CHAP. IV. $ 3. Manuel III. had associated Alexios IV. with him in the imperial dignity, but he met neither with gratitude nor filial affection. Clavijo relates an anecdote which paints the state of society in the capital, as well as the relations between the two emperors. Manuel had taken into his favour a page of low birth, but of great personal advantages. This upstart obtained a degree of influence in public affairs that excited the jealousy of the nobility, accustomed to divide among themselves all the favours of the court. The discontented did everything in their power to increase the general dissatisfaction, and succeeded in awakening a popular outcry against the favourite. Alexios availed himself of the public indignation to form a conspiracy for seizing the reins of government, and dethroning his father. He raised the standard of revolt, and, with the assistance of the people, demanded that the young bowbearer should be driven from the palace. Manuel was besieged in the upper citadel, and compelled to banish his favourite. The ambition of Alexios was now disappointed; for the people, having obtained their object, and having probably observed that he possessed worse vices than his father, ceased to support his rebellion. He succeeded, however, in making his peace with his father; and, perhaps as the price of his reconciliation, he retained the exiled bowbearer about his own person.1 His subsequent conduct led to the suspicion, already alluded to, that he caused his father's death. Alexios IV. was a weaker and a worse man than his father. An avenger of his own filial ingratitude stepped forward in the person of an undutiful son. According to the usage of the empires of Trebizond and Constantinople, Alexios had raised his eldest son, Joannes, as heirapparent, to share the dignity of the imperial throne. Alexios IV., like his grandfather, Alexios III., married a lady of the family of Cantacuzenos, who likewise bore 1 See the interpretation of Fallmerayer from Clavijo, Geschichte, p. 216. CRIMES IN THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 461 the name of Theodora.1 The empress Theodora was impatient of her husband's conduct, and consoled herself for his neglect by too close an intimacy with the protovestiarios. Her son Joannes, indignant at his mother's disgrace, assassinated her lover in the palace with his own hand. But the young hypocrite contemplated the perpetration of crimes of a blacker dye than those he pretended to punish. Having made himself master of the upper citadel, he imprisoned both his father and mother in their apartments. The nobles, alarmed that he was about to commit a double parricide, and the people, persuaded that the young tyrant would prove a worse sovereign than the old debauchee, interfered, and delivered Alexios IV. from the hands of his son. Joannes, who was called Kalojoannes, from his personal beauty, not from his mental accomplishments, fled to the court of Georgia, where he married a daughter of the king. Alexios IV. raised his second son, Alexander, to be his colleague in the imperial dignity, conferring on him all the rights of heir-apparent.2 The greater part of the long reign of Alexios IV. was passed in luxury and idleness. The first rebellion of his son Kalojoannes occurred in the early part of his reign; about twenty years later, a second brought the emperor to a premature and bloody grave.3 The death of Alexander seems to have suggested to Kalojoannes the necessity of making a vigorous attempt to dethrone his father, as the only means of securing the succession to the empire. He succeeded in opening communications with the powerful family of Kabasites, who stood in opposition to Alexios. 1 Chalcocondylas, p. 246; but his text is confused. Panaretos, § 55, mentions that the name of this empress was also Theodora. 2 Chalcocondylas, p. 246. It appears that the Turkish language had already begun to corrupt the Greek dialect of Trebizond, for Chalcocondylas calls Alexander, Skantarios. 3 Theodora, the mother of Kalojoannes, died in 1426 according to the Chronicle, Panaretos, § 56. Her death, perhaps, followed close after the first rebellion of her son. A. D. 1417-1446. § 3. CHAP. IV. Kalojoannes then repaired to the Genoese colony of Caffa, where he hired a large ship, which he fitted out as a man-of-war. Engaging a band of military adventurers in his service, he crossed the Euxine, invaded the empire, and seized the monastery of St Phokas at Kordyle, where he fortified himself, in order to wait until some movement of his partisans should enable him to enter the capital. But the people were so satisfied with their condition that Alexios, secure of his capital, marched out to attack his rebellious son. The imperial camp was pitched at Achantos. It seems that a party of the emperor's attendants had been gained over to betray him, for two emissaries of Kalojoannes were allowed to penetrate into his tent at midnight. In the morning, Alexios IV. was found murdered in his bed. The parricide entered Trebizond without opposition, being every where hailed as emperor by his demoralised subjects. But it was necessary, even in the vicious state to which Greek society had then fallen, to repudiate the charge of having suborned his father's assassins. The obsequies of Alexios were celebrated with unusual pomp. His body, after remaining many days entombed in the monastery of Theoskepastos, was subsequently transported into the metropolitan church of Chrysokephalos. The agents of the assassination were punished as murderers; for the new emperor declared that, though he had sent them to secure his father's person, he had charged them to pay the strictest attention to his safety. Probably there was not a single individual in his empire capable of believing in the possibility of such an undertaking; or, had it been possible, could any one credit the possibility of its being attempted at midnight in the midst of an army? The lives of the assassins were spared. One was punished with the loss of his hand; the other with that of his eyes.1 1 Chalcocondylas, 246. CRIMES IN THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 463 A. D. The murder of Alexios IV. occurred about the year 1446, for he was alive in the year 1445; and in the 1446-1449. year 1449 Joannes IV. was sole emperor, and had been for some time in the enjoyment of sovereign power.1 1 Compare a letter of Gregorios in Leo Allatius, De Consensu_Utriusque Ecclesiæ, p. 954, with Phrantzes, p. 206, edit. Bonn. In the text of Phrantzes, 6955 is erroneously given as the year. It ought to be 6958, as Phrantzes learned the death of Murad II., who died in February 6959, (1451,) while he was still at Trebizond. CHAPTER V. END OF THE EMPIRE OF TREBIZOND. SECT. I.-CAUSES OF THE RAPID RISE AND VITAL ENERGY THE first attack of the Othoman Turks on the empire of Trebizond occurred during the reign of Alexios IV., in the year year 1442. Sultan Murad, who was an accomplished statesman as well as an able general, fitted out a fleet which he sent into the Black Sea to surprise Trebizond. In case the attempt on the city should fail, the admiral was instructed to lay waste the territories of the empire wherever they were open to attack, and to carry off as many slaves as possible. By this means the resources of the Christians would be diminished, and the ultimate conquest of the country accelerated. The attack on the city of Trebizond was repulsed, but the Turks landed at several places on the coast, plundered the country, destroyed the habitations, and carried off the young men and women to be sold in the slave-markets of Brusa and Adrianople. After ravaging the territories of the emperor of Trebizond, the fleet crossed the sea, and laid waste the Genoese possessions round Caffa. Before quitting the Black Sea, however, just as the Turks had directed their course to the Gulf of Moudania, which was then the naval station of the Othomans, this fleet was assailed by a furious tempest. Many of the largest ships |