Isaac's Empire 2.0

[Basileus Giorgios]

Glad you all enjoyed the update!

Looks like Byzantium is going to face some instability. Michael IX ruled five years, Alexander IV three, and only time will tell how long David I will stay on the throne.

Not so long as Constantine X did, that's for sure.

I've made a minor alteration to the text to fit the story of the next chapter: Romanos Pegonites, born in 1315, is now his father's third son, with two older brothers, Alexios and Damianos. The chapter also contains another (minor) retcon from something mentioned previously: don't suppose anybody noticed it?

 

[Komnenos002]

Glad to see this has updated again!

My memory is hazy on the setup in Bulgaria at this point. It's marked as part of Roman territory, and the incursion there is seen as dealing with rebels, so who is this Tsarina that helped spark the revolt?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Glad to see this has updated again!

My memory is hazy on the setup in Bulgaria at this point. It's marked as part of Roman territory, and the incursion there is seen as dealing with rebels, so who is this Tsarina that helped spark the revolt?

Likewise! I'm glad my writing mojo has returned.

So, Bulgaria. The region broke off from Roman rule under John of Priene (Ivan I) in 1184, and from the reign of his grandson Ivan III (1226-1263) it became part of the Jurchen sphere. Ivan III was succeeded by his son Stephen, who formally submitted to the Khan of Kiev in 1277, and a significant Bulgarian contingent was present at the siege of Constantinople in 1281. With the defeat of this siege, Stephen's brother Constantine rose up against him, and the divided kingdom fell to the armies of the Caesar Gregory Maleinos between 1282 and 1284, who eventually imposed Maria as Tsarina, before sending her as a captive to Constantinople in 1287. This prompted a major revolt between 1288 and 1292, whose defeat marked the true end of TTL's Second Bulgarian Empire.

Maria always however remained in theory Tsarina, despite the fact that decrees increasingly were issued in the name of the Roman Emperor, especially after the death of the cautious Gregory Maleinos in 1299. Maria's death in 1312, and the failure of the Roman regime to crown her sister and only heir Anna to succeed her, were the spark that prompted the rebellion.

Essentially, Bulgaria in 1315 is an unhappy land, eager to revolt against Constantinople, but lacking the strength or international support to do much more than guerilla fighting.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Chapter Twenty Five: Blood and Heresy

"When he received bad news, it is said, his face would swell and redden as if he were fit to burst, and he would shout and shriek so loudly it was impossible for any to be with him. When the news from Persia reached him, the Emperor set upon the messenger with his bare hands like a savage beast."

Chronicle of John of Cilicia, writing c.1400​

If the Italian delegation in Constantinople had hoped that their attempts would at least give the resistant Emperor David Pegonites pause for thought, they would be disappointed there too: for David was determined to go further along the path of doctrinal compromise than any Emperor in centuries. Instead of allowing Samuel of Grado and the other Italian bishops to return home, he herded them into semi-captivity in the secondary imperial palace at Blakhérnai on the Golden Horn, under the care of his eldest son Alexios.[1]

The reason for the seizure of the Italian bishops soon became clear. A few months later, a delegation of seven Armenian bishops, as well as two each from Egypt and Syria arrived in the City, under the protection of the Emperor. The various foreign bishops were joined by a number of churchmen from the immediate vicinity of the capital, most importantly Patriarch Michael IV.[2] The party (numbering about forty in all) was feasted in a series of lavish dinners by the Emperor over the Christmas period, before sitting down to business in February 1316. The aim was nothing less than to heal the great schism of the Church brought about by the long gone Council of Chalcedon, to create a unified Church for a Roman Empire that now once more encompassed most of the Christians of the East.[3] David had, after all, been brought to power by the largely anti-Chalcedonian soldiers of Syria, and was determined to repay their loyalty, as well as ensuring it for the future against the revived Jušen Khanate of Iran under Jamshīd Khan.

Initial discussions, held in the Delphax wing of the Great Palace, were promising: although it would later be claimed that the Italians’ objections had been overridden by the sycophantic and supine bishops of the Aegean region, and Patriarch Michael himself: what the Easterners made of the so-called Little Council of Delphax is never really recorded. Whatever the case, after a further round of opulence and feasting, Samuel of Grado and his compatriots were sent back to Italy loaded with presents, with a view to convening a full Council of the Church the following year.

David would have to wait, however, for late in 1316 embers from the ongoing war in Bulgaria began to land in Epirus and Thessalonica.[4] A poor harvest had led to much resentment, especially when news of the decadence lavished upon the attendees of the Council of Delphax. It was angrily proclaimed across the western provinces that the Basileus was nothing more than a womanish Easterner, come to sap the hardy and orthodox taxpayers of Europe of their hard earned wealth. In truth, of course, this was hardly David’s fault: the inflation that had begun under Constantine X was now exacting a punishing toll on the rural poor that the court of Constantinople was largely shielded from. But the peasants had little interest in hearing this: and what is more, one group was spinning a very different story.

The radical Christians known as the Helots had scarcely been thought of by the governments of either Michael IX or Alexander IV, and David Pegonites’ regime likewise paid them scant attention. Like so many other ethereal heresies before them, the Helots by the 1310s appeared to be dead and done, confined to a handful of odd wandering hermits and obscure bookish monks. But the circumstances of 1316 came together perfectly in their favour. The Little Council of Delphax, it was ringingly proclaimed, was a perfect example of the corruption of the world, with the Holy Word of God being prostituted to the demands of a distant and immoral tyrant. Helotism suddenly found itself with a distinctly receptive audience, both amongstRomaic speakers and Bulgarian rebels. The seed of uprising even crossed to Italy, where the Katepánō Andronikos Xanthis found himself briefly besieged in his quarters in Syracuse by a furious mob.

As winter melted into spring, things took a still more menacing turn. The Strategos of Epirus was one Theodore Komnenodoukas, a man whose very name gave testimony to his imposing pedigree. The Komnenodoukai were the descendents of the Empress Eirene Nafpliotissa’s second daughter and namesake and her husband Constantine Doukas, a scion of the Empire’s richest and most influential family. This, according to the Komnenodoukai, gave them a far superior claim to power than the descendants of Eirene’s youngest daughter Zōē and her husband George of Genoa. The first man to adopt the surname, Alexios Komnenodoukas, had been a prominent leader of the so-called “Sebastean revolt” against Demetrios the Regent back in 1246, and his son Isaac had ever after been kept under very close watch by the Palaiologan regime.[5] Theodore was Isaac’s youngest son, and had first seen military action as a teenager in the Bulgarian revolt of 1288, where he had moderately distinguished himself. Constantine X was by this point secure enough to allow the Komnenodoukai a measure of influence at court, but upon the accession of Michael IX they were again sidelined, which continued under Alexander IV and David. Theodore Komnenodoukas was therefore a man with a distinct grievance, and it is perhaps not tremendously surprising that in Easter 1317 he entered Thessalonica without a fight, and was raised upon the shields of the soldiery as David Pegonites had been and proclaimed Emperor of the Romans, “to the great cheer of all the common people”, as one writer put it.

At this point, David Pegonites considered fleeing to Antioch. Komnenodoukas was extremely wealthy and well-connected, and moreover, he appeared to command an impressive degree of loyalty from his troops and the peasantry of the Haemic peninsula, who accompanied his progress towards Constantinople as an ever-flowing tide, kept supplied by the wealth of the pretender’s family. Philippi and Mosynopolis surrendered without a fight to the rebel army, and soon they were at Adrianople, which similarly yielded. When at the city, Komnenodoukas heard that the Emperor had indeed abandoned Constantinople for the East, and hurriedly hastened to claim the throne, encouraged by a letter of welcome from the frightened Patriarch Michael IV.

It was a tragic mistake. Somewhere near the town of Arkadiopolis, the ragged popular army of Theodore Komnenodoukas was ambushed by a small force of professional troops of the Tagmata, led by David’s eldest son Alexios, just twenty two years old but already proving himself to be a capable and beloved general. Komnenodoukas’ army probably outnumbered the young Pegonites five to one, but Alexios led hardened warriors out of Bulgaria, while the rebel force was made up of irregular levies, mercenaries, and armed peasants.[6]The battle of Arkadiopolis was wrapped up in under two hours, with rebel force swiftly breaking under the hammer of Alexios Pegonites’ armoured horsemen. Komnenodoukas himself valiantly attempted to rally his force, but was experienced enough to know that his levies stood little chance against experienced professional troops. He fled the scene of the battle, hoping to escape Rhōmanía altogether and claim sanctuary from the King of Hungary, but was betrayed by a Bulgarian boyar en-route. He entered the Golden Gate of Constantinople in January 1318, not as a conquering Emperor, but as a headless corpse.

By this point, the disturbances of the Helots had largely died down, but the promised Church Council remained for the Emperor David as distant a prospect as ever, as, indeed, did hopes of peace. Encouraged by news of revolt, Jamshīd Khan had in 1318 began to menace the Eastern provinces, forcing the Emperor to send his son and several thousand crack troops away from Bulgaria to the East: he did not dare to leave the capital himself for fear of confirming his enemies’ taunts of his oriental leanings. Heartache struck that same year, with the death of the Empress Sophia Chryselie, the link that bound David to his ambitious family in the form of his brothers. David began to sink into paranoia, rarely seen without heavy guard. The Chryseloi brothers were seized soon after Sophia’s death, and expressly forbidden to leave the City without David’s say-so. More and more the hopes of the regime focused themselves on the dashing and heroic Alexios Pegonites, who had all of his father’s vision with none of the heavy handedness. But Alexios himself died barely a year after his mother, badly wounded after winning a triumphant victory over the Bulgars. He left behind him an infant son and daughter, but they were quickly also taken into custody by the Emperor, who hoped to use them as hostages against their mother’s family, the powerful Melissenoi.

Alexios’ death might have been a tragedy, but he did not die entirely in vain, for the campaigning season of 1319 had seen the collapse of most serious resistance in Bulgaria. David’s second son Damianos was married to the heiress of the greatest of the Bulgarian generals, and, though fighting continued into 1320, the war was effectively over. At the end of the year, the Emperor made a great show of abolishing the special tax that had been levied over the past eight years to finance the war, to great popular acclaim. After a rocky few years, it seemed that the imperial government might have a chance to get back on the front foot.

In the event, it would prove to only be a brief respite. In 1322, Jamshīd Khan passed away, and was succeeded without question by his heir, Ghazan I. This in itself was a remarkable testimony to the success of Jamshīd in stabilising the Irano-Jušen state, for Ghazan had a number of brothers and cousins who signally failed to challenge his accession. Nonetheless, the new Khan (or perhaps better, Shāhanshāh, for the Jušen were now quickly being subsumed into the broader Iranian state) had to prove himself his father’s equal quickly, and so he began to make aggressive noises towards Constantinople. These were principally over the by-now longstanding issues of the Jušen refugees in Rhōmanía taken in by Michael X when Jamshīd had first risen to power, and kept as a diplomatic levering point ever since. The negotiations that followed were shortlived and ill tempered, and late in the year, the Khan led an army around the fertile valleys of the Upper Euphrates, extorting gold as he went.[7] An attempt by a young local Strategos, Adrianos Lekkas, to ambush him as he retreated was avoided entirely, leaving the Roman troops red-faced and the Khan jubilant, his prestige secured without a drop of Iranian blood spilled.

It was said that when news reached Constantinople, the Emperor David beat the messenger boy carrying it to within an inch of his life.[8] Certainly, there was fury and incredulity in the Palace. It seemed clear to the Basileus that the obvious cause for the problem was inadequate training and quality of troops on the Eastern frontier, and he therefore attempted to seek more sources of income to fund a greatly increased army. Perhaps chastened by the experience of 1317, the commons were left alone: instead, an attempt was made to extort wealth from the Dynatoi. Predictably, this went down extremely badly, leading to a deeply embarrassing incident when the Emperor was actually refused entry to the Senate House by a number of supremely grand aristocrats.[9]

A stronger Emperor than David Pegonites might well have been able to stare down the Dynatoi, but the fact was that David did not have the support of any part of civilian society within the Empire, be it Senate (as represented by the Dynatoi), Church or the common people. Only the growing power of the mercantile families still backed David’s regime, and that was more down to the desire for stability than any particular desire to keep a particular monarch in power.[10] The army alone remained reasonably loyal, thanks to David’s own background and the glorious memory of his son Alexios, and it was to the army that the Emperor David now turned. Large numbers of troops were garrisoned in and around Constantinople, ostensibly to protect against the attacks of further Bulgarian rebels. To hear the sources tell it, the Empire was fast becoming a great armed camp.

Italy, as ever, remained semi-detached. There, the decrees of the paranoid Emperor could be largely ignored, or at least given minimal attention. So it was that upon the death of Pope Victor VI, after a long but feeble pontificate of twenty five years, in 1327 the urgings by Constantinople to appoint the loyalist Bishop of Bari as his successor fell upon deaf ears. There could be only one realistic candidate for the post, it seemed: and Samuel of Grado duly became Pope Samuel II that summer.

What happened next is confusing, for our sources are contradictory.[11] It seems that David opted to travel to Italy himself, to impose his own choice of Patriarch of Rome at the head of a large army, leaving his sons and co-Emperors Damianos and Rōmanos in Constantinople. He certainly progressed as far as Rhaidestos, but there he mysteriously fell ill and died. It was an ignominious end, for David was a man of talent and vision who could have made a fine Emperor in easier circumstances. As it was, the state was left in the hands of his sons. Damianos, the elder, was twenty four but unmarried and supposedly half mad, while Rōmanos, the younger, was a boy of thirteen. These, however, were minor details to the jubilant aristocracy, who considered themselves ridded of an oriental despot. Comparisons duly followed of David with the Persian kings of old who had threatened classical Greece, but who had been defeated by the pluck and guile of brave patriotic men. What the dead Emperor’s sons made of all this is nowhere recorded.

The news was also greeted with satisfaction in Rome, and, it was muttered, with less surprise than should have been the case. Two days after the message arrived of the death of David Pegonites, Pope Samuel set sail for Constantinople, and the destiny of a generation.

__________________________________________________________
[1] The Palace of Blachernae IOTL became the main imperial residence under the Komnenoi, a change that never happens ITTL, where it remains a secondary residence, generally inhabited by important figures outside the main imperial family. Until the revolt of Constantine, the palace was the main base of the Maleinos family.

[2] Not to be confused with his predecessor but one Michael III the Weaver, who died in the reign of Alexander IV.

[3] Held in 451, the Council of Chalcedon aimed to steer a middle way between the positions of the so-called Nestorians, who emphasised the division and equality of Christ’s human and divine aspects, and the Monophysites, who emphasised the subordination of the human to the divine. The council failed to bring around Monophysite hardliners, who by the later sixth century were creating a separate church hierarchy in Syria and Egypt.

[4] It is worth noting that the Italian bishops certainly put in at several Epirote ports that same autumn.

[5] For the Sebastean revolt, see Chapter Eighteen. Briefly, it was an abortive uprising of nobles upon the death of Isaac III Palaiologos, seeking to gain control over Isaac’s young sons Constantine and George and was put down with Jurchen support.

[6] The main western Tagmatic armies are fully engaged in subduing the Bulgarian revolt in 1317, leaving Komnenodoukas with only the militia troops of the still not entirely defunct Themata, as well as an array of mercenaries and peasant levies.

[7] In doing so, Ghazan bypassed the more heavily fortified area around Edessa and Samosata under the Duke of Antioch and instead struck at the more lightly defended “Armenian Themes” to the north.

[8] Admittedly, the sources are fairly hostile to the “heretic” David.

[9] Notably Gregory Maleinos, grandson and namesake of Constantine X’s powerful brother-in-law.

[10] For the rise of the merchants, see Chapter Nineteen.

[11] They’re torn between a desire to condemn the heretic David, and the demon Samuel, in short.

 

[ImperatorAlexander]

And so it begins...can't wait to see what happens next.
And it's awesome to see the frequency of updates picking up, thanks BG!

 

[Yorel]

Great update BG. And it happened pretty fast too!

And so David I passes away and it looks like none of his two sons are really fit for the throne: Damianos is described as half-mad and Romanos is very young. This doesn't bode well for the empire, especially now that Pope Samuel II has begun his pontificate...

David’s second son Damianos was married to the heiress of the greatest of the Bulgarian generals

Damianos, the elder, was twenty four but unmarried and supposedly half mad

Isn't there a contradiction here? Or did Damianos' wife died berween 1319 and 1327?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

And so it begins...can't wait to see what happens next.
And it's awesome to see the frequency of updates picking up, thanks BG!

Great update BG. And it happened pretty fast too!

Thanks. And yeah, my moments of writing inspiration seem to come in "clumps", so I try to write as much as I can when the going is good. Don't be too surprised if there's not another update before 2015. That said, there could easily be three or four between now and Christmas, we'll just have to see what happens.

Isn't there a contradiction here? Or did Damianos' wife died berween 1319 and 1327?[

Damianos is only sixteen when the marriage takes place, and his bride younger still. She died in childbirth relatively soon after the marriage, and the baby did not survive her. Damianos has not remarried since. I'd point out though that the sources for the reign of David I are almost uniformly hostile towards both the Emperor and his sons, so Damianos' supposed madness may be a partially literary invention that the in-universe writer ofIE is picking up on.

 

[Sassanid Saxon]

Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων. It is so great to have the Lord of Alt History TLs back! Thank you for your work BG, it is so inspiring!

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων. It is so great to have the Lord of Alt History TLs back! Thank you for your work BG, it is so inspiring!

Fulsome praise indeed! Thank you

 

[Archangel]

Nice update, BG!

 

[Devilmaypoop]

One of the best timelines I have had the pleasure to read, very engaging and plausible. Keep it up!

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Nice update, BG!

One of the best timelines I have had the pleasure to read, very engaging and plausible. Keep it up!

Thank you very much.

I've written some stuff on German Emperors, which I'll post soon in the spin-off thread.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Okay. I've written a fairly long piece on the Laodicea campaign of 1266/67, as I got inspired to write about that area, for whatever reason. The text can be found on my Wikia: comments much appreciated! There's some other "unpublished" stuff on there which readers will hopefully enjoy.

 

[Komnenos002]

Giving this time-line a read through again to refresh my memory of past events. I'll try and give my thoughts on it at the end.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Giving this time-line a read through again to refresh my memory of past events. I'll try and give my thoughts on it at the end.

How's that going?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

There should be a new update in the next day or two. Featuring lots of Pope Samuel. I'm starting to get to the stage where I'm less dissatisfied with the writing quality of the original TL, so you'll start to see sections lifted entirely from 1.0 beginning to crop up with only minor alterations here and there. I'm mostly excited to get to the 1350s, for the period of "Demon Rule" and the early years of the Young Butcher, who'll be a quite different character from in 1.0. Watch this space!

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

I'm introducing quite a flood of new characters in this update. This is unavoidable, as we set the stage for serious mayhem in Chapter Twenty Seven, but an early proof-read by my editor confirms what I'd thought: it's bloody confusing. Without further ado, I thought I'd present this, to clarify the cast of Chapter Twenty Six, and where they are in early autumn 1327.

David I Pegonites, Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans, Equal of the Apostles, Master of the Universe and Master of Time, dead of a bad belly at Rhaidestos on the Propontis. David seized the throne by force of arms, but derived some blood claim through his wife Sophia Chryselie, a great-niece of the Emperor Constantine X Palaiologos, and great-great-granddaughter of the Emperor George I of Genoa and his wife Zoe Komnena.

David's sons: (Alexios), b. 1295, d. 1319 in battle.
___________Damianos, b. 1304, rumoured to be half mad.
___________Romanos, b. 1314.

George Dasiotes, an extremely rich nobleman and Senator, one of the Emperor David's few remaining allies in Constantinople.

George's daughter: Anna Dasiotissa, b. 1310, his only living child.

Samuel II, Patriarch of Rome, formerly "Patriarch" Samuel of Grado, the popular successor of the feeble Pope Victor VI despite the opposition of David Pegonites.

Isidoros II, Patriarch of Constantinople, an ally of Samuel and enemy of the Emperor David, Isidoros has held the Patriarchal throne for three years.

Christopher of Prousa, a young bishop with the common touch.

Andronikos Xanthis, Grand Domestic of the West, formerly Catepan of Italy and Commander of the Varangian Guard. An experienced and capable general, charged with keeping the peace in recently subdued Bulgaria. A close ally of the Emperor David, and a noted enemy of Samuel of Grado.

Andronikos' brother-in-law, Constantine of Syria, a commoner made good, recently widowed.

Constantine's five sons: Michael b. 1315
____________________John b. 1316
____________________Alexios b. 1318
____________________Romanos b. 1319
____________________Manuel b. 1320

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

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.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

I hope I get comments on this simply for the 45 minutes I have just spent battling with formatting, Good Lord.

 

[Archangel]

Good update, BG!