The Rise and Fall of Constantinople

 

 

How did a small ancient Greek colony, located in an eastern corner of the Mediterranean, known to the Greeks as Byzantion, come to be the capital of the mighty Roman Empire?

It’s all about location!

According to Greek legend, the story begins in 667 B.C. when Byzas of Megara, established a Greek trading post, named Byzantion, complete with its own natural built-in defense system.

The Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 476) began its decline after being split in two by Emperor Diocletian in 286 AD, creating both a western and an eastern empire.

Byzantium was renamed Nova Roma, or “New Rome”, by Emperor Constantine the Great, Constantine I (c. 272 – 337), son of Saint Helen, the first emperor to convert to Christianity, which led to the ensuing Christianization of the Roman Empire.

On 11 May 330, Constantine again renamed the city, this time, naming it after himself as Constantinople.

Constantinople, considered the center and the “cradle of Orthodox Christian civilization”, from the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.

Despite its natural defenses Byzantium suffered many defeats, by the Persians, the Spartans and the Athenians, however, it went on to remain the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for more than a thousand years, after the fall of the western Roman empire, before falling into the hands of the Turks on the 29^th of May 1453.

 

The Origins of Byzantium

 

 

Back in 667 B.C. it was quite the norm for ancient Greeks, especially kings and military leaders, to consult the oracle at Delphi for guidance.

On one of his visits there, Byzas, Greek colonist and leader or maybe even king of Megara (western Attica), was advised by the oracle to take to the seas and search for “The land opposite the city of the blind” where he was then to establish a colony.

Byzas did as instructed and as he sailed through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara, on the Asian side, he came across the Greek colony of Chalcedon, as he looked out over the sea to the opposite, European side; he was amazed to see the perfect spot to set up a trading post.

Had the founders of Chalcedon been blind, the spot he spied on the opposite shore was a much better location?

Byzas sailed across to the opposite shore, dropped anchor, whispered a quick thank you to the oracle at Delphi and set about establishing “the city opposite the land of the blind” which he named after himself; Byzantion.

 

The Perfect Spot

 

 

 Byzantium, as it came to be known as, is perched at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus Strait, which forms not only a natural boundary; the crossroads  between Asia and Europe but also a natural crossing point for all trade ships passing between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

A natural estuary, connecting the Bosphorus Strait and the Sea of Marmara, protected from swift sea currents, formed a huge, horn-shaped natural harbor, large enough to hold a thousand ships, which has protected Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and other maritime trade ships for thousands of years.

This body of water is today known as the Golden Horn.

The wedge-shaped Byzantium Peninsula, jammed between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, ensured that enemies could only advance from one direction, making it the ideal place to build a fortress which, as the famous walls which surrounded the Roman and Byzantine city of Constantinople (today Istanbul in Turkey), originally built in the 8th century B.C. have proved time and time again.

In its early days, although wealthy, Byzantium was home to only around 40.000 people whereas, at that time, Rome boasted more than a million inhabitants.

 

The Rise of Constantinople

 

 

After Byzantium was chosen as the new capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, on 11 May 330 and after renaming the city Constantinople, after himself, its new emperor Constantine, immediately set about turning the capital into a city worthy of its empire.

Constantine’s ambitious building project included a new city square, the Augustaeun, complete with a new senate house and a new Imperial Palace, both within in easy reach of the popular baths of Zeuxippus and his famous hippodrome which boasted a track of 450 meters and space enough for 100,000 spectators to watch the exciting chariot races.

 

 

The Hippodrome even had an obelisk, echoing the one at the Circus Maximus in Rome; Constantinople certainly was the equal of the eternal city of Rome!

 

 

The City Walls of Constantinople:

 The most imposing defense structures ever to be built in the ancient or medieval world

 

 

By around 330, Emperor Constantine had built an impressive city wall, running between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, effectively closing of the city.

By the year 404, the then emperor, Theodosius II, went one further by building a new set of walls, two and a half kilometer to the west, which stretched for over six kilometers, massively increasing the enclosed area of the city.

In 410 Theodosius received bad news from Rome, the unthinkable had happened, an army of Goths, led by Aleric, had laid siege to Rome, not only once but three times, on the third attempt they had burnt down the walls and sacked the city.

Fearing a repeat of the Rome disaster, Theodosius got to work on reinforcing the already impregnable walls of Constantinople, resulting in them becoming known as the most imposing defense structures ever to be built in the ancient or medieval world.

The walls of Constantinople; a circle of three walls, arranged one inside the other, each one  taller than the last, including a total of ninety six towers and protected by a moat which could be flooded on demand, were not penetrated for one thousand years.

 

476 AD

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

 

 

In the fourth century Rome was still the symbolic heart of a mighty empire but as the fifth century dawned, things began to go badly wrong.

After the city of Rome was sacked in 410, by Aleric and the Goths (a nomadic nation of Germanic peoples from the northeast), Rome fell in 476, when Aleric made a second attack, halving its population.

By this time, Rome had little influence, plus its incoming wealth from the rest of its empire had dried up.

By the 470s the western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, now ruling from Ravenna, was little more than a military leader, unable to pay his legions, relying solely on German mercenaries, whom eventually he could not pay either.

In the Battle of Ravenna, 476, Romulus Augustulus was overthrown by the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer.

The western Empire had vanished and the Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno.

While its authority remained for a few more centuries and its cultural influence still remains today, the Western Empire never had the means to recover its power.

Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, although now weaker, would endure for more than another thousand years.

 

Constantinople:

The Undisputed Capital and Centre of the Mediterranean World

 

 

Life in the Eastern Empire was more or less unaffected by the fall of the West, it continued to expand and rise, becoming the irrefutable capital and centre of the Mediterranean world.

Throughout Rome’s collapse the east was looked upon as a refuge from the destruction of the west; a sanctuary for the destitute, later referred to by the poets of Constantinople as “The refuge of strangers”.

 

527 AD

The Controversial Emperor: Justinian I “The Great”

 

 

Life in Constantinople was running fairly smoothly at the beginning of the sixth century, pirates from North Africa and nomadic tribes from Upper Egypt caused a bit of trouble now and again but on the whole the damage they inflicted was negligible, things soon changed though when Justinian I came on the scene.

Justinian’s uncle, a peasant swine herd from the Balkans, had traveled on foot with a couple of friends to Constantinople, where he became a palace guard before quickly rising to the rank of senator and commander of the palace guard, under Emperor Anastasius I (11 April 491 -9 July 518).

When Emperor Anastasius died Justianian was amazingly elected as Emperor.

At once he brought his nephew, also named Justinian, over to the capital in order to receive a good education.

Upon the death of his uncle, Young Justinian, who had one goal in life, that of restoring the Roman Empire to its former glory, became Justinian I “the Great” (1 August 527 -14 November 565).

Now the reign of Justinian I “the Great” was not without dispute, firstly, he caused a great scandal by marrying a lower class woman, Theodora, a courtesan of ill repute.

 

 

The couple gave the impression of being a pious couple however, in reality; Justinian was an incompetent ruler, a vicious tyrant who would have anyone who disagreed with him put to death.

Justinian had, along with his partners in crime, John the Cappadocian and Tribonian, enforced high tax rates causing significant public disapproval, the trio were also accused of corruption and sent numerous nobles into a rage after they suffered a loss of power and wealth as a result of the downsizing and reform of the civil service.

His reign was further marred by the Nika Riots which took place against him over the course of a week in 532 and are regarded as the most violent riots in the history of Constantinople when thousands of civilians were killed.

 

532 AD

The Nika Riots and Fire of Constantinople

 

 

To fully understand what caused the Nika Riots, I need to explain to you about the “demes”; associations, the racing fanatics down at the Hippodrome, the hub of the city’s social life, rather like today’s football fans.

There were four teams, the reds, blues, greens and whites, the supporters of which were usually connected with a political party and, as today, all bitter rivals.

It was riots and even death when these hooligans came face to face, again as today!

By the sixth century, the only teams with any real influence were the Blues and Greens.

The Greens represented the interest of the moneyed non-landowners, Justinian being neither of those, was a supporter of the Blues.

In 531 some members of the Blues and Greens were arrested for murder in connection with deaths during rioting after a chariot race and were sentenced to death,  however, on January 10, 532, two of them, a Blue and a Green, escaped and hid in a church which quickly became  surrounded by an angry mob.

Justinian’s refusal to pardon the two arrested in connection with the riots further intensified the existing resentment towards him both amongst the general public and the aristocracy.

 

Constantinople Burns

 

 

On January 13, 532, an angry crowd arrived at the Hippodrome for the races and from the outset began screaming insults at Justinian who was officiating from the safety of his box in the palace (The Hippodrome was right next door to the palace).

By the end of the day, the “fans” were marching through the streets of Constantinople, their chanting having changed from “Blue” or “Green” to “Nika” (in Greek meaning win, victory or conquer), hence the riots came to be known as the Nika riots.

For the next five days, the palace was under siege, fire raged throughout the city, destroying anything in its path, including the city’s old church next to the palace.

The rioters, now armed and probably controlled by their allies in the Senate, demanded that Justinian get rid of his partners in crime, John the Cappadocian and the quaestor Tribonian and then demanded he declare Hypatius, a nephew of former Emperor Anastasius, as the new Emperor of Constantinople.

 

Justinian Comes Up with a Plan

 

 

After considering how best to deal with the situation, Justinian came up with a sly plan; summoning to him Narses, a popular eunuch and the generals Belisarius and Mundus, he informed them of how they were to help him make sure his plan was successful.

He then handed a bag of gold to the unassuming tiny eunuch and sent him off, alone and unarmed, to the Hippodrome, where Hypatius’ coronation was taking place.

Head straight to the “Blue’s” section he told Nases and remind them that Justinian, their Emperor, supported them over the “Greens”.

“Oh and don’t forget”, he added, as Narses was about to set off on his mission, “ask them if they know that Hypatius, the man they are about to crown, is a Green supporter”.

Narses made his way to the stadium, where, whilst handing out pieces of gold to the Blue fans, he gave them Justinian’s message.

The Blue’s leaders whispered amongst themselves for a few minutes before addressing their followers, who then rose and left the Hippodrome in mid-coronation, leaving the Greens to wonder what was going on.

Justinian’s at once ordered his army, led by Belisarius and Mundus, to storm the Hippodrome and kill all remaining fans, regardless of whether they were Blues or Greens.

About thirty thousand people were reportedly killed.

Justinian had Hypatius executed and exiled the senators who had supported the riot.

His scheming plan had worked; he was still emperor of Constantinople, now he could get on with his work; he swore to his subjects that one of his first priorities was to rebuild the city and on the grounds of the ruined church, create a cathedral which would rival Saint Peter’s in Rome.

 

537 AD

The Completion of the Hagia Sophia – Church of the Holy Wisdom – Built by Justinian I

 

 

Hagia Sophia, The Church of the Holy Wisdom, the symbolic heart of the Greek Orthodox faith, was completed  in 537 by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I.

It was the first Christian church of Constantinople and the largest of the Holy Roman Empire, and remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

The present church is the third to be built on the same site.

The original church known as the Magna Ecclesia (Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία), ‘Great Church’, owing to its size, was commissioned by Constantius I in 325 and consecrated  by his son, Constantius II, in 360, was destroyed by fire in 404.

A second church, on the same site was commissioned by Theodosius II in 415; this church was destroyed during the Nika revolt of 532, against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

Only weeks after the destruction of the second church, in 532, Emperor Justinian I, chose mathematician Anthemius of Tralles and geometer and engineer Isidore of Miletus, to design today’s Hagia Sophia, instructing them to make it larger and more majestic than its two predecessors.

The result was one of the world’s most remarkable buildings, more than ten thousand were said to have been employed in its construction and its vast dome soars fifty five meters above the ground with a span of thirty meters, making it one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world.

After the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, in 1453, the Church of Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque until it closed in 1934; it reopened as a museum in 1935.

In 2020 it was once again converted into a mosque.

 

By Hook or by Crook!

How Constantinople Came to Monopolize the Silk Trade in Europe

 

 

In 551, two monks from Constantinople, who had been preaching in India, made their way to China where they were amazed by the elaborate methods needed to raise silkworms and produce silk but what amazed them even more was the fortune to be made from this sumptuous fabric.

Thinking they could make a bit of cash for themselves out of this, the monks rushed home to set up a meeting with Emperor Justinian I, who, upon hearing their story realized  what a coup silk production could be for his empire, offered the monks a huge amount of money if they would smuggle a few silk worms into Constantinople.

The monks didn’t have to think twice and rubbing their hands in glee over their good fortune, once again set off for China, this time however, they carried with them hollowed out bamboo canes.

On arrival the monks persuaded others to help them on their mission by smuggling out silk worms, most likely in the form of eggs, hidden in secret compartments in the hollowed out canes.

It was a lengthy process, maybe two years or more but it was worth it, a silk worm breeding production was set up, using the smuggled worm eggs, at the Constantinople end of the Silk Road, a network stretching from the ancient Chinese capital city of Chang’an (now Xi’an) to Constantinople, Antioch, Damascus and other Middle Eastern cities.

 

 

 Beyond these points, other trade networks distributed Silk Road goods throughout the Mediterranean world, Europe and eastern Asia.

Things went better than expected and Constantinople quickly established a monopoly on silk in Europe, boosting the wealth of the empire to unprecedented heights.

 

577 AD

The Great Earthquake

 

By the early sixth century, Constantinople was a city unmatched around the world, it seemed to be on the up and up in every way, it had the largest aqueduct in the ancient world and defensive walls like no others, known as “The Long Walls”, which protected the city for more than a thousand years,.

Was this magnificence about to tumble?

Towards midnight on 16 April 557, things began to shake, rattle and roll, wakening the citizens of Constantinople who ran shrieking from their beds as the buildings danced to the thunder-like sounds coming from the ground.

The city walls were badly damaged (Allowing the Huns to enter the city and attack in 559), the strong tremors cracked the enormous dome of Hagia Sophia which tumbled down completely in May of 558, was this an omen of bad things to come?

 

Heraclius Emperor of Constantinople

 5 October 610 – 11 February 641

 

 

In the east, Constantinople was under pressure from the Persians (the Sassanids) and by 630 the empire had lost most of Italy and North Africa.

Maybe there was hope that Heraclius, who ruled for thirty years, emperor at that time and who had won an impressive number of battles, could return Constantinople to its former glory.

Heraclius had driven the Persians out of Anatolia; he even recaptured Jerusalem and returned the True Cross, in a lavish and triumphant ceremony, back to its rightful place in the Holy City.

For a while it looked as if he was bringing the empire back to a new Golden Age.

Little did the citizens of Constantinople know an unexpected rival was about to appear out of one of the most unlikely places; the seemingly empty desert sands of Arabia.

While the city withstood a siege by the Sassanids and Avars in 626, Heraclius campaigned deep into Persian territory and briefly restored the status quo in 628, when the Persians surrendered all their conquests.

However, further sieges followed the Arab conquests, first from 674 to 678 and then in 717 to 718.

The Theodosian Walls kept the city impenetrable from the land, while a newly discovered weapon known as Greek fire allowed the Byzantine navy to destroy the Arab fleets and keep the city supplied.

 

 

Greek fire consisted of a combustible mixture probably based on naphtha and quicklime, discharged by a flame-throwing weapon which the Byzantines typically used in naval battles as it could continue burning while floating on water.

In 860, an attack was made on Constantinople by a new principality set up a few years earlier at Kiev when two hundred small vessels passed through the Bosporus and plundered the city.

In 980, the emperor Basil II received a strange gift from Prince Vladimir of Kiev: 6,000 Varangian warriors, which Basil formed into a new bodyguard, Vikings known as the Varangian Guard, famous for their ferocity, honour, and loyalty.

 However, later they became known for plunder in the Imperial palaces.

 

 

Fast Forward to the Middle Ages

1054

 The East-West Schism

 

 

Over the next few centuries, invasion after invasion, battle after battle and with the odd fire and earthquake here and there, would test the strength of Constantinople but with its indestructible walls, natural defenses and that wondrous weapon called “Greek Fire”, the city endured.

Rome had not done too badly either, it had risen from the ashes, not as an imperial power this time but as the hub of Roman Catholicism and the throne of the pope.

 The Western Empire had broken up into a handful of small kingdoms, all speaking their own language, a sort of Tower of Babel revisited, however, one language tied them all together, the language of the church, Latin.

The sophisticated people of Byzantium regarded these upstarts, whom they referred to as “the Latins”, or Franks (and not in a complimentary way I might add), as rather vulgar.

One of the main bones of contention between them was how the true meaning of Greek and Latin religious texts inevitably became lost in translation.

In the year 1054, an event known as the East-West Schism tore the Christian world in two.

 All Latin churches in Constantinople were closed down and excommunication was rife all over Europe.

 

1071

The Battle of Manzikert

 

 

With  the eleventh century came more trouble; a threat too great for the  Byzantine Empire to face alone, a threat that would ultimately force them into a painful compromise and lead in the following centuries to the ruin of the great capital.

 This was the rise of the Seljuk Turks.

The Turks had built an empire that now spanned mainland Persia, the Middle East, including Baghdad, much of Syria and the eastern Mediterranean coast.

 In the year 1071, the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, considered them such a threat that he marched an army of 40,000 soldiers into Asia to meet them in battle at a place called Manzikert (modern Armenia).

The march across Anatolia was long and difficult.

 Romanos didn’t help matters by bringing along with him a luxurious baggage train whilst his soldiers suffered in hardship, their mood soon became mutinous.

On the eve of the battle, Romanos discovered that 20,000 of his soldiers seem to have absconded; only half of his army remained.

The Turks won the battle and Emperor Romanos was held captive for a week whist the terms of the empire’s surrender were negotiated, he was the first Roman emperor to be taken prisoner in battle in over 900 years.

The loss at Manzikert was a devastating blow for the Byzantine Empire.

The number of casualties was not enormous; it was the blow to its morale that was devastating.

When Emperor Romanos returned to the empire, ransomed at the price of 1.5 million gold pieces, along with several cities and his daughter‘s hand in marriage promised to one of their princes, the humiliation proved too much for his subjects.

 He was removed from power, cruelly beaten which caused wounds he later died from.

 

From Bad to Worse

 

After the empire’s defeat at Manzikert, there followed a thirty – year period of unrest and  civil war, causing much more to damage the Byzantine empire than a thousand battles of Manzikert ever could have.

Emperor Romanos had marched to Manzikert with an army of more than 40,000 but less than a decade later his armies fighting in the civil wars had dwindled to less than four thousand, making Byzantine cities an easy mark for the Turks.

The battle of Manzikert was such a disaster that Byzantine historians simply referred to it as “that dreadful day”.

For centuries Western Europe had trusted the Byzantines to fend off the armies of the Muslim empires now dotted all over Asia, it was now clear though that they couldn’t hold their own, they needed military support.

Enter pope Urban II, who brought with him a new age of violence and conflict in order to restore the power of Byzantium, which in the end had the opposite effect.

 

1095

Enter Pope Urban II and the Crusaders

 

 

Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, feared for the future of his empire, by the year 1095, it seemed that even the invincible Constantinople could be in danger and so he asked  for help, he was so desperate he even reached out  to the empire’s bitterest rivals; the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.

Alexios got much more than he bargained for.

 On the 27th of November, 1095, Pope Urban II gathered together the Council of Clermont and bullied all those attending into taking up arms under the sign of the cross.

 For centuries now, Europeans had been making pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the birthplace of Christianity, the route took them through Byzantium, crossing the Bosphorus at Constantinople and passing through the Cilician Gates into Syria and down the coast of the Mediterranean.

But now Jerusalem was in the hands of the Turks, Pope Urban, who had a vision of what he called an armed pilgrimage, declared that with an “army of the Cross” they would win back Jerusalem and the east.

He promised that all those who went to war on his behalf, would be forgiven of all their sins.

To the people of medieval Europe this was an offer they couldn’t refuse.

 

 

 An unruly mob, thought to be more than 100,000 people, made up mostly of peasants from all over Western Europe, set off to march across the continent.

When Emperor Alexios saw this wild mob outside his city gates, he began to have second thoughts, was unleashing this fearsome force worth the risk?

 Maybe against his better judgment, he decided to take the risk, if this unruly army was what it would take to protect his empire, he would take any risk.

The crusaders, despite their lack of experience and equipment, did a good job; they took the city of Nicea in 1097 and Antioch the year after.

Jerusalem was reached in June of 1099 and taken one month later, with the crusaders massacring the defenders.

 For the next 200 years, there would be some form of crusader presence in the eastern Mediterranean, the risk Emperor Alexios had made paid off.

The Byzantine Empire was beginning to flourish once more but it was living on borrowed time.

 

1202–1204

The Fourth Crusade

 

 

The fourth Crusade was the most terrible campaign ever executed by a crusading army in the east, a catastrophe which would be remembered as the Fourth Crusade.

The object of the Fourth Crusade was to recapture Jerusalem, at that time in the hands of then the powerful Ayyubid Sultanate (Egypt) established by Saladin in 1171.

The crusaders had planned to march to Venice and there buy passage on Venetian ships to the Holy Land; however, upon reaching Venice, they discovered they didn’t have funds enough for to pay for their passage.

The Venetians knew an opportunity when the saw one and in return for their passage to Jerusalem, they asked the crusaders to march to Zara, one of their rival cities in modern Croatia and burn it to the ground.

The crusaders were reluctant to comply but after thinking it over, decided any action was justified if it meant the recapture of Jerusalem.

They marched to Zara and burned it to the ground, resulting in Pope Innocent III excommunicating the whole crusader army.

The crusaders finally set sail in April 1203 aboard a Venetian fleet and arrived at Constantinople on the 23rd of June, 1203.

The crusaders crossed the Bosphorus in a fleet of more than 200 ships, dropping anchor below the city walls before scrambling up the masts and racing across catwalks to reach the ramparts.

More ships landed on the shoreline and used picks and shovels to break down a gateway the defenders had hurriedly blocked up with bricks.

 The city’s defenders were beaten back and the crusaders sailed into the Port of Constantinople with their exile prince, Alexios Angelos III.

 

 

Half the population of Constantinople had come out to jeer at the exiled emperor from the walls but the crusaders won the day and the emperor of the time fled the city.

Alexios Angelos was crowned emperor of the Romans on the 1st of August.

Alexios Angelos III realized that his promises about paying off the crusaders’ debts would have to be kept but with what?

A century of civil wars had all but wiped out the imperial cache and when the previous emperor ran from the city, he had taken most of what was left with him.

Eyeing up the restless and impatient crusaders awaiting their payment, the new Emperor ordered that the funds should be raised by any means necessary.

He ordered soldiers to sack the churches and take any valuable works of Byzantine art they could find and melt them down to strip them of their gold.

Unable to fight with Muslims in the Holy Land, the crusaders vented their rage by destroying Constantinople’s mosques and persecuting its small Muslim community but Constantinople lived up to its reputation as the refuge of strangers; the residents came out in force to protect their Muslim community from the foreign soldiers.

In retaliation the crusaders set the city on fire resulting in riots which turned into a full-blown revolution with the new Emperor, Alexios Angelos, being overthrown by the rebel leader, Doukas.

 

The Sack of Constantinople

 

 

 The crusaders demanded that the new Emperor Doukas pay the debt they had been promised, when he refused, they went on a three day rampage of looting and destruction, intent on stripping anything of value from the city.

 During those three days, many works of priceless Roman and Greek art were either stolen or destroyed.

The famous bronze horses that decorated the Hippodrome were sent back to adorn the facade of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where they remain to this day, other statues were melted down to make bronze coins.

The crusaders stormed the city’s holy sanctuaries, destroying or stealing all they could lay hands on, thousands of Constantinople’s civilians were massacred and most of the Byzantine aristocracy fled the city.

Declaring a great victory for Christendom, the crusaders selected one of their own as emperor and divided the empire into new crusader states.

 The Byzantine Empire was broken.

 

1204–1261

The Rule of the Franks – Frankokratia

 

 

 For the next fifty seven years Constantinople was ruled by a western emperor, this era was referred to by its citizens as the Frankokratia, or the Rule of the Franks.

Things however did not run smoothly, they managed to lose one territory after another until their empire was no more than the city of Constantinople whilst at the same time a number of rival states at Nicea and Trebizond claimed the true title of Byzantium.

The last Latin emperor of Constantinople, who ruled from 1228 – 1261, was Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus, nicknamed Baldwin the Broke due to his never-ending money problems.

 He was forced to sell some of the city’s priceless Christian relics to keep the state running.

He is said to have sold the supposed crown of Jesus to the west and to have even sent one of his sons to Venice as collateral for a loan.

The people of the empire were done with Baldwin’s inefficiency, enough was enough and he was eventually thrown from power by a Byzantine lord.

 

 The Throne of Constantinople Returns to the Byzantines

 

On July 25, 1261, after 57 years of Latin occupation, Michael VIII Palaeologus, a  Nicaean emperor (1259–61) and later Byzantine emperor (1261–82), captured Constantinople and  restored the Byzantine Empire to the Greeks.

Much of modern Greece and the Asian territories were returned to the empire but Byzantium was still a shadow of its former self.

It was now no more than a cluster of villages inside the ancient walls, built to house more than 500,000 people, by the end of the reign of Baldwin the Broke, there were no more than 35,000.

 The 14th century saw the great famine of 1315 and if this was not bad enough, worse was to come, a disaster that would spread death and destruction to every corner of Europe; the Black Death.

 

The Black Death

 

 

The Black Death spread to Constantinople from Europe’s trade routes, leaving thousands dead in its wake.

The Black Death would return to Constantinople eleven more times over the next hundred years, bringing with it devastating consequences.

Although it mostly avoided the ravages of the plague, the empire of the Seljuk Turks was destroyed by the arrival of the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan.

 Baghdad was burned in the year 1258 and the River Tigris famously ran red with blood.

The Seljuk territories had been divided into a number of small Mongol states known as Beyliks but once the Mongos left, one of these states would rise to conquer the others and reform the power that the Seljuks had once held.

This state was known as the Ottoman and its rise was the beginning of the end for Byzantium.

 

The Ottoman Empire

 

 

Within 90 years the Ottoman Beyliks had grown into a powerful force and yet again, the Byzantine Empire lost every one of its Asian territories to its expansion.

 The man who would finally put an end to the empire that had lasted for a thousand years was born in the year 1432.

 He was the Ottoman king Mehmed II, who would go down in history as Mehmed the Conqueror.

The young Mehmed, who had come to the throne of the Ottoman Empire in the year 1444, as a boy of only 11 years old, inherited an empire that was already of considerable size.

It held territory across much of what is today Turkey, as well as large areas of Greece and Bulgaria.

 However, there was one land still managing to resist the claws of Mehmed II and that was the city of Constantinople.

 

The Beginning of the End

 

 

 At the age of 21, in the year 1453, the young Mehmed set out to take the formidable city of Constantinople which, even though guarded by only about 10,000 soldiers, had its triple line of walls, built nearly a thousand years ago, that no other power had ever been able to cross.

 Mehmed knew that to break through these walls, his armies would need a weapon the likes of which the world had never seen before.

He knew of only one man who could help him become the owner of such a weapon; a radical Hungarian engineer named Orban.

 

Basilica – Orban’s Cannon:

One of the largest guns ever built

 

 

Mehmed asked Orban if he could build a cannon that would demolish the Theodosian walls of Constantinople.

Orban gave this reply:

“I can create a cannon that will shatter to dust not only these walls but the very walls of Babylon itself”.

 The young sultan was impressed and hired Orban for the job.

 Three months later, orban delivered to Mehmed, one of the largest guns ever built, which he had named Basilica.

It was over 10 meters long and was so heavy it had to be dragged to the walls of Constantinople by a team of 60 oxen and 400men who had to level the land ahead of it and build bridges over ditches and rivers.

 

 

 

May 29th 1453

The Fall of Constantinople

 

 

The Siege of Constantinople, which which began on 6th of April 1453, went on for 53 days but even under the fearsome cannon fire the walls of Constantinople endured.

The final assault on the city began and the Turkish soldiers burst over the walls.

 As did the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade two and a half centuries before, the Ottomans rampaged through the city and the bloodshed was tremendous.

 All over the city, the flags of Byzantium adorned with the crescent moon and stars, were torn down and Ottoman flags flew in their place.

All hope for Constantinople was lost, through the rest of the day the Turks made a great show of slaughtering any Christian who crossed their path.

 

This is the End

 

 

Finally, Constantinople was taken and Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror rode into the ruined streets, victorious.

His first job was to move the capital of his empire to Constantinople and to bestow upon himself the title of Caesar.

Constantinople had been the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire since it’s ordination in 330, under Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great.

The Byzantine Empire had lasted for 1,123 years and 18 days.

 As Constantinople fell, the city that had once accepted refugees from all corners of the world now sent its own people streaming across Europe and wherever they went, Byzantine refugees brought with them the ancient learnings of the Greeks.

 For another generation at least, the city of Constantinople would once again earn the title; refuge for strangers, the queen of the queens of cities.

 

 

Today, the ruins of the Theodosian walls of Constantinople still line the modern city of Istanbul, as a testament to the spirit of a city that once promised to protect all the people of the world and shelter them in its embrace.

 

 

They stand in honour of an empire that still lives on today, embedded in the cultures of both east and west, Europe and Asia, Christian and Muslim, reaching back down the ages to the time of the ancients.

 

Istanbul

 

 

So began the Ottoman occupation of Greece (known by the Greeks as Τουρκοκρατία, “Turkish rule” – “Turkocracy”), which lasted for nearly 400 years and ended with The Greek War of Independence 1821, also known as the Greek Revolution.

The Greeks were victorious and Greece was declared Independent on January 18 by the National Assembly of the Greeks.

On October 29, 1923, the Grand Turkish National Assembly announced the creation of the Republic of Turkey.

Constantinople became officially known as Istanbul in 1930 as part of the Treaty of Lausanne.

Today, religious differences and squabbles over territory still cause tensions between Greece and Turkey.