Chapter X: The Eastern Empire (1)

♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western Empires.♦

The geographical, like the political, history of the Eastern Empire is wholly unlike that of the Western. ♦The Western Empire fell to pieces.♦ The Western Empire, in the strictest sense, fell asunder. Some of its parts fell away formally, others practically. The tie that held the rest snapped at the first touch of a vigorous invader. But that invader was an European power whose territories had once formed part of the Empire itself. From the invasions of nations beyond the European pale the Western Empire, as such, suffered but little. The Western Empire again, long before its fall, had become, so far as it was a power at all, a national power, the _Roman Empire of the German nation_. Its fall was the half voluntary parting asunder of a nation as well as of an Empire. ♦Position of the Western Emperors;♦ The Western Emperors again had, as Emperors, practically ceased to be territorial princes. No lands of any account directly obeyed the Emperor, as such, as their immediate sovereign. When the Empire fell, the Emperor withdrew to his hereditary states, taking the Imperial title with him. In the Eastern Empire all is different. It did to some extent fall asunder from within, but its overthrow was mainly owing to its being broken in pieces from without. ♦of the Eastern.♦ But, throughout its history, the Emperor remained the immediate sovereign of all that still clave to the Empire, and, when the Empire fell, the Emperor fell with it. ♦The Eastern Empire fell mainly through foreign invasion.♦ The overthrow of the Empire was mainly owing to foreign invasion in the strictest sense. It was weakened and dismembered by the Christian powers of Europe, and at last swallowed up by the barbarians of Asia. ♦Tendencies to separation.♦ At the same time the tendency to break in pieces after the Western fashion did exist and must always be borne in mind. But it existed only in particular parts and under special conditions. It is found mainly in possessions of the Empire which had become isolated, in lands which had been lost and won again, and in lands which came under the influence of Western ideas. The importance of these tendencies is shown by the fact that three powers which had been cut off in various ways from the body of the Empire, Bulgaria, Venice, and Sicily, became three of its most dangerous enemies. But the actual destruction of the Empire came from those barbarian attacks from which the West suffered but little.

Speaking generally then, the Western Empire fell asunder from within; the Eastern Empire was broken in pieces from without. Of the many causes of this difference, perhaps only one concerns geography. At the time of the separation of the Empires, the Western Empire was really only another name for the dominions of the King of the Franks, whether within or without the elder Empire. ♦Closer connexion of the East with Roman political traditions.♦ The Eastern Empire, on the other hand, kept the political tradition of the elder Empire unbroken. ♦Disuse of the Roman name in the West.♦ No common geographical or national name took in the three Imperial kingdoms of the West and their inhabitants. ♦Its retention in the East.♦ But all the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, down to the end, knew themselves by no national name but that of _Romans_, and the land gradually received the geographical name of _Romania_. But the Western Empire was not _Romania_, nor were its people _Romans_. The only _Romania_ in the West, the Italian land so called, took its name from its long adhesion to the Eastern Empire.

♦Importance of distinctions of race in the East.♦

In the East again differences of race are far more important than they ever were in the West. In the West nations have been formed by a certain commingling of elements; in the East the elements remain apart. All the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, whether older than the Roman conquest or settlers of later times, are there still as distinct nations.

♦The original nations.♦

First among them come three nations whose settlement in the peninsula is older than the Roman conquest. One of these has kept its name and its language. One has kept its language, but has taken up its name afresh only in modern times. The third has for ages lost both its name and its language. ♦Albanians.♦ The most unchanged people in the peninsula must be the _Albanians_, called by themselves _Skipetar_, the representatives of the old Illyrians. ♦Greeks.♦ Next come the Greeks, who keep their language, but whose name of _Hellênes_ went out of ordinary use till its revival in modern times. ♦Vlachs.♦ Lastly there are the _Vlachs_, representing those inhabitants of Thrace, Mœsia, and other parts of the peninsula, who, like the Western nations, exchanged their own speech for Latin. They must mainly represent the Thracian race in its widest sense. ♦Use of the Roman name.♦ Both Greeks and Vlachs kept on the Roman name in different forms, and the Vlachs, the _Roumans_ of our own day, keep it still. Of the invading races, the Goths passed through the Empire without making any lasting settlements in it. ♦Slavonic settlers.♦ The last Aryan settlers, setting aside mere colonists in later times, were the _Slaves_. ♦Turanian settlers.♦ Then came the Turanian settlers, Finnish, Turkish, or any other. Of these the first wave, the _Bulgarians_, were presently assimilated by the Slaves, and the Bulgarian power must be looked at historically as Slavonic. ♦Turanian neighbours.♦ Then come Avars, Chazars, Magyars, Patzinaks, Cumans, all settling on or near the borders of the Empire. ♦The Magyars.♦ Of these the Magyars alone grew into a lasting European state, and alone established a lasting power over lands which had formed part of the Empire. All these invaders came by the way of the lands north of the Euxine. Lastly, there are the non-Aryan invaders who came by way of Asia Minor or of the Mediterranean sea. ♦The Saracens.♦ The Semitic Saracens, after their first conquests in Syria, Egypt, and Africa, made no lasting conquests. They occupied for a while several of the great islands; but on the mainland of the Empire, European and Asiatic, they were mere plunderers. ♦The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.♦ In their wake came the most terrible enemies of all, the Turks, first the Seljuk, then the Ottoman. Ethnologically they must be grouped with the nations which came in by the north of the Euxine. Historically, as Mahometans, coming in by the southern route, they rank with the Saracens, and they did the work which the Saracens tried to do. Most of these invading races have passed away from history; three still remain in three different stages. ♦Comparison of Bulgarians, Magyars and Ottomans.♦ The Bulgarian is lost among the Aryan people who have taken his name. The Magyar abides, keeping his non-Aryan language, but adopted into the European commonwealth by his acceptance of Christianity. The Ottoman Turk still abides on European soil, unchanged because Mahometan, still an alien alike to the creed and to the tongues of Europe.

♦The Eastern Empire becomes Greek.♦

Among all these nations one holds a special place in the history of the Eastern Empire. The loss of the Oriental and Latin provinces of the Empire brought into practical working, though not into any formal notice, the fact that, as the Western Empire was fast becoming German, so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ♦Loss of the Oriental provinces,♦ To a state which had both a Roman and a Greek side the loss of provinces which were neither Roman nor Greek was not a loss but a source of strength. ♦of the Latin provinces.♦ And if the loss of the Latin provinces was not a source of strength, it at least did much to bring the Greek element in the Empire into predominance. ♦Dying out of Roman ideas.♦ Meanwhile, within the lands which were left to the Empire, first the Latin language, and then Roman ideas and traditions generally, gradually died out. Before the end of the eleventh century, the Empire was far more Greek than anything else. Before the end of the twelfth century, it had become nearly conterminous with the Greek nation, as defined by the combined use of the Greek language and profession of the Orthodox faith. The name _Roman_, in its Greek form, was coming to mean _Greek_. And, about the same time, the other primitive nations of the peninsula, hitherto merged in the common mass of Roman subjects, began to show themselves more distinctly alongside of the Greeks. ♦Appearance of Albanians and Vlachs.♦ We now first hear of _Albanians_ and _Vlachs_ by those names, and the importance of the nations which have thus come again to light increases as we go on. ♦The Latin Conquest, 1204.♦ Then the Greek remnant of the Empire was broken in pieces by the great Latin invasion, and, instead of a single power, Roman or Greek, we see a crowd of separate states, Greek and Frank. ♦The revived Byzantine Empire.♦ The reunion of some of these fragments formed the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi. But at no moment since the twelfth century has the whole Greek nation been united under a single power, native or foreign. ♦1461-1821.♦ And from the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond to the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, the whole of the Greek nation was under foreign masters.[24]

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We have now first to trace out the steps by which the Empire was broken in pieces, and then to trace out severally the geographical history of the states which rose out of its fragments. And with these last we may class certain powers which do not strictly come under that definition, but which come within the same geographical range and which absorbed parts of the Imperial territory. Beginning in the West, the territory which the Empire at the final separation still held west of the Hadriatic, was gradually lost through the attacks, first of the Saracens, then of the Normans. ♦Sicily.♦ These lands grew into the kingdom of _Sicily_, which has its proper place here as an offshoot from the Eastern Empire. ♦Venice.♦ At the other end of the Italian peninsula, _Venice_ gradually detached itself from the Empire, to become foremost in its partition: here then comes the place of Venice as a maritime power. ♦Slavonic powers. | Bulgaria.♦ Then come the powers which arose on the north and north-west of the Empire, powers chiefly Slavonic, reckoning as Slavonic the great Bulgarian kingdom. ♦Hungary.♦ Here too will come the kingdom of Hungary, which, as a non-Aryan power in the heart of Europe, has much both of likeness and of contrast with Bulgaria. The kingdom of Hungary itself lay beyond the bounds of the Empire, but a large part of its dependent territory had been Imperial soil. ♦Albanians. | Roumans.♦ Here also we must speak of the states which arose out of the new developement of the Albanian and Rouman races, and of the states, Greek and Frank, which arose just before and at the time of the Latin Conquest. ♦Asiatic powers.♦ Then there are the powers, both Christian and Mahometan, which arose within the Imperial dominions in Asia. Here we have to speak alike of the states founded by the Crusaders and of the growth of the Ottoman Turks. Lastly, we come to the work of our own days, to the new European states which have been formed by the deliverance of old Imperial lands from Ottoman bondage.

♦800-1204.♦

We will therefore first trace the geographical changes in the frontier of the Empire itself down to the Latin Conquest. ♦1204-1453.♦ The Latin Empire of _Romania_, the Greek Empire of _Nikaia_, the revived Greek Empire of Constantinople, will follow, as continuing, at least geographically, the true Eastern Roman Empire. Then will come the powers which have fallen off from the Empire or grown up within the Empire, from Sicily to free Bulgaria. But it must be remembered that it is not always easy to mark, either chronologically or on the map, when this or that territory was finally lost to the Empire. This is true both on the Slavonic border and also in southern Italy. ♦Distinction between conquest and settlement.♦ On the former above all it is often hard to distinguish between conquest at the cost of the Empire and settlement within the Empire. In either case the frontier within which the Emperors exercised direct authority was always falling back and advancing again. Beyond this there was a zone which could not be said to be under the Emperor’s direct rule, but in which his overlordship was more or less fully acknowledged, according to the relative strength of the Empire and of its real or nominal vassals.

§ 1. _Changes in the Frontier of the Empire._

♦Power of revival in the Empire.♦

In tracing the fluctuations of the frontier of the Eastern Empire from the beginning of the ninth century, we are struck by the wonderful power of revival and reconquest which is shown throughout the whole history. Except the lands which were won by the first Saracens, hardly a province was finally lost till it had been once or twice won back. No one could have dreamed that the Empire of the seventh century, cut short by the Slavonic settlements to a mere fringe on its European coasts, could ever have become the Empire of the eleventh century, holding a solid mass of territory from Tainaros to the Danube. But before this great revival, the borders of the Empire had both advanced and fallen back in the farther West. ♦Sardinia, Sicily, Southern Italy.♦ At the time of the separation of the Empires, the New Rome still held Sardinia, Sicily, and a small part of southern Italy. The heel of the boot still formed the theme of _Lombardy_,[25] while the toe took the name of _Calabria_ which had once belonged to the heel. _Naples_, _Gaeta_, and _Amalfi_ were outlying Italian cities of the Empire; so was _Venice_, which can hardly be called an Italian city. ♦Loss of the islands. | Advance on the continent.♦ In the course of the ninth century the power of the Empire was cut short in the islands, but advanced on the mainland. ♦Loss of Sardinia.♦ The history of Sardinia is utterly obscure; but it seems to have passed away from the Empire by the beginning of the ninth century. ♦Loss of Sicily, 827-965.♦ Sicily was now conquered bit by bit by the Saracens of Africa during a struggle of one hundred and forty years. ♦Loss of Agrigentum, 827; | of Palermo, 831;♦ _Agrigentum_, opposite to the African coast, fell first; _Palermo_, once the seat of Phœnician rule, became four years later the new Semitic capital. ♦Messina, 842;♦ _Messina_ on the strait soon followed; but the eastern side of the island, its most thoroughly Greek side, held out much longer. ♦Malta, 869;♦ Before the conquest of this region, _Malta_, the natural appendage to Sicily, passed into Saracen hands. ♦Syracuse, 878.♦ _Syracuse_, the Christian capital, did not fall till fifty years after the first invasion, and in the north-western corner of the island a remnant still held out for nearly ninety years. ♦Tauromenion, 902-963. | Rametta, 965.♦ _Tauromenion_ or _Taormina_, on its height, had to be twice taken in the course of the tenth century, and the single fort of _Rametta_, the last stronghold of Eastern Christendom in the West, held out longer still. By this time Eastern Christendom was fast advancing on Islam in Asia; but the greatest of Mediterranean islands passed from Christendom to Islam, from Europe to Africa, and a Greek-speaking people was cut off from the Empire which was fast becoming Greek. ♦Partial recovery and final loss of Sicily, 1038-1042.♦ But the complete and uninterrupted Mussulman dominion in Sicily was short. The Imperial claims were never forgotten, and in the eleventh century they were again enforced. By the arms of George Maniakês, Messina and Syracuse, with a part of the island which at the least took in the whole of its eastern side, was, if only for a few years, restored to the Imperial rule.

♦Advance of the Empire in Italy.♦

While Sicily was thus lost bit by bit, the power of the Empire was advancing in the neighbouring mainland of Italy. ♦Taking of Bari, 871.♦ _Bari_ was won back for Christendom from the Saracen by the combined powers of both Empires; but the lasting possession of the prize fell to the Cæsar of the East. At the end of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire claimed either the direct possession or the superiority of all southern Italy from Gaeta downwards. ♦Fluctuations of the Imperial power in Italy.♦ The extent of the Imperial dominion was always fluctuating; there was perhaps no moment when the power of the Emperors was really extended over this whole region; but there was perhaps no spot within it which did not at some time or other admit at least the Imperial overlordship. The eastern coast, with the heel and the toe in a wider sense than before, became a real and steady possession, while the allegiance of _Beneventum_, _Capua_, and _Salerno_ was always very precarious. ♦Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi.♦ But _Naples_, _Gaeta_, and _Amalfi_, however nominal their allegiance might be, never formally cast it aside.

Thus, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Emperors held all Sicily, with some patches of territory on the neighbouring mainland. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the island had been wholly lost, while the dominion on the mainland had been greatly enlarged. ♦The Normans in Italy and Sicily.♦ In the course of the eleventh century a new power, the Normans of Apulia, conquered the Italian possessions of the Empire, won Sicily from the Mussulman, and even made conquests from the Empire east of the Hadriatic. Thus arose the Sicilian kingdom, the growth of which will best be traced when we come to the powers which arose out of the breaking-up of the Empire.

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The great islands of the Eastern Mediterranean also fluctuated between Byzantine and Saracen dominion. ♦Loss of Crete, 823.♦ _Crete_ was won by a band of Mussulman adventurers from Spain nearly at the time when the conquest of Sicily began. ♦Its recovery, 963.♦ It was won back in the great revival of the Imperial power one hundred and forty years later. ♦Cyprus lost, 708; recovered and lost again c. 881-888; recovered again, 965.♦ _Cyprus_ was lost sooner; but it went through many fluctuations and divisions, a recovery and a second loss, before its final recovery at the same time as the recovery of Crete and the complete loss of Sicily. ♦Loss and gain among the great islands.♦ Looking at the Empire simply as a power, there can be no doubt that the loss of Sicily was altogether overbalanced by the recovery of Crete and Cyprus. Geographically Sicily was an outlying Greek island; Crete and Cyprus lay close to the body of the Empire, essential parts of a Greek state. But Crete and Cyprus, as lands which had been lost and won back, were among the lands where the tendency to fall away from within showed itself earliest. Crete never actually separated from the Empire. ♦Separation of Cyprus, 1182-1185. | Conquered by Richard of Poitou, 1191.♦ Cyprus fell away under a rebel Emperor, to be presently conquered by Richard, Count of Poitou and King of England, and to pass away from the Empire for ever.

♦Fluctuations in the possession of the great islands, 801.♦

We may thus sum up the fluctuations in the possession of the great islands. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire still took in Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete; Cyprus was in the hands of the Saracens. ♦901.♦ At the beginning of the tenth century, the Empire held nothing in any of the four except the north-eastern corner of Sicily. ♦1001.♦ At the beginning of the eleventh, Crete and Cyprus had been won back; Sicily was wholly lost. ♦1101.♦ At the beginning of the twelfth, Crete and Cyprus were still Imperial possessions; a great part of Sicily had been won and lost again. ♦1201.♦ At the beginning of the thirteenth, Cyprus, like Sicily, had passed to a Western master; Crete was still held by the Empire, but only by a very feeble tie. Thus they stood at the fall of the old Roman Empire of the East; of the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi none of them ever formed a part.

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♦Relations of the Empire towards the Slavonic powers.♦

In the islands the enemies with whom the Empire had to strive were, first the Saracens, and then the Latins or Franks, the nations of Western Europe. On the mainland the part of the Saracen was taken by the Slave. During the four hundred years between the division of the Empires and the Frank conquest of the East, the geographical history of the Eastern Empire has mainly to deal with the shiftings of its frontier towards the Slavonic powers. ♦Three Slavonic groups.♦ These fall into three main groups. ♦Servia and Croatia.♦ First, in the north-western corner of the Empire, are the Croatian and Servian settlements, whose history is closely connected with that of the kingdom of Hungary and the commonwealth of Venice. ♦Macedonia and Greece.♦ Secondly, there are the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. ♦Bulgaria.♦ Thirdly, the great Bulgarian kingdom comes between the two. These two last ranges gradually merge into one; the first remains distinct throughout. Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, will be best treated of in another section, remembering that, amidst all fluctuations, the claims of the Empire over them were never denied or forgotten, and were from time to time enforced. It was towards the Bulgarian kingdom that the greatest fluctuations of the Imperial frontier took place.

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♦The Bulgarian kingdom.♦

The original Finnish Bulgarians were the vanguard of Turanian invasion in the lands with which we have to do. Earlier, it would seem, in their coming than the Avars, they were slower to settle down into actual occupation of European territory. But when they did settle, it was not on the outskirts of the Empire, but in one of its acknowledged provinces. ♦Settlement south of the Danube, 679.♦ Late in the seventh century, the first Bulgarian kingdom was established between Danube and Hæmus. It must be remembered that another migration in quite another direction founded another Bulgarian power on the Volga and the Kama. ♦White Bulgaria.♦ This settlement, _Great_ or _White Bulgaria_, remained Turanian and became Mahometan; _Black Bulgaria_ on the Danube became Christian and Slavonic. ♦Use of the Bulgarian name.♦ The modern Bulgarians bear the Bulgarian name only in the way in which the Romanized Celts of Gaul bear the name of their Frankish masters from Germany, in which the Slaves of Kief and Moscow bear the name of their Russian masters from Scandinavia. In all three cases, the power formed by the union of conquerors and conquered has taken the name of the conquerors and has kept the speech of the conquered. But though the Bulgarian power became essentially Slavonic, it took quite another character from the less fully organized Slavonic settlements to the west and south of it. ♦The Empire and the Macedonian Slaves.♦ Towards the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, it cannot be said that the Empire had any definite frontier. Settled within the Empire, they were its tributaries or its enemies, according to the strength of the Empire at any particular moment. Up to the coming of the Bulgarians, we might, from different points of view, place the Imperial border either at the Danube or at no great distance from the Ægæan. ♦The Empire and the Bulgarian kingdom.♦ But from the Bulgarian conquest onwards, there was on the Bulgarian side a real frontier, a frontier which often shifted, but which was often fixed by treaty, and which, wherever it was fixed, marked off lands which were, for the time, wholly lost to the Empire. ♦Loss of the Danubian frontier.♦ With the first Bulgarian settlement, the Imperial frontier definitely withdrew for three hundred years from the lower Danube to the line of Hæmus or Balkan. ♦Bulgarians south of Hæmus.♦ As the Bulgarian power pushed to the south and west the two fields of warfare, against the Bulgarians to the north and against the half-independent Slaves to the west, gradually melted into one. But as long as the Isaurian Emperors reigned, the two fields were kept distinct. ♦Extent of Bulgaria in the eighth century.♦ They kept the Balkan range against the Bulgarians, whose kingdom, stretching to the north-west over lands which are now Servian, had not, at the end of the eighth century, passed the mountain barrier of the Empire.

♦Recovery of the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and Greece.♦

Meanwhile, as a wholly distinct work, the Imperial power was restored over the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In the middle of the eighth, century the inland parts of Greece were chiefly occupied by Slavonic immigrants, while the coast and the cities remained Greek. ♦775-784. | 807.♦ Before the end of the century, the Slaves of Macedonia were reduced to tribute, and early in the ninth, those of Greece wholly failed to recover their independence. ♦Recovery of Greece from the Slaves. | Slaves on Ta getos.♦ The land was gradually settled afresh by Greek colonists, and by the middle of the tenth, only two Slavonic tribes, _Melings_ and _Ezerites_ (_Melinci_ and _Jezerci_), remained, distinct, though tributary, on the range of Ta getos or Pentedaktylos. From this time to the Frankish conquest, Greece, as a whole, was held by the Empire. But, as a recovered land, it was one of those parts of the Empire in which a tendency to separate began to show itself. In the course of these changes, the name _Hellênes_, as a national name, quite died out. ♦Hellênes of Maina.♦ It had long meant _pagan_, and it was confined to the people of _Maina_, who remained pagan till near the end of the ninth century. The Greeks now knew no name but that of _Romans_. The local, perhaps contemptuous, name of the inhabitants of Hellas was _Helladikoi_.

Thus, at the division of the Empires, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece had been more or less thoroughly recovered by the Eastern Empire, while the lands between Hæmus and Danube were wholly lost. ♦Romania.♦ The Imperial dominion from the Hadriatic to the Euxine formed, together with the Asiatic provinces, _Romania_, the land of the Romans of the East. ♦Dalmatia, Servia, and Croatia.♦ The Emperors also kept the cities on the Dalmatian coast, and the precarious allegiance of the Servian and Croatian principalities. These lands were bound to the Empire by a common dread of the encroaching Bulgarian. ♦Greatness of the first Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The ninth century and the early years of the tenth was a great time of Bulgarian advance. ♦Attempt on Pannonia, 818-829.♦ The Bulgarians seem to have failed in establishing any lasting dominion to the north-west in Pannonia;[26] at the expense of the Empire they were more successful. ♦Advance against the Empire.♦ At the end of the eighth century _Anchialos_ and _Sardica_—afterwards called _Triaditza_ and _Sofia_—were border cities of the Empire. The conquest of Sardica early in the ninth marks a stage of Bulgarian advance. At the end of the century, after the conversion of the nation to Christianity, comes the great era of the first Bulgarian kingdom, the kingdom of _Peristhlava_. ♦Conquests of Simeon, 923-934.♦ The Tzar Simeon established the Bulgarian supremacy over Servia, and carried his conquests deep into the lands of the Empire. In Macedonia and Epeiros the Empire kept only the sea-coast, Ægæan and Hadriatic; Sardica, Philippopolis, Ochrida, were all cities of the Bulgarian realm. Hadrianople, a frontier city of the Empire, passed more than once into Bulgarian hands. Nowhere in Europe, save in old Hellas, did the Imperial dominion stretch from sea to sea.

♦Revival of the Imperial power.♦

So stood matters in the middle of the tenth century. Then came that greatest of all revivals of the Imperial power which won back Crete and Cyprus, and which was no less successful on the mainland of Europe and Asia. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria.♦ Bulgaria was conquered and lost and conquered again. But the first time it was conquered, not from the Bulgarian but from the Russian. ♦The Russians and Bulgarians. 968-971.♦ The Russians, long dangerous to Constantinople, now suddenly appear as a land power. Their prince Sviatoslaf overthrew the first Bulgarian kingdom, and Philippopolis became for a moment a Russian outpost. But John Tzimiskês restored the power of the Empire over the whole Bulgarian dominions. The Danube was once more the frontier of the Eastern Rome.

♦The second Bulgarian kingdom.♦

It remained so for more than two hundred years during the lower part of its course. But in the inland regions the Imperial power fell back almost at once, to advance again further than ever. A large part of the conquered land soon revolted, and a second Bulgarian kingdom, Macedonian rather than Mœsian, arose. The kingdom of _Ochrida_, the kingdom of Samuel, left to the Empire the eastern part of the old Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus, together with all Thrace and the Macedonian coast. But it took in all the inland region of Macedonia; it stretched down into Thessaly and Epeiros; and, while it nowhere touched the Euxine or the Ægæan, it had a small seaboard on the Hadriatic. Now came the great struggle between Romania and Bulgaria which fills the last years of the tenth century and the opening years of the eleventh. ♦Second conquest of Bulgaria, 1018.♦ At last all Bulgaria, and with it for a while Servia, was restored to the Empire. ♦Croatia.♦ Croatia continued its vassalage, and its princes were presently raised to royal rank by Imperial authority.

Thus the Eastern Empire again took in the whole south-eastern peninsula. Of its outlying European possessions, southern Italy was still untouched. ♦Venice.♦ At what moment Venice ceased to be a dependency of the Empire, it would be hard to say. Its dukes still received the Imperial investiture, and Venetian ships often joined the Imperial fleet. This state of things seems never to have been formally abolished, but rather to have dropped out of sight as Venice and Constantinople became practically hostile. In the other outlying city north of the Euxine the ninth and tenth centuries change places. Through all changes the Empire kept its maritime province in the Tauric Chersonêsos. ♦Cherson annexed, 829-842; | taken by Vladimir, 988.♦ There the allied city of _Cherson_, more formally annexed to the Empire in the ninth century, was taken by the Russian Vladimir in the interval between the two great Bulgarian wars.

♦The Empire in Asia.♦

In Asia the Imperial frontier had changed but little since the first Saracen conquests. The solid peninsula of Asia Minor was often plundered by the Mussulmans, but it was never conquered. Now, in Asia as in Europe, came a time of advance. For eighty years, with some fluctuations, the Empire grew on its eastern side. The Bagdad caliphate was now broken up, and the smaller emirates were more easily overcome. ♦Asiatic conquests of Nikêphoros and John, 963-976;♦ The wars of Nikêphoros Phôkas and John Tzimiskês restored _Kilikia_ and _Syria_ to the list of Roman provinces, _Tarsos_, _Antioch_, and _Edessa_ to the list of Christian cities. ♦of Basil the Second, 991-1022. | Beginning of the annexation of Armenia 1021; Ani, 1045; of Kars, 1064.♦ Basil the Second extended the Imperial power over the _Iberian_ and _Abasgian_ lands east of the Euxine, and began a series of transactions by which, in the space of forty years, all _Armenia_ was added to the Empire on the very eve of the downfall of the Imperial power in Asia.

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♦New enemies.♦

For the great extension of the Empire laid it open to new enemies in both continents. ♦Turks. | Magyars.♦ In Asia it became the neighbour of the Seljuk _Turks_, in Europe of the Magyars or Hungarians, who bear the name of _Turks_ in the Byzantine writers of the tenth century. Hungary had now settled down into a Christian kingdom. ♦Revolt of Servia, 1040. | Loss of Belgrade, 1064.♦ A Servian revolt presently placed a new independent state between Hungary and Romania, but Belgrade remained an Imperial possession till it passed under Magyar rule twenty-four years later. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ By this time the Empire had begun to be cut short in a far more terrible way in Asia. The Seljuk Turks now reached the new Roman frontier. ♦Loss of Ani, 1064.♦ Plunder grew into conquest, and the first Turkish conquest, that of _Ani_, happened in the same year as the last Imperial acquisition of _Kars_. The Emperors now tried to strengthen this dangerous frontier by the erection of vassal principalities. The very name of _Armenia_ now changes its place. ♦Lesser Armenia, 1080.♦ The new or _Lesser Armenia_ arose in the Kilikian mountains, and was ruled by princes of the old Armenian dynasty, whose allegiance to the Empire gradually died out. But before this time the Turkish power was fully established in the peninsula of Asia Minor. The plunderers had become conquerors. ♦1071.♦ The battle of Manzikert led to formal cessions and further advances. ♦1074.♦ Throughout Asia Minor the Empire at most kept the coast; the mass of the inland country became Turkish. ♦The Sultans of _Roum_. | 1081.♦ But the Roman name did not pass away; the invaders took the name of Sultans of _Roum_. Their capital was at _Nikaia_, a threatening position indeed for Constantinople. But distant positions like Trebizond and Antioch were still held as dependencies. ♦Loss of Antioch, 1081.♦ Antioch was before long betrayed to the Turks.

By this time the Empire was attacked by a new enemy in its European peninsula. ♦Normans in Corfu and Epeiros. 1081-1085.♦ The Norman conquerors of Apulia and Sicily crossed the Hadriatic, and occupied various points, both insular and continental, especially _Dyrrhachion_ or _Durazzo_ and the island of _Korkyra_, now called by a new Greek name, _Koryphô_ or _Corfu_. At every point of its frontier the Empire had, towards the end of the eleventh century, altogether fallen back from the splendid position which it held at its beginning. ♦Geographical aspect of the Empire.♦ The geographical aspect of the Empire was now the exact opposite of what it had been in the eighth and ninth centuries. Then its main strength seemed to lie in Asia. Its European dominion had been cut down to the coasts and islands; but its Asiatic peninsula was firmly held, touched only by passing ravages. Now the Asiatic dominion was cut down to the coasts and islands, while the great European peninsula was, in the greater part of its extent, still firmly held. Never before had the main power of the Empire been so thoroughly European. No wonder that in Western eyes the Empire of Romania began to look like a kingdom of Greece.

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The states founded by the Crusaders will be dealt with elsewhere. ♦Recovery of Asiatic territory, 1097.♦ The crusades concern us here only as helping towards the next revival of the Imperial power under the house of Komnênos. Alexios himself won back Nikaia and the other great cities of western Asia Minor. Some of these, as _Laodikeia_, were received rather as free cities of the Empire than as mere subjects. ♦Reigns of John and Manuel.♦ The conquering reigns of John and Manuel again extended the Empire in both continents. ♦1097.♦ The Turk still ruled in the inland regions of Asia, but his capital was driven back from Nikaia to _Ikonion_. ♦1137.♦ The superiority of the Empire was restored over Antioch and Kilikian Armenia at the one end, over Servia at the other. ♦1148.♦ Hungary itself had to yield _Zeugmin_, _Sirmium_, and all Dalmatia. ♦1163-1168.♦ For a moment the Empire again took in the whole eastern coast of the Hadriatic and its islands; even on its western shore _Ancona_ became something like a dependency of the Eastern Cæsar.

♦Falling of distant possessions.♦

The conquests of Manuel were clearly too great for the real strength of the Empire. Some lands fell away at once. ♦Dalmatia, 1181.♦ Dalmatia was left to be struggled for between Venice and Hungary. And the tendency to fall away within the Empire became strengthened by increased intercourse with the feudal ideas of the West. Cyprus, Trebizond, old Greece itself, came into the hands of rulers who were rather feudal vassals than Roman governors. We have seen how Cyprus fell away. Its Poitevin conqueror presently gave it to Guy of Lusignan. ♦Latin kingdom of Cyprus, 1192.♦ Thus, before the Latin conquest of Constantinople, a province had been torn from the Eastern Empire to become a Latin kingdom. The Greek-speaking lands were now beginning largely to pass under Latin rule. In Sicily the Frank might pass for a deliverer; in Corfu and Cyprus he was a mere foreign invader.

♦The third Bulgarian kingdom, 1187.♦

Meanwhile the Empire was again cut short to the north by a new Bulgarian revolt, which established a third Bulgarian kingdom, but a kingdom which seems to have been as much Vlach or Rouman as strictly Bulgarian. The new kingdom took in the old Bulgarian land between Danube and Hæmus, and it presently spread both to the west and to the south. ♦Other Slavonic revolts.♦ The Bulgarian revolt was followed by other movements among the Thracian and Macedonian Slaves, which did not lead to the foundation of any new states, but which had their share in the general break-up of the Imperial power. ♦Increased Greek character of the Empire.♦ The work of Basil and Manuel was now undone, but its undoing had the effect of making the Empire more nearly a Greek state than ever. It did not wholly coincide with the Greek-speaking lands: the Empire had subjects who were not Greeks, and there were Greeks who were not subjects of the Empire. But the Greek speech and the new Greek nationality were dominant within the lands which were still left to the Empire. The Roman name was now merely a name: Roman and Greek meant the same thing. Whatever was not Greek in European Romania was mainly Albanian and Vlach. The dominion of the Empire in the peninsula was mainly confined to the primitive races of the peninsula. ♦The Slavonic states.♦ The great element of later times, the Slavonic settlers, had almost wholly separated themselves from the Empire, establishing their independence, but not their unity. They formed a group of independent powers which had simply fallen away from the Empire; it was by the powers of the West that the Empire itself was to be broken in pieces.

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♦Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204.♦

The taking of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was the work of an alliance between the now independent commonwealth of Venice and a body of Western crusaders who, along with the states which they founded, may be indifferently called _Latins_ or _Franks_. ♦Act of Partition.♦ A regular act of partition was drawn out, by which the Empire was to be divided into three parts. One was to be assigned to a Latin _Emperor of Romania_, another of the pilgrims as his feudatories, a third to the commonwealth of Venice. But the partition was never carried out. A large part of the Empire was never conquered; another large part was not assigned by the act of partition. In fact the scheme of partition is hardly a geographical fact at all. The real partition to which the Latin conquest led was one of quite another kind, a partition of the Empire among a crowd of powers, Greek, Frank, and Venetian, more than one of which had some claim to represent the Empire itself.

♦Latin Empire of Romania.♦

These were the Latin Empire of _Romania_, and the Greek Empire which maintained itself at _Nikaia_, and which, after nearly sixty years of banishment, won back the Imperial city. In the crusading scheme the Latin Emperor was to be the feudal superior of the lesser princes who were to establish themselves within the Empire. For his own Imperial domain he was to have the whole of the Imperial possessions in Asia, with a Thracian dominion stretching as far north as _Agathopolis_. Hadrianople, with a narrow strip of territory stretching down to the Propontis, was to be Venetian. The actual result was very different. ♦Its extent.♦ The Latin Emperors never got any footing in Asia beyond parts of the themes bordering on the Propontis, reaching from Adramyttion to the mouth of the Sangarios. In Europe they held the eastern part of Thrace, with a fluctuating border towards Bulgaria on the north, and to the new Latin and Greek states which arose to the west. Their dominion also took in _Lêmnos_, _Lesbos_, _Chios_, and some others of the Ægæan islands.

But the Latin Empire of Romania was not the only Empire which arose out of the break-up of the old East-Roman power. Two, for a time three, Greek princes bore the Imperial title; there was also a Latin king. It will be convenient for a while to leave out of sight both Asia and southern Greece, and to look to the revolutions of Thrace, Macedonia, northern Greece, and what we may now begin to call _Albania_. The immediate result of the Latin conquest was to divide these lands between three powers, two Latin and one Greek. ♦Kingdom of Thessalonikê. 1204-1222. | Despotat of Epeiros.♦ Besides the Empire of Romania, there was the Latin kingdom of _Thessalonikê_, and the Greek _despotat_[27] of _Epeiros_ held by the house of Angelos. Of these the Thessalonian kingdom was the most short-lived, and there can be little doubt that its creation was the ruin of the Latin Empire. It cut off the Emperor from his distant vassals in Greece, whose vassalage soon became nominal. It gave him, in successive reigns, a powerful neighbour who knew his own power, and a weak neighbour, who fell before the Greek advance sooner than himself. But the beginnings of the kingdom, under its first king Boniface, were promising. His power stretched over Thessaly, now known as _Great Vlachia_, and he received the homage of the Frank princes further to the south. But within twenty years from its foundation, Frank rule had ceased in Macedonia. ♦Thessalonikê again Greek.♦ Thessalonikê was again a Greek and an Imperial city, and its recovery by the Greeks split the Latin Empire asunder.

♦The Epeirot despotat.♦

This blow came from the west. It was the Nicene Empire which did in the end win back the Imperial city; but, for some years after the Latin conquest, things looked as if the restoration of the Greek power in Europe was designed for Epeiros. The first despot Michael paid a nominal homage to all the neighbouring powers, Greek and Frank, in turn; but in truth he was the lord of an independent and growing state. His power began in the Epeirot land west of Pindos. ♦1208-1210.♦ For a moment he held in Peloponnêsos Corinth, Nauplia, and Argos. Durazzo and Corfu were won from Venice. ♦1215.♦ The Epeirot power advanced also to the east. ♦1222. | 1225.♦ Thessalonikê was taken; its ruler took the Imperial title; Hadrianople followed, and the new Empire stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea, and took in Thessaly to the south. But the Thessalonian Empire was hardly more long-lived than the Thessalonian kingdom. It was first dismembered among the princes of the ruling house. ♦Separation of Epeiros and Thessalonia. 1237.♦ The original Epeirot despotat, along with Corfu, parted away from the new Macedonian power, to survive it by many years. But by this time the championship of the Greek speech and faith against the Latin lords of Constantinople had passed to the foremost of the Greek powers which had grown up in Asia, to the Empire of Nikaia.

These Greek powers were two, which arose at the same time, but by different processes and with different destinies. ♦The Empire of Trebizond, 1204-1461.♦ The Empire of _Nikaia_ was the truer continuation of the old East-Roman power; the Empire of _Trapezous_ or _Trebizond_ was the last independent fragment of Roman dominion and Greek culture. The Trapezuntine Empire was not in strictness one of the states which arose out of the Latin partition. One of the parts of the Empire which showed most disposition to fall away was independently seized by a rival Emperor, at the very moment of the Latin conquest. Alexios Komnênos occupied Trebizond, an occupation largely wrought by Iberian help, as if the Empire, already dismembered by the Christians of the West, was to be further dismembered by the Christians of the further East. ♦Extent of the Komnenian dominion.♦ The dominions of Alexios, enlarged by his brother David to the west, at first took in the whole south coast of the Euxine from the Sangarios eastward, broken by the city of _Amisos_, which contrived to make itself virtually independent, and by the neighbouring Turkish settlement at _Samsoun_. But this dominion was only momentary. The eastern part alone survived to form the later Empire of Trebizond; the western part, the government of David, soon passed to the rising power of Nikaia.

♦Empire of Nikaia. 1206-1261.♦

The founder of that power was Theodore Laskaris, in whom the succession of the Eastern Empire was held to be continued. ♦1214.♦ Ten years after the taking of Constantinople, a treaty fixed his border towards the small Latin dominion in Asia. ♦1220. | 1240.♦ Six years later the Latins kept only the lands north of the gulf of Nikomêdeia; sixteen years later they held only the Asiatic coast of the Bosporos. ♦1247.♦ Seven years later Chios, Lêmnos, Samos, Kôs, and other islands were won back by the growing Greek state. ♦The Nicene Empire in Europe. 1235.♦ But, long before this, the Nicene Empire had become an European power. The Thracian Chersonêsos was first won, the work beginning at _Kallipolis_. ♦1242. | 1246.♦ Presently the Thessalonian Emperor sank to the rank of a despot under him of Nikaia; four years later Thessalonikê was incorporated with the Nicene dominions. ♦1245-1256.♦ A series of Bulgarian campaigns carried the Imperial frontier, first to the Hebros—already the Slavonic _Maritza_—and then to the foot of Hæmus. ♦1254-1259.♦ A series of Epeirot campaigns won a Hadriatic seaboard, and made _Durazzo_ for a while again a city of the Empire. ♦1259.♦ The Nicene power in these regions was confirmed by the victory of Pelagonia, won over the combined forces of Epeiros, Achaia, and Sicily. ♦1260.♦ The next year _Selymbria_ was won from the Latins, and the Frank Empire was cut down to so much territory as could be guarded from the walls of Constantinople. ♦Recovery of Constantinople, 1261.♦ At last the recovery of Constantinople changed the Empire of Nikaia into the revived Byzantine Empire of the Palaiologoi.

That Empire still lasted a hundred and ninety years, and we must carefully distinguish between its European and its Asiatic history. The Asiatic border fell back almost as soon as the seat of rule was restored to Europe. ♦Advance of the Empire in Europe.♦ In Europe the revived Empire kept the character of an advancing power till just before the entrance of the Ottoman into Europe, in some parts till just before the fall of Constantinople. Many events helped to weaken the real power of the Empire, which did not affect its geography. ♦1302.♦ Such were the earlier Turkish inroads and the destroying visit of the Catalans. ♦Advance in Peloponnêsos.♦ The land in which advance was most steady was Peloponnêsos, where, at the time of the recovery of Constantinople, the Empire did not hold a foot of ground. ♦1262.♦ _Misithra_, _Monembasia_, and _Maina_ were the fruits of the day of Pelagonia. For a while the Imperial frontier was stationary, but from the beginning of the fourteenth century it steadily advanced. It advanced perhaps all the more after Peloponnêsos became an Imperial dependency, or an appanage for princes of the Imperial house, rather than an immediate possession of the Empire. ♦1404.♦ Early in the fifteenth century the greater part of the peninsula, including Corinth, was again in Greek hands. ♦1430.♦ At last, twenty-three years only before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, all Peloponnêsos, except the points held by Venice, was under the superiority of the Empire.

♦Advance in Macedonia and Epeiros.♦

In more northern parts the advance of the Empire, though chequered by more reverses, went on steadily till the growth of the Servian power in the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦1308.♦ The frontier varied towards Servia, Bulgaria, Epeiros, and the Angevin power which established itself on the Hadriatic coast. Even under Andronikos the Second the Imperial dominion was extended over the greater part of Thessaly or _Great Vlachia_. ♦1318-1339.♦ Later still, all Epeiros, _Jôannina_ and _Arta_—once _Ambrakia_—were won. At the moment of the great Servian advance, the Empire held the uninterrupted seaboard from the Euxine to the Pagasaian Gulf, as well as its Hadriatic seaboard from the Ambrakian gulf northward. But the Frank principalities still cut off the main body of the Empire from its possessions in Peloponnêsos.

♦Losses of the Empire in Asia.♦

In Asia there is another tale to tell. There the frontier of the Empire steadily went back from the recovery of Constantinople. A few points gained or lost to European powers go for little. ♦1260.♦ _Smyrna_ passed for a while to Genoa. ♦The Knights of Saint John, 1309-1315.♦ The Knights of Saint John won _Rhodes_, _Kôs_, and other islands, but they did not become a power on the mainland of Asia till the Empire had almost withdrawn from that continent. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ The Imperial power steadily crumbled away before the advance of the Turk, first the Seljuk and then the Ottoman. The small Turkish powers into which the Sultanate of Roum had now split up began to encroach on the Greek dominion in Asia as soon as its centre was transferred to Europe. By the end of the thirteenth century, the Imperial possessions in Asia had again shrunk up to a narrow strip on the Propontis, from the Ægæan to the Euxine. Losses followed more speedily when the Turkish power passed from the Seljuk to the Ottoman. ♦1326-1338.♦ _Brusa_, _Nikaia_, _Nikomêdeia_, were all lost within twelve years. By the middle of the fourteenth century, the Emperors kept nothing in Asia, save a strip of land just opposite Constantinople, and the outlying cities of _Philadelphia_ and _Phôkaia_, their allies rather than their subjects.

The Ottoman was now all but ready to pass into Europe, and the way was made easier for him by the rise and fall of an European power which again cut short the Empire in its western provinces. ♦The Empire falls back towards Servia and Bulgaria. | 1331.♦ While the Imperial frontier was advancing in Epeiros and Thessaly, it fell back towards Servia, and advanced towards Bulgaria only to fall back again. ♦Loss of Philippopolis, 1344.♦ _Philippopolis_, so often lost and won, now passed away for ever. ♦Conquest. Stephen Dushan.♦ And now came the great momentary advance of _Servia_ under Stephen Dushan, which wrested from the Empire a large part of its Thracian, Macedonian, Albanian, and Greek possessions. ♦Extent of the Empire.♦ At the middle of the fourteenth century, the Empire, all but banished from Asia, kept no unbroken European dominion out of Thrace. Its other possessions were isolated. It kept Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê, with a small strip of Macedonia as far as _Berrhoia_ and _Vodena_. It kept a small Thessalian territory about _Lamia_ or _Zeitouni_. There was the Peloponnesian province, fast growing into importance; there was _Lesbos_ and a few other islands. ♦1355.♦ On Stephen’s death his dominion broke in pieces, but the Empire did not win back its lost lands. For the Ottoman was already in Europe, ready, in the space of the next hundred years, to swallow up all that was left.

♦1336.♦