CHAPTER X
THE RESTORATION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE
[1204-1391 A.D.]
THEODORE (I) LASCARIS AND JOANNES VATATZES (1204-1254 A.D.)
[1222-1259 A.D.]
The loss of Constantinople in 1204 had restored a momentary vigour to the Greeks. From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven into the field; and the fragments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the hands of the most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long and barren pages of the Byzantine annals, it would not be an easy task to equal the two characters of Theodore Lascaris and Joannes Ducas Vatatzes, who had replanted and upheld the Roman standard in Nicæa in Bithynia. The difference of their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded only three cities and two thousand soldiers; his reign was the season of generous and active despair; in every military operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies, of the Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and subdued by his boldness.
A victorious reign of eighteen years expanded the principality of Nicæa to the magnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-in-law Vatatzes was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more plentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of Vatatzes to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the success of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins we have briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks, the prudent and gradual advances of a conqueror who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescued the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the imperial city—a leafless and sapless trunk, which must fall at the first stroke of the axe.
But his interior and peaceful administration is still more deserving of notice and praise. The calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the Greeks; the motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and the most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants. A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by the command and for the benefit of the emperor; a powerful hand and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minute diligence of a private farmer. The royal domain became the garden and granary of Asia; and, without impoverishing the people, the sovereign acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. His first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins and transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor Frederick II; but as the bride had not attained the years of puberty, Vatatzes placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her train, and his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honours, though not the title, of lawful empress. The slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national freedom; and Vatatzes employed the laudable policy of convincing the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be enrolled in the number of his subjects.
THEODORE (II) LASCARIS AND JOANNES (IV) LASCARIS (1254-1259 A.D.)
A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between Joannes Vatatzes and his son Theodore. Yet the character of Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war and hunting. Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three years of a short reign he thrice led his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and suspicious temper. The cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles were sacrificed to each sally of passion. In his last hours the emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the fate of Joannes, his son and successor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers of a long minority. His last choice entrusted the office of guardian to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the royal favour and the public hatred. The holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards. Muzalon, his brothers, and his adherents were massacred at the foot of the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious in birth and merit of the Greek nobles.