robes, adorned with single-headed eagles, were viewed by the Constantinopolitan populace as marking a certain inferiority to the family of his wife, who appeared in a dress covered with double-headed eagles, to mark her rank in the empire of the East and West as a princess born in the purple chamber.1 Both Joannes II. and his successors found it advisable to cultivate the alliance of the Byzantine court after this period. Policy, therefore, prompted them to lay aside the use of their ancient title of Emperor of the Romans, which was reserved exclusively for the sovereigns of Constantinople, while those of Trebizond confined themselves to that of Emperor of all the East, Iberia and Perateia.2 The emperor Joannes returned home shortly after his marriage. His dominions had suffered severely during his absence, in consequence of David, king of Iberia, availing himself of the conjuncture to attempt the conquest of the capital. The Iberian army ravaged the whole country up to the walls of the citadel of Trebizond, which David besieged for some time; but with so little success, that he was compelled to effect his retreat without being able to carry off any booty. The reign of Joannes was not without its troubles after his return. Georgios, his brother and predecessor, was released by the Turkomans, and found a faction of discontented nobles to support his pretensions to recover the throne. The attempt proved unsuccessful. The followers of Georgios were defeated; and the dethroned emperor, after wandering in the mountains in a condition between a knight-errant and 1 Full-length portraits of the emperor Joannes II., and of the empress Eudocia, in their imperial robes, may be seen, though sadly defaced, in the porch of the church of St Gregory of Nyssa, now used as the metropolitan church of Trebizond. The robes of the emperor are adorned with singleheaded eagles, those of the empress with double-headed. 2 The title of Emperor of the East, Iberia and Perateia, ought really only to have been used by Alexios I. and Andronikos I., since the province of Iberia was lost in the reign of the latter. But sovereigns are in the habit of assuming and retaining titles to which they have no right. See the golden bulls of the emperor Alexios III.-Fallmerayer, Orig. Frag., 1st Abth., p. 87, 92. A. D. 1282. § 1. CHAP. III. a brigand, was at last taken prisoner and brought to Trebizond. In order to insure family concord as well as public tranquillity, Joannes allowed his brother to retain the title of Emperor, without, however, admitting him to take any part in the administration of public affairs. A new revolution suddenly drove Joannes again from his throne. His sister Theodora, the eldest child of Manuel I. by his first marriage with Roussadan, an Iberian princess, availed herself of the party intrigues of the nobles, and the popular dissensions in the capital— perhaps also of the civil war between her two brothers-to assemble an army and mount the throne. Her reign occurred in the year 1285; but its duration is unknown, though the existence of coins, bearing her name and effigy, attest that her power was not destitute of political stability, and that she was fully and permanently recognised as sovereign of the empire. No clue exists that affords us the means of explaining how Theodora obtained the throne, or how she lost it, but Joannes appears soon to have recovered possession of his throne and capital. He died at the fortress of Limnia in the year 1297, after a reign of eighteen years, and his body was transported to Trebizond, where it was entombed in the cathedral of Panaghia Chrysokephalos. He left two sons, Alexios II. and Michael. The effects of the incessant domestic revolutions and civil wars in the empire of Trebizond can be more clearly traced than their causes. One of their immediate consequences, in the reign of Joannes, was the loss of the extensive and valuable province of Chalybia, with its strange metallic soil, from which, since the days of the Argonauts, the inhabitants have scraped out small nodules of iron in sufficient quantity to form a regular branch of industry.2 The Turkomans, availing themselves of the 1 Pfaffenhoffen, Essai sur les Aspres Comnénats, p. 88. 2 See an interesting account of the modern Chalybes in Hamilton's Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia, vol. i. p. 274. internal disorders at the capital, laid waste the province, A. D. and drove out the greater part of the ancient population, 1280-1297. in order to convert the whole country into a land of pasture suitable for the settlement of their nomadic tribes. Joannes II. enjoyed a reputation among the nations of western Europe totally incommensurate with his real power. The magnificent title of Emperor of Trebizond threw a veil over his weakness, and distance concealed the small extent of his dominions behind the long line of coast that acknowledged his sway. He was invited by pope Nicholas IV. to take part in the crusade for the recovery of Ptolemais, in which his Holiness flattered himself that the emperor of Trebizond would be joined by Argoun, the Mongol khan of Tauris, and all the Christian princes of the East, from Georgia to Armenian Cilicia. The invitation proved of course ineffectual. Joannes was too constantly employed at home watching the movements of domestic faction, and guarding against the inroads of the Turkomans of the great horde of the Black Sheep, to think of aiding the Latin adventurers in Palestine, even had he felt any disposition to listen to papal exhortations.1 SECT. II.-REIGN OF ALEXIOS II. INCREASED COMMERCIAL IMPOR- Alexios II., the eldest son of Joannes II., succeeded his father at the early age of fifteen. He was naturally for some time a mere nominal sovereign, acting under the guidance of the ministers of state who held office at the time of his father's death. His father's will placed him under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II. ; but the courtiers and nobles ▲ Wadding, Annales ordinis Minorum, tom. v. p. 254, ad. ann. 1291; Fallmerayer, Geschichte, 157. § 2. CHAP. III. of Trebizond easily persuaded the young sovereign to assume complete independence, and emancipate himself from all control. Andronicus, on the other hand, was eager to direct his conduct even in his most trifling actions. His first attempt to enforce his authority was ridiculous and irritating, like many of the acts of that most orthodox and most injudicious sovereign. He ordered the young emperor of Trebizond, an independent foreign prince, to marry the daughter of a Byzantine subject, Choumnos, his own favourite minister. The idea of this marriage was offensive both to Alexios and the people of Trebizond; so that, when the young emperor married the daughter of an Iberian prince, in contempt of his guardian's commands, the act gained him great popularity in his own dominions. Andronicus, who was fond of regarding himself as especially the orthodox emperor, conceived that he could always make the Greek church a subservient instrument of his political enterprises. In order to carry into execution his plans concerning the marriage of the daughter of his favourite, he put the whole Eastern church in a state of movement, and treated the question as if it was of equal importance with papal supremacy or the doctrine of the Azymites. He assembled a synod at Constantinople, and demanded that the marriage of his ward, the emperor of Trebizond-or the prince of the Lazes, as the Byzantines in the excess of their pride had the insolence to term the young Alexios-should be declared null by the Greek church, because it had been contracted by a minor without the sanction of his guardian, the 1 Nikephoras Choumnos was præfect of the Kanikleion, or keeper of the purple ink with which the imperial signature was written-something between a lord-chancellor and a privy-seal. He was the author of several works that still exist in MS. in the libraries of Europe. Some of his writings have been published by Boissonade in the Anecdota Græca, vols. i. and ii. One consists of consolations to his daughter Irene, who, after being rejected by Alexios of Trebizond, was married to the despot John, the third son of Andronicus. The despot died in 1304, and Irene, left a widow at an early age, took the veil under the name of Eulogia. There is also a discourse of Choumnos on the death of the despot John, addressed to his father the emperor Andronicus II. orthodox emperor. ALEXIOS II. 407 The patriarch and clergy, alarmed A. D. at the ridiculous position in which they were likely to be 1297-1350. placed, took advantage of the interesting condition of the bride, to refuse gratifying the spleen of Andronicus. At this time Eudocia, the mother of Alexios, was at Constantinople. She had rejected her brother's proposal to form a second marriage with the kral of Servia, and was anxious to return to her son's dominions. By persuading Andronicus that her influence was far more likely to make her son agree to a divorce than the sentence of an ecclesiastical tribunal whose authority he was able to decline, she obtained her brother's permission to return to Trebizond. On arriving at her son's court she found him living happily with his young wife; and, on considering the case in her new position, she approved of his conduct, and confirmed him in his determination to resist the tyrannical pretensions of his uncle.1 Eudocia showed herself as much superior to her brother Andronicus in character, judgment, and virtue, as most of the women of the house of Paleologos were to the men. The difference between the males and females of this imperial family is so marked, that it would form a curious subject of inquiry to ascertain how the system of education of the Byzantine empire, at this period, produced an effect so singular and uniform. The ecclesiastical culture of the Greek clergy may possibly have tended to strengthen the female mind, while it weakened and dogmatised that of the men. Alexios II. displayed both firmness and energy in his internal administration. He defeated an invasion of the Turkomans in the year 1302. Their army, which had advanced to the neighbourhood of Kerasunt, was routed with great slaughter, and their general Koustaga taken prisoner. The danger to which the empire was exposed by the insolent pretensions of the Genoese, and their endeavours to secure a monopoly of the whole commerce of the Black 1 Pachymeres, tom. ii. 184, 198, edit. Rom. |