I’ll go back and bump them up a bit. That was me guessing where the mountains were supposed to extend based on a different map I was looking at.
The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
- Start date
here have this map its easier to use if you want to show the mediterrenian and the byzantines
Did you choose the name John for the ‘incompetent’ younger brother of an irresponsible spendthrift emperor because of a certain English king who had to deal with similar circumstances?I'm not totally sure what that's a reference to, but probably.
Both fixed.
And you toss in just a little bit of an Emperor who is well meaning but really bad at the job, and voila, we have now created the Roman special.
Uh...actually I just have a list of names the Byzantine Emperor’s used and that was name of their great uncle. But that sounds much more clever so I change my answer to that.
Part 21: John the Worst
Part XXI: John the Worst
Once upon a time an insane, murderous, wasteful, perverted incompetent of an Emperor was assassinated after just a few years on the throne. In his place was put a witless, stuttering, and crippled fool. Or so everyone thought. Instead the man who no one expected to be good turned out to be one of the finest Emperors of his era, ruling wisely and with skill for many years, only brought low because he trusted the wrong people.
This is not his story.
I lead off with that because the situation is remarkably similar to the time immediately following the assassination of Caligula, when old stupid Uncle Claudius was brought forth by the Praetorian Guard to be Emperor, and turned out to be a great choice. History had repeated itself with Anastasius II, but would not continue to do so for his successor. Emperor John I was a weak, incompetent, buffoon of a man who was the butt of jokes even while he was in power.
John was the younger brother of Anastasius, and had been exiled by him to Syria. Konon had snatched him up before marching on the capital, betrothed him to his own daughter, Eudoxia, and then declared him the rightful Augustus Basileus in the Hagia Sophia. Pointedly it was the archbishop of Thessalonika who did so, under the authority of the pope, not the now vacant office of Patriarch. The archbishop was naturally elevated to the post by John afterward, but it was the first real move toward full Papal Supremacy.
John inherited an Empire whose soldiers lacked morale, a treasury that needed to be refilled, provinces groaning under already high taxes,and a populace who hated him. He would rarely leave the palace during his reign, staying there with his bureaucrats, his bodyguards, and his wife. And the couple hated one another. Eudoxia thought that John was a stupid waste of space who could be pushed around by anyone and everyone around him. And…well she was right.
John aptly demonstrated his lack of ability when members of surviving noble families appealed to have their properties and wealth reinstated. Konon advised against this, as it would strain the treasury still further. But Konon wasn’t in the room when court was held, and so while the Emperor waffled he almost always gave in. The problem was that many of the properties were now held by other people, and while some of those had been Anastasius’s friends, who suddenly found themselves suffering from a case of decapitation, or were exiled, others weren’t.
But sorting out which was which was a job for someone more administratively capable, which John was not. He simply restored the properties in full, and without arranging for compensation ahead of time. This naturally led to even more appeals from those who had purchased what they thought was available land. And John agreed to compensate them as well. While he had no money.
What he did have however, and what these people really wanted, were those former thematic lands in Anatolia, which were now handed out to those seeking compensation. Formerly independent farmers now found themselves with new noble landlords, who suddenly owned the land with neither compensation to the farmer, nor even a warning of what was coming.
Unrest built up, and in 769 a revolt broke out in Cappadocia, which required the deployment of the Armenian and Syrian soldiers to put down. In this same year the Empress Eudoxia gave birth to her first child, a son named Manuel. I say her son rather than their son because no one, at the time or now, believes that it was a child of the couple. Eudoxia cheated early and often on her hated husband. There was a significant whisper campaign against her in the palace, and John’s remaining siblings tried to get the pair to divorce, but Konon was in this successful at getting his way. The pair would remain married, if only to secure the Domestic’s family would enter the Imperial dynasty.
In 770 though Konon died, and was succeeded in his post by his oldest son, Constantine. Constantine hated John, but loved his sister, and so he continued his father’s policy of forcing the couple to remain together, to keep Eudoxia as Empress.It was in 770 however that the Bulgars once again crossed the Danube and began sacking Moesia, but this time they penetrated further south, and actually cross the Hemus mountains to raid Greece itself.
Constantine took the Tagmata out to fight them, and in his absence the pressure intensified. John actually was convinced to start annulment proceedings, but Eudoxia was well-liked by the clergy, and they refused to cooperate. When Constantine returned at the end of the year he reasserted the former order, and got John’s two oldest surviving brother’s exiled. One to Africa, the other to Mesopotamia. Both were also blinded and forced into a monastery to prevent future attempts at power.
He also caused Manuel to be named Caesar.
The Bulgars returned in 771 and 772, but were held off each time by the theme armies. It wasn’t until 773 that Constantine was forced to once again march out and confront the Khan directly. A battle was fought near SIrmium, and while the khan was victorious he did decide to withdraw north of the Danube. Knowing he could probably get a decent peace treaty now the Bulgar leader sent envoys to the Romans, but Constantine cut their heads and sent those back.
The Empire would not be paying anymore tribute.
The Bulgars were incensed, and in 774 they launched the largest raid in their history across the Danube, smashing their way down through the Mountains and to Thessalonika. The city was laid under siege and the country-side was pillaged. Constantine once again marched out with the army, not knowing that this would a disastrous move for his family and the Empire.
John did not want to be a puppet Emperor you have to understand. He wanted to rule with wisdom, prudence, and justice. He was a decent person from everything we can gather. He simply wasn’t up to the job. To continue the references to the old Empire, he reminds me a lot of the first few months of Caligula’s reign. Everyone asked for something, and everyone got it.
He paid no attention to expense or realism, the money was just always there, and he spent it with abandon. The provinces were being taxed into oblivion, and it still wasn’t enough for everything John kept trying to do. He was kind, and generous, but too weak and nice for his own good. And in 775 that came back on him. Another of his brother’s brought him clear evidence that Eudoxia was cheating on him, and he threatened to reveal it publicly if John did not immediately divorce her and remarry.
John agreed. But he wanted to spare her and their two children, so he had a servant tell Eudoxia to get out of the city first. The servant however had enquired abut why, and John and stupidly told him the truth. The servant went to the Empress, and promptly told her everything. Eudoxia, realizing that she might have crossed the line permanently this time was faced with the choice of either a humiliating exile, or seizing power. She chose the latter.
This is why Constantine’s departure the previous year was so bad. The general had successfully broken the Bulgar siege, but then had pursued the khan north hoping to deal a full defeat to the Bulgars and force them to come to better terms. He had wintered in Sirmium, and was preparing to cross the Danube when all of these events hit.
If Constantine had been there this all could have been smoothed over, and probably another brother would have been blinded and sent into exile. But he wasn’t there. And no messages were sent to him. When John ordered his wife arrested she had already gotten to the Excubatore leadership. They seized the Emperor, and murdered him, then they seized and killed all of his siblings who remained in the capital. Eudoxia had her own son declared Augustus Basileus, and he will of course be known to us as Manuel the Bastard.
John was 30 years old, and had been Emperor for 8 years.
John I was a bad Emperor. He wasn’t as bad as his brother, but his lack of administrative skill, overly nice nature, and lack of anything resembling a spine doomed him from the start. If there was a black mark on Leo IV’s life it was that his children turned out so terribly.
Eudoxia was quite happy with her little coup when she sent word to her brother about what had happened. Constantine was irritated, but was willing to let it go. But the rest of the Empire was not. These upstarts had now murdered two Emperor’s, and now some probable bastard was on the throne. No, this wouldn’t do at all. Next time we will cover the long year of 776, as civil war returns to the Roman Empire.
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I doubt it, all the references to Manuel II seem to allude to him being quite a few centuries ahead.
@wvc215 also says that this emperor is known as Manuel the Bastard, while we've never heard Manuel II referred to that way.
Nope. Manuel will be Emperor when the Empire goes through the first of its two huge crisis periods in the coming centuries. We're at the point where the many, many internal problems the Romans are going to be dealing with then are starting to build up.
Part 22: An Old Custom
Part XXII: An Old Custom
When the message went out that John was dead, and his young son was Emperor the Empire was initially rather calm. Yes it was yet another dead Emperor, but that wasn’t inherently suspicious. But John’s orders had been heard by too many people, and those people fled the city, heading toward whomever they were the most loyal to. These were primarily the commanders of the Mesopotamian themes, the Egyptian Diocese, and of course Italy.
The Mesopotamian commander, Joshua of Edessa, declared Nikephorus, the blinded son of Leo to be Emperor. He quickly rallied the support of Syria, Palaestine, and Armenia behind him, and took his thematic troops west into Anatolia. Constantine concluded a peace with the Bulgars and marched East to meet him. The two armies met near Amorium inside the Diocese of Pontus. Both sides had twenty-thousand troops, but the superior experience of the Tagmatic soldiers, and Constantine’s tactical mind carried the day.
The Mesopotamians were forced to surrender, and both Joshua and Nikephorus were killed. But just because the claimant was dead did not mean the Eastern revolt was over. John of Tao, an Armenian of significant standing escaped the battle with his men, and returned to the Caucuses to raise a new army. Along the way he grabbed Leo’s last remaining son, Alexander, who had also been blinded, and declared him the rightful Emperor.
Constantine wanted to pursue, but the Egyptian fleet had taken this time to begin attacking the Greek coast, including seizing Athens in March 767. While the local soldiers succeeded in retaking the city quickly the Egyptian Navy had by then seized Rhodes, and were assaulting Lesbos. Constantine was forced to move south to block an attempted landing at Ephesus, but this had been a feint. In truth the Egyptians had moved to Thessalonika, breaching the seawalls and forcing the city to surrender. Then they unloaded nearly thirty thousand soldiers and severed the roads between the capital and the Balkans.
Constantine raced back, and finally stopped the Egyptian advance near Adrianople. A battle ensued, and again the superior experience of the capital’s soldiers was decisive. The Egyptian army was broken and forced to surrender. The commander, Valen of Cyrenaica was executed, and the remnants were sent north to Moesia to reinforce the Danube.
Now however Constantine had two more foes confronting him. In Italy Andronikos, the son of the previously mentioned John, uncle to Leo, was in command of the peninsula, as well as the themes of Africa. This also gave him a strong fleet, as the Venetians and Neapolitans had large fleets that had been conscripted by the usurping Thalassan.
In the East John of Tao had rallied the Albanians, Lazikans, and Iberians to form a coalition to put Alexander on the throne, and in the process win greater independence from Constantinople. These two groups were separate for now, but would not remain so for long. Emissaries of Andronikos landed in Tripoli and crossed the still rebellious themes of Syria and into the Armenian mountains. There they made contact with the Caucus kingdoms and proposed joint rule between Alexander and Andronikos, as capturing the capital was the most important goal for each.
John of Tao agreed, and the two sides launched a joint offensive against Constantine’s holdings. Andronikos used his navy to seize the port of Corinth, and began a repeat of the Egyptian strategy. Using Krete and Rhodes as a base he moved north, capturing the Aegean islands until finally his fleet captured Samothrace in November 976. As this offensive was going on a combined army of Caucus troops, as well as reinforcements from Syria, and a group of Khazars who had been convinced to back Alexander’s claim to the throne, pushed across northern Anatolia, long without any real defenses in place. They reached Nicaea in October, and settled in to wait for the new year.
When spring came Andronikos deployed his army into Greece. Landing forces at Corinth he took the Peloponnese with an army of about thirty thousand. Of these about twelve thousand were Italian garrison troops, along with ten thousand Lombards from Spoleto, and finally eight thousand Gothic mercenaries. He marched north, and Constantine was forced to dig in at the capital and wait. He couldn’t move either East or West without the very real possibility of the other army pouncing in his absence. In April 777 Andronikos’s army arrived and placed Constantinople under siege.
Meanwhile the Italian fleet placed the capital under blockade, and a fleet of ships from Anatolia blocked the entrance from the Black Sea. Realizing he was doomed Constantine deployed the Imperial fleet to break the Black Sea blockade, but in the ensuing battle the Italians crossed through the straights and came up on the Imperial fleet from the rear. In a long, hard-fought battle the Imperial fleet was defeated, and ultimately surrendered to the rebels.
To explain what happened next I must rewind a bit to the 760s. In 766 an earthquake had hit the capital, and the damage had been severe. While much of the capital was now repaired there was one key exception. With the capital’s population now a fraction of what it had been the aqueduct of Valens had fallen in priority. When the earthquake hit the aqueduct had been badly damaged and was now non-function. But it still connected into the city. Andronikos’s men found this entry point, and the self-declared Emperor led a small group of them inside, took the gates, and threw them open. His army entered the city before the shocked soldiers inside realized what was happening. In hours the capital fell, and the palace was taken. Eudoxia was executed, as was her brother. Manuel the Bastard was castrated and sent to a monastery where he would live out the rest of his days under effective house arrest.
Andronikos recognized as Augustos Basileos on July 6, 777. As he had promised Andronikos arranged for Alexander, John of Tao, and the kings of the Caucuses clients to come to the capitol to receive their reward. They crossed, but were interecepted in the Straights by the Italian fleet, and an anvil was tied to John of Tao, and he was thrown overboard. The kings were put in chains and paraded through the streets as the Emperor showed the people what he had “delivered” them from with his swift action.
Alexander was tonsured once again and sent to a monastery in Italy. The West was now secure.
But the East was not. The kings were held as prisoners to force the Roman clients into line, but this measure backfired. Rather than forcing the Caucuses into submission Andronikos’s action inflamed them further. They invited the Khazars to occupy their lands, and the khan agreed. Andronikos departed Constantinople with a large army in March 778, and marched on the Caucuses. He defeated a Khazar force near Theodosiopolis in June, and began reexerting Roman power over the area.
Armenians turned on one another now, with pro-Roman families fighting their pro-independence neighbors. Slowly inexorably the Romans pushed back into control of the ancient kingdom. As this took place Roman envoys convinced the Bulgars to launch attacks on the Khazars khanate, and with help from the Persians they made contact with another group of Nomads near the Caspian Sea, the Pechenegs. With Roman promises in hand the Pechenegs were convinced to attack the Khazars as well, and the khan was forced to abandon the Caucuses to defend his territory.
Suddenly the Caucus clients found themselves without external aid, and with the Roman army steadily and methodically securing the mountains. The Iberians now gave up, surrendering their independence and being incorporated into the Roman Empire as a province. The Albanians and Lazikans fought on, but were crushed by 780. The client kingdoms were swept away, and these two were incorporated as provinces of the Empire.
The Khazar Khan offered a truce with Constantinople, and this was accepted. Andronikos returned to Constantinople in 781, crowned his son Justinian co-Emperor, and settled in to sort out the Empire’s financial troubles. Then he immediately was forced to depart as Egypt once again rose in revolt in 782, as did Palaestine.
Andronikos led an army to Syria, and contacted the Bedawi nearby, hiring them as foederates. With an army of twenty-five thousand the Emperor marched south, and resecured Palaestine by the end of 782. Then he marched on into Egypt. The Egyptians planned to resits, but the fortresses that had once defended the province were run down. It had been decades since anyone had needed to man the defenses, and Andronikos swept to Alexandria with ease.
The Alexandrians held out for three months in a siege, but when the Imperial fleet defeated the Egyptian fleet in a battle outside the harbor they gave up. Andronikos marched in, and declared the city taken in September 783. The Emperor once again returned to Constantinople, secure in his position for the first time.
I'm a bit confused by the relations and number of Johns. Is Emperor Andronikos son to the previous Emperor John (He died at age 30 I would presume no)? Or another John?
John as in the younger son of Sophia and Marcian? The prince who never usurped the throne even though he had the opportunity to do so?This Andronikos fellow must be ancient.
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He's in his fifties. His son Justinian is already thirty.
Here's the last couple of generations. Note that due to civil war the entire line of Leo has now been wiped out.
Attachments
Eirene was killed for being (perceived as) one of Anastasius II’s worst cohorts. The others were younger and either still underage when Eudoxia launches her coup, or in territory under the new regime’s control and were taken into Imperial protection. Mysteriously they somehow wound up dead while under that protection. A mystery for the ages.