable when he was alive. It was often considered to his demerit. That close relationship proves to be a serious hazard to Irene. Sophia had been willing to just exile the wife of Plytos because politically she had been a non-entity, but Irene’s closeness to Gyranos, who Sophia clearly wanted to string up, makes the Emperor-Empress more vengeful. Irene’s behavior when she is presented to Sophia is also obstinate and defiant, with Irene refusing to pay her the honors due to even an Empress, much less an Emperor. Pirokolos suspects that is because Irene does want to die and is trying to egg Sophia on so that she will execute her.
It is a personal intercession from Herakleios III that spares Irene’s life although she languishes in prison until December 1664. Then she is released, banned from Constantinople and told that if Sophia ever sees her again, her life is forfeit. That is fine with Irene who wants nothing to do with accursed Constantinople.
She retires to Mystras, soon entering the Pantanassa Nunnery, still operating on the slopes of the mountain to this day. As a nun she helps the funding and establishment of the associated greenhouse, one of the first greenhouses in the Peloponnesus, and the basis for the famous Botanical Gardens. The nuns grow fruit, vegetables, and flowers, both for their own use, that of pilgrims, and for sale to fund operations. Irene lives in the nunnery until 1681.
On her death she is buried there. In her hands she clasps a small silver medallion of two crossed swords, slightly misshapen. Andronikos Gyranos had worn that on his turban when he had died and it had survived, being given to her by someone sometime during her incarceration. She had worn it ever since. The grave of Sister Irene can be visited to this day. The sisters have been asked, and will not answer why, but the grave is always decorated with fresh flowers.
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