Decline and fall byzan.., p.42
Decline & Fall - Byzantium 03, page 42
part #3 of Byzantium Series
But the Genoese had underestimated their opponents. The people of Constantinople fought like tigers for their city; even the slaves, writes Gregoras, were given weapons by their masters and taught themselves the use of bows and arrows. Finally the whole tower collapsed and the would-be invaders were forced to withdraw with heavy casualties to Galata, whence on the following day they sent ambassadors to Irene to sue for peace. But the Byzantines' blood was up; and when the Emperor returned on 1 October he gave orders for the stepping-up of the shipbuilding programme, the money to be provided - compulsorily if necessary - from the citizens not only of Constantinople but from all over Thrace. The timber from the Thracian forests had, we are told, to be transported overland in huge ox-wagons; the Empire possessed no vessels capable of carrying them, and the sea routes were anyway controlled by the Genoese.
In Galata, meanwhile, major defensive works were in progress. The walls along the Horn — they covered that stretch of the eastern shore running between the present Galata and Atatiirk bridges - were raised and strengthened, and two more converging walls were added, running up the hillside behind to form a fortified triangle. At the apex of this was built a large cylindrical tower known as the Tower of Christ, which - better known as the Galata Tower - survives today.1 From time to time while the work was in progress, the Genoese would repeat their suggestions for peace talks, but the Emperor still refused to listen: his fleet was now rapidly taking shape, and he was determined to use it.
By the early spring of 1349 it was ready - nine fair-sized ships and about a hundred smaller ones, several of which had been built and equipped by wealthier citizens at their own expense. At the beginning of March the first detachment left its dockyard on the Marmara and sailed to the mouth of the Golden Horn - where, on the evening of the 5 th, it managed to capture and set fire to one of the largest of the Genoese vessels. On the evidence of subsequent events, however, it looks as though this initial triumph may have been more a matter of luck than anything else; for when the rest of the Byzantine ships arrived on the following day they suffered disaster - from which it became evident that their commanders and crews were ignorant of the most fundamental rules of seamanship. Precisely what occurred remains something of a mystery. Did a sudden gale strike the fleet just as it was rounding what is now Seraglio Point into the Golden Horn? Such, certainly, is the testimony of John Cantacuzenus himself and of another eye-witness, an intensely patriotic Byzantine named Alexius Macrembolites; but it hardly explains what happened next. All our contemporary sources, Greek though they are, assert that the whole fleet was suddenly and simultaneously seized with panic, and that soldiers and sailors together hurled themselves lemming-like into the sea before they had even engaged with the enemy. The astonished Genoese first suspected a trick; as they approached, however, they saw that the Byzantine ships were indeed abandoned; all they had to do was to tow them across to Galata.
Can it, one wonders, have been quite as simple as that? Is there really no other explanation for so extraordinary an outbreak of mass hysteria, for cowardice on so gigantic a scale? But if there was a better reason, what could it have been? And even if there was not, if the cause of the whole debacle was indeed nothing but a sudden squall taking inexperienced seamen by surprise, why did the captains not order their crews to lower the sails and ride it out? We shall never know. Of the result, on the other hand, there can be no question. From one moment to the next
1 The guides - and postcards - which claim that the Tower was built by Justinian are not to be believed. The building is now used as a restaurant and nightclub. By day and by night, the balcony running round the outside affords one of the most spectacular views in all Istanbul, both across the Golden Horn and up the Bosphorus.
the sea was full of floundering men, some sinking under the weight of their armour, others being carried over by the current to the Galata side, where the Genoese made short work of them. Relatively few managed to reach their home shore in safety.
And even that was not the end of the story. Somehow, the terror spread to those watching the proceedings from the city:
Every spot both inside and outside the walls and gates was packed with people. A trumpeter or a drummer might have inspired them with a little fighting spirit; instead, they stood like corpses, until suddenly they turned and stampeded in flight, trampling over each other while the enemy watched in wonder and amazement, commiserating with the disaster rather than exulting in their victory; for they felt that some evil genius must have been at work, to cause men so freely to sacrifice their lives when there was no one in pursuit.1
It was the same with the soldiers who had been sent round to the east of Galata with orders to attack it from behind. Seeing what had occurred, they hurled away their weapons and fled. In its long history, Byzantium had suffered many defeats more serious than that of 6 March 1349; but none, perhaps, more shameful.
And yet, when a week or two later plenipotentiaries arrived from Genoa to conclude a formal treaty of peace, they proved remarkably accommodating. The Republic readily agreed to pay the Empire a war indemnity of more than 100,000 hyperpyra; it undertook to evacuate the land behind Galata which it had illegally occupied; finally, it promised never again to attack Constantinople. In return, Byzantium surrendered virtually nothing. No wonder the ambassadors were loaded with presents and given an elaborate ceremonial farewell: John and his subjects had obtained far more than they had expected — or deserved.
Encouraged by the success of these negotiations, John Cantacuzenus quickly put all memories of the recent disaster behind him. Determined to restore his Empire's reputation in the eyes of the world and heedless of the unpopularity that he knew he was incurring, he imposed new taxes on his subjects and began once again to rebuild the fleet — taking care, this time, to ensure proper training for the officers and men to whom it was to be entrusted. Soon, too, his luck began to change. Later in the year he actually persuaded the Genoese - who seem at last to have understood that the continued prosperity of Galata largely depended on
1 For this translation from Gregoras (II, 864-5), as for so much else in these final chapters, I am indebted to Professor D. M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453
.
Byzantine goodwill - to restore to the Empire the island of Chios, which they had reoccupied during the recent civil war; and in September he renewed the peace treaty with Venice - concluded in 1342 by John V and the Empress Anne - for a further five years.
Next, it was the turn of Thessalonica to return to the fold. After the bloodbath of 1345 the Zealots had if anything tightened their grip, paying lip-service (though no more than that) to the imperial claims of John V but firmly denying those of Cantacuzenus, and refusing outright to allow Gregory Palamas, who had been appointed Metropolitan Archbishop in 1347, to take up his See. They went too far, however, when they talked openly of surrendering the city to Stephen Dushan. Stephen, taking them (perhaps rather rashly) at their word, appeared at the gates with an army, and early in 1350 the Zealot leaders - now hopelessly divided - were deposed by their own people in favour of Alexius, son of old Theodore Metochites, who made no secret of his support for the legitimate government. John Cantacuzenus saw his opportunity. Immediately he dispatched his eldest son Matthew to Thessalonica at the head of a formidable army — it included twenty thousand Turkish cavalry put at his disposal by his son-in-law Orhan -while he himself, with his co-Emperor John V, followed by sea. The sudden recall of Orhan's troops to Asia Minor almost put paid to the whole expedition, but on reaching the mouth of the Strymon river Matthew was lucky enough to find a fleet of Turkish pirates, who willingly agreed to join him. With their help the two Emperors made a ceremonial entry into Thessalonica in the autumn of 1350, where the overwhelming majority of the population gave them a warm welcome. Gregory Palamas followed them soon afterwards. The remaining Zealots were either exiled or sent for trial in Constantinople.
Leaving John V in Thessalonica, Cantacuzenus spent several weeks on campaign in Macedonia and Thrace, regaining Berrhoea, Edessa and a number of smaller fortresses. Only at the beginning of 13 51 did he return definitively to the capital - to find that the dispute over the hesychasts had flared up yet again. The absence of Palamas - their leader and principal spokesman - in Thessalonica, far from allowing the issue to be forgotten, had encouraged their opponents to return to the attack. With John Calecas and Gregory Acindynus both dead, their place at the head of the anti-hesychast movement had been taken by the historian Nicephorus Gregoras, supported by Bishop Matthew of Ephesus and other prominent ecclesiastics; and it was clear that, in characteristic Byzantine fashion, the controversy was now colouring, distorting and occasionally poisoning any number of quite unrelated issues, infecting the entire body politic and the machinery of the state.
To settle the question once and for all, a third council - presided over, like its two predecessors, by John Cantacuzenus in person - was convened on 28 May 13 51 in the Palace of Blachernae. Both Gregory Palamas, arriving hotfoot from Thessalonica, and Nicephorus Gregoras spoke emotionally and at considerable length in defence of their convictions; but the discussions ended, as everyone had known that they would, in a total vindication of the hesychasts. At a fourth and final council in July its findings were confirmed; and on 15 August, in the course of a solemn ceremony in St Sophia, John presented to the Patriarch Callistus a formal tomos in which they were set forth in detail, together with a call for the excommunication of all who opposed them. This document was counter-signed - unwillingly, if Gregoras is to be believed - by John Palaeologus on his return from Thessalonica in the following year.
Poor Gregoras never got over his defeat, and never forgave his old friend Cantacuzenus for what he insisted on considering a betrayal. The excommunication in particular came as a bitter blow, since he had taken monastic vows only a short time before the sentence was pronounced. In the monastery of the Chora - where he was confined for the next three years — he spent his days churning out pamphlets and denunciations of Palamas, the hesychasts and everything they stood for. He was released in 1354, but by then his sense of injustice had become too much for him: once the foremost historian and theologian of his time, he had degenerated into a hopeless obsessive, losing the sympathy of all his former friends and supporters - though he certainly did not deserve the fate that befell him after his death some five years later when, we are told, his body was dragged through the streets of the capital. We can only be grateful that he did not live long enough to learn of the very different treatment that was reserved for his arch-enemy Gregory Palamas, who was canonized in 1368 and is now venerated among the saints of the Eastern Church.
At the end of 1349, with the ink on his treaties with Venice and Genoa still scarcely dry, John Cantacuzenus might have been forgiven for thinking that his difficulties with the two mighty sea republics were over. Alas, for both of them the rewards offered by commerce around the Black Sea proved too great to resist. Their rivalry soon turned once again to open war, and the proximity of Galata to Constantinople made it impossible for Byzantium not to support one republic or the other - almost invariably emerging the loser. When, for example, in May 1351a Venetian fleet sailed into the Golden Horn to attack Galata, and the Genoese - furious that the Byzantines did not immediately come to their assistance - brought their catapults into position and began lobbing huge rocks over the walls, John reluctantly sided with Venice; almost immediately, however, the Venetians withdrew and he was left alone to face the Genoese wrath. The result was another sea battle on 28 July, with Genoa victorious as usual. Only three months later a Genoese fleet on its way to Galata captured and sacked the port of Heraclea on the northern shore of the Marmara. Its subsequent journey past Constantinople and up the Bosphorus was uneventful - the Emperor having prudently put all the other cities and towns on the alert - but once in the Black Sea it turned north-west and wrought similar havoc on the unoffending city of Sozopolis.
By now Venice, too, was growing seriously alarmed. The previous November the Genoese had seized Euboea, one of her most valuable colonies: the initiative was clearly theirs, and they seemed determined to keep it. Fortunately she had another potential ally at hand: King Peter of Aragon, eager to lessen Genoa's influence in the western Mediterranean, had agreed to provide the Venetians with a fleet of twenty-six fully-armed men-of-war, provided only that they agreed to pay two-thirds of its upkeep. John Cantacuzenus now offered another twelve vessels on the same conditions, with the further proviso that, in the event of victory, Galata should be razed and the various islands seized by Genoa restored to him - together with the imperial crown jewels, which had already been seven years in pawn to Venice.
The diplomatic negotiations that preceded these agreements and the military preparations that followed them were prolonged. The Aragonese treaty was signed only in July 13 51; and at just about the same time a report was received by John Cantacuzenus to the effect that the Venetians - assisted by Stephen Dushan - were trying to subvert his son-in-law John V, who was still in Thessalonica. They had, it appeared, offered him a 'loan' of 20,000 ducats in return for the cession of Tenedos, an island of considerable strategic importance to them since it controlled the entrance to the Hellespont.1 Cantacuzenus, unable to leave the capital himself, sent the Empress Anne at once to Thessalonica to stiffen
1 According to Virgil (Aeneid, II, 2iff.) the Greeks had hidden there, watching and waiting, while the Wooden Horse was sent into Troy.
her son's resolve and to try to dissuade Stephen from so dangerous a policy. Fortunately she was successful on both counts and another civil war was averted; but the incident hardly improved the prospects of the new Venetian alliance.
It was consequently not until the beginning of 1352 that the rival fleets met in the Marmara. Each side had entrusted its fortunes to an admiral of outstanding ability - the allies to the Venetian Nicolo Pisani, Genoa to a member of that brilliant family whose name was to blaze across the republic's history for five centuries and more, Paganino Doria; and on 13 February the two faced each other at the mouth of the Bosphorus, beneath the walls of Galata. Paganino, guarding his home waters, had the advantage of position and had drawn up his ships in such a way that the attackers could not approach him without dangerously constricting their own line. Pisani saw the trap at once. The sea was rough, the days were short; it was clear that any attack would be folly. But the Aragonese commander refused to listen. Before Pisani could stop him, he cut his cables and bore down upon the Genoese; and the Venetians and Byzantines had no course but to follow.
The ensuing battle quickly resolved itself into a straight contest between Venice and Genoa. The Byzantines retired almost at once, without engaging the enemy; the Aragonese, after their initial heroics, lasted very little longer. It was left to the two most formidable naval powers of the time to fight it out by themselves, and so they did -savagely, with no quarter given on either side. Soon fire broke out, which the high winds quickly spread through both fleets; but they fought on, far into the night, by the light of their own blazing ships. Finally it was the Venetians, with the wind and current both against them, who had to yield. They had lost most of their galleys and some fifteen hundred of their best fighting men, an appallingly high figure at any time; coming as it did less than four years after the Black Death -which had destroyed six out of every ten of their population - it was more catastrophic still. But when the dawn came, to reveal the surface of the water almost invisible beneath the wrecks and the multitude of human corpses, Doria found that his own losses had been almost as heavy, to the point where he was obliged to conceal them from his fellow-citizens in Galata for fear of provoking a general panic. His, certainly, was the victory in the technical sense; but it was a victory that had cost him more dearly than many a defeat.
For John Cantacuzenus it was defeat pure and simple. Neither the Venetians nor the Aragonese had the stomach to continue the fight; the survivors, after repairing as best they could the battered hulks that remained to them, sailed back to the West. John, however, had no choice but to negotiate yet another peace with the Genoese. It was concluded in May - at just about the time that John V Palaeologus returned to the capital after his protracted stay in Thessalonica. The young Emperor was now twenty years old, no longer content to submit unquestioningly, as he had in the past, to his father-in-law's bidding. For some time the two surviving Cantacuzenus sons had been entrusted with the government of important areas of the Empire. His own mother, the Empress Anne, had recently been given control over Macedonia, with her capital at Salonica. It was time for him also to claim his due.
John VI was well aware of his son-in-law's ambitions, and of the danger of civil war if they were not satisfied. He therefore offered the co-Emperor - who accepted it with alacrity — the greater part of Thrace, strategically of vital importance since it controlled the approaches to Constantinople itself. There was only one problem: the area in question comprised the large city of Didymotichum and most of the appanage that John had already granted to his son Matthew. In an attempt at solution Matthew was allotted Adrianople and its surroundings, but he was left feeling ill-used and resentful of his brother-in-law - who, to make matters worse, was now his immediate neighbour.
The first to break the uneasy peace was, surprisingly enough, John Palaeologus. Possibly in order to pre-empt an attack by Matthew, he crossed the latter's frontier in the summer of 1352 and laid siege to Adrianople. Matthew immediately appealed to his father, who hastened to his relief at the head of a considerable force of Turkish troops, put at his disposal by the Emir Orhan and commanded by the latter's son Suleyman Pasha. John for his part summoned help from the Serbs and Bulgars, an appeal to which Stephen Dushan responded with four thousand cavalry. In the event the city was saved, but this proved to be of comparatively little importance. Far more significant was the fact that the Empire was once again at war with itself, and - more ominous still -that John VI had thrown an army of infidels against his own Christian subjects. After the relief of Adrianople Suleyman's Turks had been allowed to pillage, plunder and terrorize the neighbouring towns and villages; and, at least so far as the victims and public opinion at large were concerned, they had done so in the senior Emperor's name.
