ST EUGENIOS PATRON OF TREBIZOND.

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of Trebizond, on the romantic Mount of Mithrios, now CHAP. I. Boz-tépé, that overlooks the city with its wall of rock. On the spot where he was executed—an isolated point between two ravines that separate the upper citadel and the great eastern suburb― Alexios erected a splendid church and monastery to the patron of the city and empire. The buildings dedicated to St Eugenios in this place were more than once destroyed amidst the revolutions of Trebizond but a Christian church, now converted into a ; mosque by the Osmanlees, and called Yeni Djuma, still exists. Alexios I. appears also to have made it a law of the empire, that the effigy of St Eugenios should be impressed on all the silver coins of Trebizond. The festivals of St Eugenios became the bond of social communication between the emperor and his subjects: the biography of the saint was the text-book of Trebizontine literature; his praise the subject of every oratorical display; his name the appellation of one member in every family, the object of universal veneration, and the centre of patriotic enthusiasm.2 The religion, the literature, and the politics of the inhabitants of Trebizond, during the whole existence of the empire, identified themselves more with the worship and the legends of St Eugenios, than with the practice of Christianity or the doctrines of the gospel.

1 No coins of Alexios I. and Andronikos I. have been identified, but all the known silver coins of Trebizond bear the effigy of St Eugenios on their reverse. The earlier, while the emperor and people had some warlike habits, represent the saint on foot, as the spiritual guide and shepherd of his flock; the later, when the emperor and people were effeminate and luxurious in their way of life, display him on horseback with a cross in his hand, as a mace-at-arms, ready to protect the city, which the sovereign and the people felt themselves too weak to defend without miraculous aid.

2 In a lawsuit of which Fallmerayer discovered the records in the monastery of St Dionysios, on Mount Athos, three citizens of Trebizond appear as witnesses, all named Eugenios.

CHAPTER II.

TREBIZOND TRIBUTARY TO THE SELJOUK SULTANS AND GRAND-KHANS OF THE MONGOLS.

SECT. I. REIGNS OF ANDRONIKOS I. (GHIDOS,) AND JOANNES I. (AXOUCHOS,) 1222-1238.

THE succession to the imperial title was never considered hereditary among the Byzantine Greeks; but the new Greek empire at Trebizond forgot many of the old Roman ideas, and soon assumed a far more hereditary form. At the death of Alexios I., however, the hereditary principle had not prevailed over the elective constitution imprinted by imperial Rome on all its offshoots, and the vacant throne was occupied by Andronikos Ghidos, the son-inlaw of Alexios, to the exclusion of Joannes, the eldest son of the deceased emperor.1

Though Andronikos continued to be tributary to the Seljouk empire, he availed himself so skilfully of the embarrassments attendant on the decease of the emperor at Iconium, as to succeed, in the second year of his reign, (1214,) in concluding a treaty with Alaeddin, who had succeeded his brother Azeddin. This treaty, it is true, made no change in the relations of vassalage already established between the two empires, but it provided that

1 The emperor Andronikos I. was perhaps the same Andronikos Ghidos who commanded the army of Theodore Laskaris, when the Latin auxiliaries of David Grand-Komnenos were destroyed.

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the two sovereigns were to live together in perpetual CHAP. II. amity, and that the subjects and frontier garrisons of the one were never to molest those of the other. Such a treaty of a suzerain with his tributary, being a direct acknowledgment of complete political independence, was not likely to be long respected; and the manner in which it was broken indicates that Alaeddin soon repented of his concession.

A ship bearing the imperial flag of Trebizond was driven on shore near Sinope. It carried the receivergeneral of Cherson, and several archonts of Perateia, with a large sum of money destined for the public treasury of the empire. The ship was seized by Hayton, the reis or governor of Sinope, who took possession of the treasure destined for Andronikos, and detained the archonts in order to enrich himself by their ransom. The emperor no sooner heard of this act of piracy and injustice than he sent a fleet to punish Hayton. The Trebizontine expedition proceeded to Karousa, where troops were landed, and the whole country, up to the very walls of Sinope, was wasted and plundered. The fleet also attacked the ships in the port with equal success; and Hayton, distracted by the ruin of his dominions, the captivity of his people, and the signs of discontent within his city, was glad to purchase peace by giving up the captured ship with the treasure seized, and releasing all his prisoners without ransom. The Trebizontine officers also, at the same time, released all the prisoners on board the fleet; but the troops and sailors carried off all the plunder they had collected on the coast, and from the ships in the harbour.

Hayton was a vassal of the Seljouk empire, and the termination of the affair was extremely displeasing to the sultan Alaeddin, who considered that the emperor of Trebizond, as a tributary of his throne, was bound to appeal to his suzerain at Iconium, before attacking Sinope and ravaging the Turkish territory. He resolved to

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CHAP. 11. avail himself of the occasion, not only to set aside the treaty by which he had placed Andronikos on the footing of an equal, but even to conquer Trebizond. The Greek emperor could bring no force into the field capable of contending with the Seljouks. Alaeddin ordered an army to be immediately assembled at Erzeroum; and, to strengthen it, he drew a body of veteran troops from Melitene. The command of the expedition was intrusted by the grand sultan Alaeddin to his son Melik, who was ordered to lay siege to the capital of the empire-for it was supposed that Trebizond would be unable to offer a long resistance.1 The young Melik pressed rapidly forward through the passes to Baibert, where he encamped for a couple of days to make the necessary dispositions for descending with his army to the coast, by the defiles of the wooded mountains that surround Trebizond. Andronikos had done everything in his power to meet the threatened danger. The fortress of Trebizond was put in the best state of defence, the wealth of the suburbs was secured within its walls, and arrangements were made for lodging the immense population crowded within its narrow circuit. All the chosen warriors of the empire, from Sotiropolis, under the Mingrelian mountains, to Oinaion, in the land of the Chalybes, were summoned to assemble round the imperial standard; and the emperor, hoping to be able to delay the march of the Seljouk troops, advanced to the summit of the mountain range with his army. But his followers were sadly inferior to the Turks both in courage and discipline, and as soon as they perceived the numerous array of their enemies, the greater part dispersed. Some sought the recesses of the forests, from which they subsequently issued to interrupt the communications of the Turkish army during

1 Lazaros says distinctly that Melik, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish army, was the son of the grand sultan Alaeddin, the son of Sa Apatines, the Iathatines of Acropolita-Ghaiaseddin Kaikhosrou.

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the siege. Others fled back on Trebizond, to seek shelter CHAP. II. at the shrines of the Panaghia Chrisokephalos and St Eugenios, where they quartered themselves in the immense monasteries around those churches. Andronikos covered the retreat with a small guard of five hundred chosen cavalry armed with shield and lance, who distinguished themselves by a valiant attack on the advanced guard of the Turkish army, at a bridge over the Pyxites. Melik, however, moved steadily forward with the main body; while Andronikos, unable to defend even the extensive suburb of Trebizond to the east of the fortress, was compelled to shut himself up within the city walls. within the city walls. The Seljouk army encamped on the spot thus left unoccupied, pitching their tents along the whole space from St Eugenios to St Constantine, down to the sea. The besieging army was only separated from the fortress by the deep ravine that bounds it on the eastern side.

At this period the fortress of Trebizond occupied only the surface of the table-rock between the two great ravines of Gouzgoun-deré and Issé-lepol, including what now forms the central and upper citadels. The northern wall ran parallel to the shore at some distance from the sea, and the intervening space was not yet fortified by the wall which now protects it, and includes a considerable part of the suburb beyond the western ravine. The first attack of the Seljouk army was directed against this northern wall. In this spot alone the ground offered facilities for approaching the fortifications, and admitted of an attempt to carry the place by storm. But though the ramparts at this point did not tower so high above the assailants as at every other, the narrowness of the space between the wall and the sea deprived the Turks of the advantages to be derived from their superior numbers; and, by crowding them closely together, exposed those engaged in the assault to certain injury from every missile discharged by the besieged. The consequence