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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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This peace was of very short duration. The exactions of the prince’s troops, and the intrigues of Sir Janni and the emperor induced several cities of Thrace to desert the party of the young Andronicus. Heraclea received an imperial garrison, and the prince, finding that his cause was losing ground, assembled his army and laid siege to the city in November, 1321. His troops had clamoured for the renewal of the war during the summer; they were averse to keep the field in winter, so that, when the attack on Heraclea was defeated, the prince marched up to the walls of Constantinople. He had now few partisans in the capital, and he was soon compelled to retire into winter quarters at Didymoteichos. A new treaty of peace was concluded at Epibates in July, 1322, which removed some of the causes of dissatisfaction to both parties.
On the 2nd of February, 1325, Andronicus the Younger received the imperial crown. This may be considered a proof that the ministers of the emperor had persuaded him to stifle all his resentment, and lay aside his schemes for excluding his grandson from the throne. But in the following year the two emperors allowed the city of Prusa to be taken by the Ottoman Turks, without either making an effort to relieve it. This fact seemed to prove that neither could allow his best officers and troops to succour this important city, lest his colleague should take advantage of their absence. Intrigues followed intrigues.
The civil war was renewed under circumstances extremely unfavourable to the old emperor, whose conduct rendered it inevitable. The people were universally disgusted with his despotism and injustice, and the young Andronicus seems to have expected that they would have immediately admitted him into Constantinople. Finding that this could not be effected, he hastened into Macedonia in the midst of winter, leaving the protostrator Synadenus to blockade the capital. Liberal promises of reduced taxation, and the assurance that all arrears due to the imperial treasury should be cancelled, insured his entry into most of the towns, and rendered his march a triumph. Thessalonica, Edessa, Castoria, Berœa, Pelagonia, Achrida, and Deabolis, opened their gates. The krall [king] of Servia, who consulted his own interest, refused to assist the officers of the reigning emperor, and took advantage of the confusion to gain possession of the frontier fortress of Prosacon. Strumbitza and Melenicon were the only strong places that remained in the possession of the partisans of Andronicus II.
While these events happened, Synadenus gained a complete victory over the garrison of Constantinople, on its making an attempt to raise the blockade. When the news of this victory reached Andronicus, he hastened to the army before the walls of the capital. Treasonable assistance was soon secured, and on the night of Monday, May 23rd, 1328, a party of soldiers scaled the walls; the garrison joined in proclaiming Andronicus III; the gates were thrown open, and the young emperor marched directly to the imperial palace to assure his grandfather that, though he had ceased to govern, he would be treated with all the honour due to a sovereign prince.
Two years after the taking of Constantinople, Andronicus III was attacked by a serious illness, and his ministers feared lest his grandfather might again recover the throne. To prevent the possibility of this event, Synadenus compelled the old man to become a monk, and to sign a declaration that he would never again mount the throne, nor pretend to dispose of the empire in case of his grandson’s death. Andronicus II had already lost the use of his eyes, and this, his last public act, was signed with two crosses, one in red ink as emperor and another in black as a humble monk. The patriarch Isaiah sent to congratulate him on his change of life: the petulant old man regarded this message as an insult, and sent back some violent and probably not unjust reproaches to the head of the church. His name continued to be mentioned in the public prayers as the most religious and most Christian basileus, the monk Antony. One evening, after a literary party at which his daughter Simonida was present, he was suddenly seized with an illness which soon terminated his life. He expired on the 13th day of February, 1332, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.
[1332-1352 A.D.]
Andronicus II was a man who, with few personal vices, possessed many of the worst qualities of a sovereign. He had capacity enough to direct the whole civil and ecclesiastical business of the empire, but was destitute of the judgment necessary to direct it well. He rarely took a right step, and never at the proper time; so that his petulant pride and pedantic despotism proved more ruinous to the empire than the worst vices of many of his predecessors. His ecclesiastical bigotry especially served as an instrument of providence for effecting the ruin and degradation of the orthodox Eastern church, and of the Greek race. That the Greeks allowed themselves to be so long misled and oppressed by so worthless and weak a sovereign, may perhaps be accepted as a proof that the nation was sunk in selfishness and bigotry like the emperor.c
Andronicus III, now absolute monarch, showed great bravery against the Turks, but he could not stay their progress in Anatolia, nor prevent their descents on Europe. Neither could he complete the conquest of Epirus nor live at peace with his neighbours on the peninsula.
He died in 1341, leaving his son, Joannes V (Palæologus), a minor, under the regency of his wife, Anne of Savoy. The lord chamberlain, Cantacuzenus, affected at first to protect them, but his protégés soon found him too powerful. They got up scandals about him, imprisoned his relatives, allowed the houses of his partisans to be destroyed. These latter forced him to take the crown under the title of Joannes VI. Civil war again broke out in the empire. Cantacuzenus allied himself with Stephen, krall of Servia, and with Omur Beg, the Seljuk emir of Ionia. Anne of Savoy asked help from the latter’s rival, Orkhan, sultan of the Ottomans.
Intrigue alternated with massacre. Cantacuzenus contrived to gain over this same Orkhan by giving him his daughter Theodora. On both sides the infidels were authorised to carry off Byzantine subjects, and the ports and vessels of the empire were placed at their disposal to enable them to transport their captives into Asia. The foreigners took advantage of the general anarchy to oppress the provinces and towns. The krall of Servia conquered Macedonia as far as Pheræ, and called himself czar of the Greeks and Servians. The Genoese retook Chios, which Andronicus III had seized from them, and blockaded Constantinople, defended by other Italians, under Facciolati.
The latter, whilst the empress was giving a banquet to her partisans, opened the Golden Gate to Cantacuzenus. Anne was obliged to come to an agreement. It was arranged that Cantacuzenus should be emperor first, but only for ten years; that is, until Joannes V attained his twenty-first year. The partisans of neither side were satisfied with this transaction.
So feeble was the empire that the Genoese ventured to impose their own will in the very capital. Cantacuzenus had tried to reconstruct an Hellenic navy, and attempted to bring a little life into the port of Byzantium by lowering the port dues. The Genoese considered this injurious to their Galatian colony. They massacred the crew of a Grecian ship, and exacted that a large territory adjoining Galata should be ceded to them. A war followed, which lasted four years (1348-1352). To fight the Genoese the Greeks had called in Venetian and Catalan fleets. A bloody naval battle was fought under the very walls of the town, and the Greeks were victorious. Cantacuzenus had to capitulate (May 6, 1352) and give them all they demanded.