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.
♦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.
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.♦