ORIENT, EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. —
I. THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
The Byzantine Empire, which has always historically been called and should be called the Eastern Roman Empire, had a history spanning more than a thousand years, which can be divided into three periods corresponding to those proper to any human or social organism: formation, from the founding of Constantinople to the accession of Justinian I to the throne (326–565); consolidation, after intense internal conflicts caused by the new division of the Empire into civil-military provinces called themata, by the assault of barbarians coming from the north and east in search of territories, and by the spread of Islam; consolidation which reached its glorious peak with the Macedonian dynasty (565–1025); the dissolution of political and social life due to the external threat that grew daily, of internal intrigue that stifled sound politics and shattered religious unity with the Latin Church, and of the expansion of the West, which, through trade routes, managed for 54 years to place its own representatives on the throne of Byzantium and to strike the Eastern Roman Empire a blow from which it would never recover (1025–1453).1. From Constantine to Justinian (326–565)
During the first transitional phase, the elements that would become distinctive of Byzantine history were established. Constantine, a Balkan by birth and a valiant soldier, immediately saw that the defense of the Roman Empire lay in the Balkans, which mark the frontier between Asia and Europe; as a shrewd politician, he sensed that Christianity held all the hopes of the future and wished the new capital he had established at Byzantium, a small municipality of Thrace, to be oriented from the outset toward Christianity, whereas old Rome was still too full of pagan memories. He accepted from Diocletian the administrative division of the Empire into four great prefectures, but abolished the tetrarchs who had pursued too personal and independent a policy, replacing them with four praetorian prefects who answered directly to him. Like Diocletian, he maintained a clear distinction between civil and military administration and ensured that both reported to a council of state ministers (consistorium sacrum), which became the official organ through which the Emperor carried out his work.The Senate no longer formed a diarchy with the prince; it retained only honorary prerogatives and those of municipal governance of the new city, and even if its members were admitted to the prince’s cabinet, they did so only through the new bureaucracy. The new servants of the state were no longer chosen from the old aristocracy but from the middle class, for whom, however, bureaucratic titles of nobility were created, each corresponding to specific functions within the imperial cabinet.
From the time of Constantine, therefore, the elements that would constitute the distinctive monarchy of Byzantium are discernible, though they would take on their definitive form only under Justinian.
The successors of Constantine—Constantine II (d. 340), who ruled the West; Constans (340–58), who ruled Italy and Africa; Constantius (350–61), who ruled the East and, from 350, the entire Empire—continued their father’s policies, despite fratricidal struggles and usurpations. Julian (361–63), son of a brother of Constantine, attempted to revive paganism along Neoplatonic lines but died in battle against the Persians in 363.
Under the successors Jovian (364), Valentinian I (364–78), Gratian (375–83), and Valentinian II (375–92), the Empire became increasingly bureaucratic and assumed the character of a vast organization. Under Theodosius I the Great (379–95), Christianity was firmly established, and the Empire remained permanently divided between its western and eastern halves, which, though under the legal fiction of Roman imperial unity, each pursued its own survival.
In the West, under Honorius (d. 423, son and successor of Theodosius) and Valentinian III (425–455), the fifth century was marked by barbarian invasions: Vandals, Visigoths, and Suebi of Germanic stock, who reduced the most important western provinces—Britannia, Gaul, Spain, and Africa—to barbarian principalities. Barbarians, more or less assimilated, infiltrated the army and administration of the imperial territories, altering their ethnic character and partly assimilating the Latin language and Christian religion. After Valentinian III, nine emperors succeeded one another on the weakened throne of the West; there was a new sack of Rome by Gaiseric (455), until Odoacer, a Herulian warlord in the service of the emperor Romulus Augustulus, deposed the ephemeral sovereign in 476 when his demand for land in Italy was refused, and assumed direct power. This did not, in theory, signify the end of the Western Roman Empire but rather the transfer of Italy under the authority of the Emperor of the East.
In the eastern section of the Empire, matters proceeded more peacefully from the standpoint of external attacks, since the Goths and Ostrogoths were diverted toward Italy, though political and religious disputes arose from the never-ending rivalry between Constantinople and Alexandria, which took on the aspect of a religious controversy. After the inept Arcadius (395–408), his son Theodosius II (408–50), no more energetic than his father, nonetheless left his name to the Theodosian Code, which collected imperial constitutions from 312 to 437, valid for both sections of the Empire but which, after that date, had greater force in the West, while in the East it was replaced a century later by Justinian’s *Corpus Iuris*.
Theodosius II lived under the tutelage of his elder sister Pulcheria, who, upon his death, married the aged and energetic Marcian (450–57), who successfully resisted Attila, who then turned his attention to the West. He was succeeded by Leo I (457–74), Leo II (d. 474), Zeno (474–91), and Anastasius (491–518), who married Zeno’s widow. With Anastasius, the penetration of the Slavs into the Balkan peninsula began.
From a religious standpoint, Zeno and Anastasius leaned toward Monophysitism, understanding that the West was practically lost to the Empire and that it was necessary to maintain good relations with the eastern provinces—Egypt, Palestine, and Syria—where Monophysite heresy represented, against Constantinople, an assertion of national character. The successors of Anastasius, however, abandoned this pro-Eastern policy in order to regain a political position in the West that was now irretrievably lost, and they left the eastern frontiers undefended, from which the final ruin of the Byzantine Empire was to come.
Anastasius I was succeeded by Justin I (518–27), and then by his nephew Justinian I (527–65), who cherished two ideals above all: the Roman idea, by which he sought to reunite the West to the Empire—Italy occupied by the Goths, Africa by the Vandals, Thrace by the Bulgars—and to unify prior legislation into a single body (*Corpus Iuris Civilis*); and the Christian idea, which he regarded as the symbol of political unity.
2. From Justinian to the Macedonian Dynasty (565–1025)
The period from Justinian to Heraclius (which demonstrates how little politically enlightened Justinian’s Westernism was) was one of the most desolate in the history of Byzantium. Wars against Slavs and Avars who had penetrated the Balkan peninsula; the Lombard conquest of Italy; war against the Persia of Khosrow II, to whom Justin II (565–78) had refused the agreed-upon tribute; a peace treaty with the same negotiated by Emperor Tiberius II (578–82), who won through the arms of his general Maurice, who succeeded him on the throne (568–602) and was assassinated in a military uprising after which the centurion Phocas (602–10) became emperor. But Khosrow II of Persia, with whom Maurice had once negotiated, moved to avenge him, and although Heraclius (610–41) killed the rapacious tyrant and succeeded him in the Empire, he invaded Syria, occupying Jerusalem (614) and carrying off the wood of the True Cross, then Egypt and Asia Minor while the Avars were battering at the gates of the capital. Heraclius, initially uncertain whether to transfer the capital to Carthage, then launched himself against Persia, penetrating through Armenia, and after a five-year campaign managed to break the Persian army, reconquering Armenia and Syria and recovering the wood of the True Cross and the insignia of the Empire. And since during his critical situation he had understood the need to keep the Monophysite populations of Syria and Egypt friendly, he devised, at the suggestion of the Byzantine patriarch Sergius, the conciliatory formula of the single will of Christ, which he imposed with a special document, the Ekthesis (= exposition [of the faith]) of 638, arousing protests in the West and initiating the Monothelite controversy, which, not quelled by a further decree, the Typos (= the exemplar, the rule), of Constantine II, son of Heraclius, was concluded by the Sixth Council of Constantinople (681) that vindicated the Western protest.Meanwhile, from Arabia there had begun the religious-political invasion of the Arabs, who wrested Syria from Byzantium with the battles of Ajnadayn (633) and Yarmuk (636) and proceeded to conquer Persia with the battles of Qadisiyyah (636) and Nihavand (642).
The history of the descendants of Heraclius presents a pitiable succession of folly and slaughter; an exception is Constantine IV Pogonatus (668–685), who, with the aid of Greek fire, repelled the Arabs besieging Constantinople; ceded to the Bulgars the lands they had already occupied; and, to uproot the Monothelite heresy, which by then had no further reason to be sustained given the loss of Syria and Egypt, convened the Sixth Ecumenical Council, to which reference has already been made, that ratified the doctrine of Rome.
The emperors who succeeded Constantine IV were incompetent and cruel: Justinian II (685–695), Leontius (695–698), Tiberius III (698–705), Justinian II again (705–711), Philippicus Bardanes (711–713), Anastasius II (713–716), Theodosius III (716), under whom the Arabs advanced to the Bosporus and seized Constantinople.
To save the Empire, squeezed between Slavs to the west and barbarians to the east and now on the verge of ruin, there arose Leo III (717–741) of Germanicia in Syria, also called the Isaurian. Together with his son Constantine, he set about improving the internal conditions of the Empire by promulgating (726) the Ecloga, that is, a collection or extract of laws drawn from the Justinianic compilation with the aim of rendering it more practically agile and “philanthropic,” adapting it to the changed conditions of the Empire. The Ecloga remained in force until the legislation of the Basils (v. below). After having averted the Arab assault and destroyed their fleet, he revived through specific laws the army (vómos stratiotikós “military code”), maritime trade (vómos nautikós “nautical code”), and agriculture (vómos geōrgikós “rural code”), afflicted by the grave evil of latifundia. He intended to preserve this by issuing measures in favor of small property and striking at the great latifundists, especially those of Anatolia, who exploited the colonate reduced to miserable conditions; among the major latifundists were to be counted the monks, whose possessions were exempt from any burdens toward the fisc. It is not to be excluded that the struggle against sacred images (iconoclasm), which he initiated, had as its essential motive the struggle against monasticism, which held so large a part of the Empire’s landed property and whose painters produced the sacred images, whose devotees propagated their veneration, and whose most strenuous defenders they were.
His son Constantine V Copronymus (741–75) continued in the iconoclastic struggle, persecuting defenders of sacred images to the point of martyrdom; he kept the Arabs at bay, defeated the Bulgars after a long campaign, and took care of agriculture by sending colonies of Slavs to Bithynia and Syrians to Thrace to improve the lands. Leo IV the Khazar (775–80), his son who succeeded him, continued the iconoclastic struggle but in a mitigated form and soon associated himself with—
EASTERN EMPIRE
With the extinction of this dynasty, which besides military glory also bore the aureole of legitimate dynastic succession, the great lords of Anatolia proclaimed as emperor one of their own, Isaac Comnenus (1057–59), who after two years had to yield the place to Constantine X (1059–67), followed by Romanus IV Diogenes (1067–71), Michael VII Ducas (1071–78), Nicephorus III Botaniates (1078–81), until the Empire again came into the hands of a man capable of guiding it to better destinies, Alexius Comnenus (1081–1118), a nephew of Isaac, whose family governed the Empire for almost the entire 12th century. Alexius skillfully played off the various enemies oppressing the Empire, setting Pechenegs against Cumans, Normans against Venetians, and the crusaders of the First Crusade against the Turks. His son John (1118–43) thus came into possession of a less burdensome inheritance and was able to devote himself to improving the state’s finances, which he left in good condition to his son Manuel (1143–80).
The latter was a chivalrous soldier, had sympathy for the Latins, and was the last sovereign to do honor to the throne of Byzantium. His son Alexius II (1180–83) had the throne usurped by Andronicus I (1183–85), who paid with his life for his evil deed, which he had colored as a national resurgence against Latin encroachment favored by Manuel and Alexius II. Under the following perfidious dynasty of the Angels: Isaac II (1185–95), Alexius III (1195–1203), and then again Isaac II (1203–1204), Constantinople fell into the hands of the Latins of the Fourth Crusade, while the Byzantine dynasty continued in exile at Nicaea (v. below).
The reconquest of the capital under Michael Palaeologus (1259–61) did not remedy the fate of the Byzantine Empire, now condemned, with the Turks masters of Anatolia, Slavs and Franks in possession of the Balkans, Venice master of the Aegean islands and the best Levantine ports. Nor did the ecclesiastical rapprochement with Rome, attempted by Michael VIII (1261–82) at the Council of Lyons, to secure Latin aid, bear any fruit. Under his son Andronicus II (1282–1328), the Turks settled permanently at Bursa; his grandson Andronicus III (1328–41) witnessed the enlargement of the Serbs led by Stephen Dušan; the usurper John Cantacuzenus allowed the Turks to establish themselves at Gallipoli and in Thrace; John V Palaeologus, son of Andronicus III (1341, 1354–76, 1379–91), saw the Turks become champions of his legitimacy and restore him to the throne against the new usurpation of his own son Andronicus IV. Manuel II (1391–1425) traveled to Europe to beg for aid against the Turks of Bayezid, who were besieging Constantinople; the same was done by John VIII (1425–48), who at the Council of Florence signed the doctrinal union with the Latins, which the Greeks, because of their anti-Latin hatred, broke as soon as it was signed.
The last of the Palaeologan dynasty and of the Byzantine emperors was Constantine XI (1448–53), who died as emperor on the breach opened by the artillery of Mehmed
II. The political legacy of Byzantium was taken up by the Ottoman Turks, while its religious legacy—prepared by the establishment of the patriarchate of Moscow, granted by the patriarch of Constantinople Jeremias II (1580), who had come to the Muscovite capital in search of aid—would in due course be effectively absorbed by Russia, with its theocratic monarchy founded upon imperial power and the “Orthodox” hierarchy
See pl. XXI.
Oriente. Byzantine Empire – Coronation of John and Alexios Komnenos. Miniature (11th–12th c.) – Vatican Library, cod. Urb. gr. 2 B, fol. 10⁶.
N. Turchi, F. J. Ouspenski, *Storia dell’Impero bizantino*, St. Petersburg 1914 (in Russian); J. Koulakowski, *Storia di Bisanzio*, Kiev 1914 (in Russian); N. Turchi, *La civiltà bizantina*, Turin 1915; Ch. Diehl, *Histoire de l’Empire byzantin*, Paris 1919; id., *Byzance, grandeur et decadence*, ibid. 1919; A. Vasiliev, *Histoire de l’Empire byzantin*, 2 vols., trans. from Russian, ibid. 1922; N. Jorga, *Histoire de la vie byzantine*, 3 vols., Bucharest 1934; M. V. Levtchchko, *Byzance des origines à 1453*, Paris 1949, trans. from Russian. Constantinian and Theodosian dynasties: V. CONSTANTINE; THEODOSIUS. Justinian dynasty (518–602): Ch. Diehl, *Justinian et la civilisation byzantine au VIe siècle*, Paris 1901; E. Stein, *Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinischen Reiches vornehmlich unter den Kaiserin Justinus II. und Tiberius Constantinus*, Stuttgart 1919. Heraclian dynasty (610–711): A. Pernice, *L’Imperatore Eraclio*, Florence 1905. Isaurian dynasty (717–802): L. Bréhier, *La querelle des images (VIIIe–Xe siècles)*, Paris 1904; J. B. Bury, *A History of the Eastern Roman Empire from the Fall of Irene to the Accession of Basil I*, London 1912; G. Ostrogorsky, *Studien zur Geschichte des Byzantinischen Bilderstreites*, Breslau 1929. Macedonian dynasty (867–1056): A. Rambaud, *L’Empire grec au Xe siècle: Constantin Porphyrogénète*, Paris 1870; J. B. Bury, *Roman Emperors from Basil II to Isaac Komnenos*, in English Historical Review, 4 (1889), pp. 41–64, 251–85, reprinted in Selected Essays, Cambridge 1930; G. Schlumberger, *Un empereur byzantin au Xe siècle: Nicéphore Phocas*, Paris 1890; C. Neumann, *Die Weltstellung des byzantinischen Reiches vor den Kreuzzügen*, Leipzig 1894, French trans. Paris 1905; G. Schlumberger, *L’épopée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle*, I: Jean Tzimiskès, Les jeunes années de Basile II, ibid. 1896 (covers 969–989); id., *L’épopée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle*, II: Basile II, le tueur de Bulgarie, ibid. 1900 (covers 989–1023); J. Gay, *L’Italie méridionale et l’Empire byzantin depuis l’avènement de Basile Ier jusqu’à la prise de Bari par les Normands (867–1071)*, ibid. 1904; A. Vogt, *Basile Ier empereur de Byzance (867–889) et la civilisation byzantine à la fin du IXe siècle*, ibid. 1905; D. De Guldencrone, *L’Italie byzantine. Étude sur le haut moyen âge (1000–1056)*, ibid. 1914; S. Runciman, *The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus*, Paris 1915; C. Chalandon, *Les Comnènes: études sur l’Empire byzantin aux XIe et XIIe siècles*, I: Essai sur le règne d’Alexis Ier Comnène (1081–1118), Paris 1900; II: Jean II Comnène (1118–1133) and Jean III Comnène (1133–1180), ibid. 1912; F. Cognasso, *Partiti politici e lotte dinastiche a Bisanzio alla morte di Manuele Comneno*, Turin 1912. Angelos dynasty (1185–1204): F. Cognasso, *Un imperatore bizantino della decadenza: Isacco II Angelo*, in Bessarione, 19 (1915), pp. 45–70, 246–89. Lascarid dynasty of Nicaea (1204–61): A. Gardner, *The Lascarides of Nicaea. The Story of an Empire in Exile*, London 1912. Palaeologan dynasty (1261–1453): G. Schlumberger, *Le siège, la prise et le sac de Constantinople par les Turcs en 1453*, Paris 1915; C. Chapman, *Michel Paléologue, restaurateur de l’Empire byzantin (1261–1282)*, ibid. 1926; L. Petit, *Manuel II Paléologue*, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, IX, 11, cols. 1925–32. Nicola Turchi.
II. LATIN EMPIRE OF THE EAST
The Fourth Crusade, proclaimed by Innocent III and organised by a group of Franco-Flemish princes with the support of the Republic of Venice, instead of proceeding to the coasts of Syria and Egypt, was diverted by various interests to Constantinople in order to restore the legitimate emperor Isaac II Angelos to the throne; but the subsequent discord between the Crusaders and the Byzantines led to open war. The Latins captured Constantinople on 12 April 1204. Earlier, the leaders had already decided on the partition of the conquest: an electoral college (six Venetians and six French) would designate the new emperor, who would receive only a quarter of Byzantine territory; of the remaining three-quarters, half would go to the Venetians and half to the Crusader princes.
In May 1204 the election of the emperor took place: Boniface of Montferrat, who had led the expedition, was set aside, and the Venetians secured the choice of Baldwin of Flanders, who was crowned in Hagia Sophia on 16 May. To him were assigned the territories of eastern Thrace and the northern coasts of Asia Minor, together with the islands of Samothrace, Lesbos, Chios and Samos; of the capital he held only five-eighths, since Hagia Sophia and three-eighths of the city belonged to Venice. The Doge of Venice assumed the title of despot, lord of one and a half quarters of the Empire of Romania, though in practice the Republic could not occupy all that was assigned to II. It took the Ionian Islands, in Epirus only Durazzo, in the Peloponnese only Coron and Modon, and then many islands which it granted as fiefs to various citizens: thus arose the Duchy of Naxos, the Marquisate of Cerigo, the Grand Duchy of Lemnos and the Duchy of Crete, which in truth should have gone to the Marquis of Montferrat; he received Thessalonica with Thessaly and Macedonia and the title of king as a vassal of the emperor. Baldwin likewise granted various territories as fiefs to loyal knights: one was made Duke of Nicaea, another of Philippopolis, and one lord of Demotika. To interest the greater number of Crusaders in the organisation of the Empire, Baldwin created six hundred knights and granted them fiefs.
Only apparently loyal, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, nephew of the historian of the Crusade, founded the Principality of Achaea, and Otto de la Roche the Duchy of Athens.
But if the Crusade had succeeded in dislocating Byzantine territories, Emperor Baldwin I and his allies failed to prevent the formation of several Greek states on the periphery that claimed to continue the Byzantine tradition. Theodore I Laskaris, a relative of Alexios III Angelos, immediately after the fall of Constantinople established a government in Nicaea, gathering around him the surviving Byzantine clergy and aristocracy, and in 1206 he had himself crowned emperor; in Trebizond, Alexios and David Komnenos, nephews of Andronikos I, created a Byzantine empire; in Epirus, Michael I Komnenos Doukas established a government and assumed the title of despot; in Rhodes, Argos, and Sparta, great Byzantine lords created particular lordships.
Emperor Baldwin I, in the autumn of 1204, began the conquest of all the territories recognized in the
partition. With the support of Henry of Hainaut, he occupied Tzurulum, Didymoteichon, Adrianople, Philippopolis, and Mosynopolis, putting Alexios III Angelos to flight, but provoked the opposition of the Marquis of Montferrat, who claimed Adrianople for himself. The latter went to besiege these cities, and the rivalry between the two was only quelled by the arrival of the Doge of Venice and the other Crusader princes. But the possession of Thrace led to another serious conflict between the Latin Emperor and the Bulgarian tsar, who had been crowned by a legate of Innocent III only in November 1204. The tsar aspired to create a Greco-Bulgarian empire, while Baldwin demanded the return of all territories that had once belonged to the Byzantine Empire. War broke out in the spring of 1205: on April 14, Baldwin was defeated and taken prisoner, and died shortly afterward in captivity.
The disappearance of the Latin Emperor seemed to mark the end of the Empire. The Bulgarians advanced as far as the Sea of Marmara; in Asia Minor, the Greeks of Nicaea recovered the territories occupied by the Latins in the preceding months.
The energetic Henry of Hainaut assumed the regency of the Empire and, with great skill, saved the situation by pushing back both Greeks and Bulgarians. In August 1206, news of Baldwin’s death arrived, and Henry of Hainaut was then proclaimed emperor. The enemies, however, persisted: in 1207 the Bulgarian tsar and the basileus of Nicaea jointly attacked the Latins. The Emperor managed to drive the Bulgarians from the siege of Adrianople; Ioannitsa was killed in an attempt to conquer Thessalonica, and Henry of Hainaut then defeated the new tsar Boris at Philippopolis (August 10, 1208). In Asia, peace left to Theodore Laskaris Nicaea and Cyzicus.
The Emperor then had some respite to attend to the needs of the Empire. After the death of Boniface, he went to Thessalonica and organized the government for the new king Demetrios of Montferrat, still a minor (1209). At Ravenna (in the Po Valley), he convened a solemn parliament where he received the homage of the Latin barons Otto de la Roche of Athens and Geoffrey of Villehardouin of Achaea; even the Byzantine despot of Epirus rendered him homage. In 1211, peace was broken by a resumption of war with the Emperor of Nicaea, who was defeated. The Latins thus succeeded in extending their occupation in Anatolia.
For the internal organization of the Empire, the most pressing problems were religious: foremost among them was the question of Greek-Latin coexistence. Innocent III, though he had initially protested the deviation of the Fourth Crusade, bowed to the fait accompli after the capture of Constantinople, hailing the Latin triumph as a miracle wrought by the Divinity.
It was then hoped that the organization of the Latin Empire of the East would serve to bring about the union of the two Churches. The Emperor therefore provided the archiepiscopal sees with Latin prelates while leaving Greek prelates in the episcopal sees, provided they adhered. In reality, the Greek clergy, though remaining in their sees, continued to regard the Orthodox patriarch established in Nicaea as their head. Innocent III long maintained a policy of tolerance; he permitted the continuation of services in Greek, then began negotiations, seeking to reconcile the Greek prelates through papal legates. The talks, held on several occasions, led nowhere; indeed, the Greeks repeatedly protested to Emperor Henry of Hainaut against the actions of the Latin prelates. The Emperor often took the side of his Greek subjects. Even within the Latin Church of the victors there were divisions. The Venetians had imposed as patriarch one of their citizens, Thomas Morosini, hoping to create an entirely Venetian clergy, so that the Latin Church would become an emanation of the Venetian government. Hence the lively and continuous disputes between the French and Venetian clergy, and as for ecclesiastical possessions, there were struggles between bishops and knights. In 1210, the Emperor convened a second parliament at Ravenna to examine the religious disputes.
Henry of Hainaut died in Thessalonica on June 11, 1216. The Latin barons chose in his place his brother-in-law Peter of Courtenay, Count of Auxerre, who was crowned in Rome by Honorius III on April 9, 1217, but on his journey overland from Dyrrachium to Constantinople he fell into the hands of the despot Theodore Angelos, who had him put to death in prison. The son of Peter, Robert of Courtenay, was summoned from France and crowned at Hagia Sophia on March 25, 1221. Robert of Courtenay reigned until 1228, when he was succeeded by his minor brother Baldwin, for whom John of Brienne, former King of Jerusalem, ruled as regent and was also proclaimed colleague in the Empire.
After Brienne’s death in 1237, Baldwin II remained alone in the face of a desperate situation. Even Robert’s reign had been a sequence of mournful events. Taking advantage of the Latin Emperor’s incapacity and the dwindling forces of Latin power in Romania, the enemies all around organized themselves and appeared increasingly threatening.
The Despotate of Epirus had slowly expanded into Macedonia and Greece; while King Demetrios of Thessalonica went to the West in search of aid, in 1224 the Greeks of Epirus occupied Thessalonica and put an end to the Latin Kingdom. In Asia, after the death of Theodore Laskaris in 1222, he was succeeded in the Empire by his son-in-law John III Doukas Vatatzes, a man of great political skill. He understood the danger that, by destroying the Latin Empire of Constantinople, his actions might be exploited either by the Bulgarians or by the Greeks of Epirus. It was therefore necessary to proceed with great caution.
In 1224 he attacked the Latins, defeated Peter of Courtenay, and occupied Cyzicus, the Troad, Lesbos, Chios, and Samos. He then crossed the Dardanelles, took Madytos and Gallipoli, and drove the Latins from Adrianople. But the despot of Epirus also advanced into Macedonia and Thrace, driving John Vatatzes from Adrianople. The conflict between the two leaders might have been exploited by the Latins, but Robert of Courtenay was indolent and Baldwin, who succeeded him, was a minor. Talk arose in Constantinople of appointing as regent the Bulgarian tsar John Asen, but this was rejected. The tsar now wished to occupy Constantinople, but the despot of Epirus opposed him. Greeks and Bulgarians fought: Theodore Angelos was defeated and taken prisoner (1230). John Asen then thought himself master of the situation, but the basileus of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, opposed him. Distrusting each other, they agreed to an alliance against the Latin Constantinople, but the sieges of 1235 and 1236 failed. The Bulgarian tsar then feared playing into the hands of his ally alone and sought an understanding with the Latins.
John Vatatzes then turned against the Greek Despotate of Epirus-Thessalonica and, after the death of the Bulgarian tsar, succeeded in occupying Thessalonica and taking Macedonia from the Greek despotate (1232). When John Vatatzes died in 1234, the Empire of Nicaea surrounded on all sides the Latin Empire of the East, reduced to Constantinople and the great fiefs of Athens and Achaea.
His son Theodore II Laskaris reigned too briefly (1254–58) to resolve the problem of the conquest of Constantinople. He could only consolidate the state and reduce the domains of the Greeks of Epirus by taking from them Durazzo, Vodena, Ostrovo, and Diavoli. By now the Latin emperor Baldwin II was at his last gasp: his journeys to the West in search of aid had come to nothing; lacking financial means, he had been forced to sell the relics of the churches of Constantinople.
After Theodore II Laskaris died in 1258, the able general Michael Palaiologos assumed the regency for the very young John IV and had himself proclaimed emperor as his colleague (1259). The final hour had struck for the Latins of Constantinople. In 1259 Michael VIII attacked the despotate of Epirus and destroyed its forces at the battle of Pelagonia. In 1260 he decided on the conquest of Constantinople: crossing the Dardanelles, he occupied Selymbria and advanced toward the Latin capital. He attacked the quarter of Galata but did not succeed in taking II. Before returning to the attack, he sought allies by concluding the Treaty of Alliance of Nymphaeum with Genoa (13 March 1261): Michael VIII made major economic concessions to the Genoese in order to have them at his side in the struggle against the Latin Empire of the West and its protectors, the Venetians. But already in June 1261 he sent an army under Constantinople, and on 25 July, encountering no resistance, the general Alexios Strategopoulos entered Constantinople. Baldwin II escaped with the Latin patriarch. The Latin Empire of the West had ceased to exist after fifty-seven years of wretched existence.
Michael VIII entered the imperial capital on 15 August 1261. Baldwin II went to the West in search of aid, but his new attempts to find allies were in vain. In 1267 Pope Urban IV and Manfred, king of Sicily, arranged a coalition with Michael II of Epirus, but Michael VIII defeated the despotate and took him prisoner. The coalition could not succeed anyway, because the Pope could not consent to leave to King Manfred the direction of the struggle against the Byzantine emperor. The Pope’s champion against both Manfred and Michael VIII was to be Charles of Anjou.
On 15 May 1267 at Viterbo, in the presence of Clement IV, Baldwin II concluded an agreement with Charles of Anjou, ceding to him his rights to the domains of the Latin Empire of the West, reserving for himself only Constantinople. Subsequently Philip, son of Baldwin II, married Beatrice, daughter of Charles of Anjou. Charles could thus consider himself the legitimate lord of the Empire of Romania and direct his policy toward the conquest of Constantinople. The consequence of this policy, however, was to be the Sicilian Vespers.