The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]

During the earlier years of the reign of Andronicus the power of the Turks excited no alarm. The garrisons in the frontier fortresses were reduced, the number of the legions was diminished, and many of the ships kept ready for service by Michael VIII were laid up in the arsenal. Andronicus required all the money he could divert from the military and naval services for the court and the church. The officers could only gain advancement by becoming courtiers; the soldiers could only avoid neglect by becoming monks. The army of Andronicus consisted principally of Alans, Gasmuls, Turks, Turkopuls, and refugee Cretans. The Alans received double the pay of the best native troops. The armies with which the emperors of Nicæa had defeated the Turkish Sultans, the Latin emperors, the kings of Bulgaria, and the French knights of Achaia and Athens were now disbanded and neglected. The state maxim of imperial Rome that no man who paid the land tax should be allowed to bear arms, was again revived, and mercenaries and Turks plundered the Greek Empire, as the Goths and Huns had plundered the Roman.

A Twelfth Century Catapult

The Greek Empire of Constantinople, at the accession of Andronicus II, embraced the whole coast of Asia Minor, from the mouth of the Sangarius to the Rhodian Peræa; but the nomad tribes who lived under the Seljuk dominion were daily pushing their incursions further and further into the Greek territories. In the year 1296, the regular army of the empire continued to maintain a decided superiority in the field over any force the Turks could bring into action; but the carelessness of the emperor, who left the troops in Asia without pay, caused this neglected army to break out into rebellion. The Turkish mercenaries in its ranks plundered the Greek landlords; the Cretans sold their services to the highest bidder. Alexius Philanthropenus, who had successfully resisted the Seljuk tribes, was proclaimed emperor by his rebellious troops, but allowed himself to be taken prisoner, and was deprived of sight. His successor, Joannes Tarchaniotes vainly attempted to reform the abuses, which rendered the army more oppressive to the emperor’s subjects than dangerous to his enemies. The anarchy that prevailed in the civil, military, and ecclesiastical administration, rendered him powerless, and he was compelled to abandon the undertaking.

In the year 1301, Michael, the eldest son of Andronicus, who had received the imperial title from his father in 1295, took the command of the army in Asia; and about the same time a body of veteran warriors entered the imperial service, who, under an able general, would have secured victory to the Greeks. Andronicus allowed a colony of Alans to settle in his dominion, and about eight thousand, who had served in the Tatar wars beyond the Danube, were enrolled in the Byzantine service. After a short term of service, they mutinied, deserted the camp and marched to the Hellespont, plundering the Greek inhabitants of the country they passed through. The young emperor then broke up his own camp, and, abandoning his headquarters at Magnesia on the Hermus, retired to Pergamus, leaving the Turkish tribes to extend their plundering expeditions as far as Adramyttium, Lampsacus, and Cyzicus.

[1301-1303 A.D.]

About the same time the Venetians and Genoese, who were carrying on war, were so emboldened by the weakness of the Greek Empire and the neglected state of its marine that they pursued their hostilities in the port of Constantinople, while private vessels plundered the islands of the Propontis within sight of the palace of Andronicus, and compelled him to ransom the captive inhabitants by parading them before the walls of the capital, suspended from the rigging of their ships.

Rapid conquests were now made by the Seljuk emirs and a destructive warfare against the Greek race was carried on by the nomad tribes, who were more anxious to exterminate the agricultural population than to subdue them. The Greeks were everywhere in despair. In the empire of Trebizond, matters were not much better than in the empire of Constantinople. But it was in the provinces between Nicomedia and Smyrna, along the Propontis and the Ægean, that the greatest confusion reigned. The roads to the coast were covered with fugitives from the interior, endeavouring to save their property and families. Thousands were left to perish from want, and thousands died from suffering. Whole provinces were deserted by their inhabitants, and became pasture lands for hordes of Turkomans. In the course of a single generation, the Greek race and language disappeared from countries in which it had been spoken for two thousand years, and Turkish colonies took possession of Æolis and Ionia. Andronicus II witnessed these dreadful calamities with feelings benumbed by piety; even the extermination of the orthodox failed to animate his energy.