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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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At length, in the year 1275, the emperor Michael formed a new alliance with the Genoese; but, in order to prevent their making the streets of Constantinople again the scene of their disorders, he obliged them to establish their factory at Heraclea, on the Propontis. Some years later they were allowed to transfer their settlement to Galata, forming a colony which soon deprived the Greeks of part of their trade in the Black Sea.
The morbid ambition of Michael Palæologus was not satisfied until he was sole emperor. In defiance, therefore, of the repeated oaths by which he had sworn to respect the rights of his ward, his colleague, and his sovereign he availed himself of the first favourable moment to dethrone the unfortunate boy who had been left neglected at Nicæa. On Christmas Day, 1261, the agents of Michael deprived Joannes IV of his sight, though he had not attained the age of ten, and he was declared to have forfeited the throne. The cruel and perjured emperor then ordered him to be immured in the fort of Dacybiza, where he remained neglected, and almost forgotten, for eight-and-twenty years, when his solitude was broken in upon by Andronicus, the bigoted son of the hypocritical Michael. The conscience of the bigot was uneasy on account of his father’s crimes, of which he was enjoying the fruit; so by a few kind words he easily induced his imprisoned victim to make what was falsely termed a voluntary cession of all his rights to the imperial crown. The evil consequences of this crime were deeply felt in the empire; for the clergy, the nobility, and the people, had all participated in the system of corruption and peculation by which Michael VIII had smoothed the way for his usurpation. The violation of every sentiment of honour, patriotism, and virtue was so iniquitous that the public character of the Greek nation was degraded by its obsequiousness on this occasion; and the feelings of the people in the provinces of the east, as well as in western Europe, avenged the misfortunes of Joannes. Michael Palæologus had hitherto been regarded as a bold, frank, and generous prince; he henceforward showed himself a timid, hypocritical, and cruel tyrant.
The patriarch Arsenius, who was one of the guardians of the dethroned emperor, considered himself bound to protest against the injustice and perjury of Michael. He convoked an assembly of the prelates resident in Constantinople, and proposed that the reigning emperor should be excommunicated by the synod; but too many of the clergy had been participators in the intrigues of Michael, and were enjoying the rewards of their subserviency, for such a measure to meet with any support. Arsenius, therefore, on his own authority as patriarch, interdicted Michael from all religious rites; but he did not venture to pronounce the usual form of words, which deprived him of the prayers of the orthodox. The Greek church, under the Palæologi, was tainted with the same spirit of half measures and base tergiversation which marks the imperial administration. The emperor accepted the modified censure of the church as just, and hypocritically requested that his penance might be assigned. By obtaining his dispensation in this manner, he expected that public opinion would render the church an accessary after the fact, while he secured to himself an additional guarantee for the enjoyment of the fruits of his crime. Confident in his power, he punished with cruelty all who ventured to express publicly their compassion for their dethroned emperor.
Though the family of Vatatzes had been unpopular among the nobility, it was beloved by the Asiatic Greeks, and especially by the mountaineers of Bithynia. The people in the vicinity of Nicæa took up arms to avenge Joannes IV, and their insurrection was suppressed with great difficulty. A blind boy, who was found wandering in the neighbourhood, was supposed to be their legitimate sovereign, the victim of Michael’s treachery. The warlike peasantry flew to arms, and rendered themselves masters of the forts and mountain passes. The advance of the imperial troops sent to suppress the revolt was impeded by those famous archers who had previously formed one of the most effective bodies in the emperor’s army. Every ravine was contested, and every advantage dearly purchased. The imperial troops at last subdued the country by adopting the policy by which the Turks extended their conquests. The habitations were destroyed, and the forests were burned down, so that the native population had no means of obtaining subsistence, while the soldiers of Michael became masters of the country, under the cover of their widespread conflagrations. The resources of this flourishing province were ruined, and its population was so diminished that, when the Ottoman Turks attacked the empire, the renowned archers of Bithynia and the mountain militia had ceased to exist.
THE PROVINCES OF THE EMPIRE
The change which is visible in the condition of the Asiatic provinces of the empire towards the end of the reign of Michael VIII must be attentively observed. When he mounted the throne, the power of the Seljuk empire was so broken by the conquests of the Moguls, and the energy of the Greek population was so great, in consequence of the wise government of Joannes III and Theodore II, that the Greeks under the Turkish dominion seemed on the eve of regaining their independence. Azeddin Kaikus II, sultan of Iconium, was an exile; his brother Rokneddin ruled only a small part of the Seljuk empire of Rum; for Hulaku, the brother of the great khans Mangku and Kublai, possessed the greater part of Asia Minor, and many Turkish tribes lived in a state of independence. The cruelty and rapacity of Michael’s government, and the venality and extortion which he tolerated among the imperial officers and administrators, arrested the progress of the Greek nation, and prepared the way for its rapid decline. The jealousy which Michael showed of all marks of national independence, and the fear he entertained of opposition, are strong characteristics of his policy. So rapacious was the imperial treasury that the historian Pachymeres, though a courtier, believed that the emperor Michael systematically weakened the power of the Greek population from his fear of rebellion. The consequence was that the whole country beyond the Sangarius, and the mountains which give rise to the Rhyndacus and Macestus, were occupied by the Turks, who were often invited by the inhabitants to take possession of the small towns.
A Twelfth Century Cross-bow
As the reign of Michael VIII advanced, the encroachments of the nomad Turks became more daring. Joannes Palæologus, who had for some time restrained their incursions, was by his brother’s jealousy deprived of all military command; and Andronicus, the emperor’s eldest son, was sent to the frontier as commander-in-chief. In the year 1280 the incapacity of the young prince threw all the imperial provinces open to invasion. Nestongus, who commanded in the city of Nyssa, was defeated and taken prisoner. Nyssa was taken, and the Turks then laid siege to Tralles, which had been recently rebuilt and repeopled. The Turks at last formed a breach in the walls by sapping, and then carried the city by storm. The inhabitants who escaped the massacre were reduced to slavery.
About the same time Michael VIII usurped his place on the throne of the Greek Empire, a small Turkish tribe made its first appearance in the Seljuk empire. Othman, who gave his name to this new band of immigrants, is said to have been born in the year 1258, and his father, Ertogrul, entered the Seljuk empire as the chief of only four hundred families; yet Orkhan, the son of Othman, laid the foundations of the institutions and power of the Ottoman empire. No nation ever increased so rapidly from such small beginnings, and no government ever constituted itself with greater sagacity than the Ottoman; but no force or prudence could have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with such rapidity to power, had it not been that the emperor Michael and the Greek nation were paralysed by political and moral corruption, and both left behind them descendants equally weak and worthless. When history records that Michael Palæologus recovered possession of Constantinople by accident, it ought also to proclaim that, by his deliberate policy, he prepared the way for the ruin of the Greek race and the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. There is no other instance in history of a nation so numerous, so wealthy, and so civilised, as the Greeks were in the fourteenth century, having been permanently subdued by an enemy so inferior in political and military resources. The circumstance becomes the more disgraceful, as its explanation must be sought in social and moral causes.