Essays on the Latin Orient

by William Miller

THE NEAR EAST IN 1350

IV. THE GENOESE COLONIES IN GREECE

I. THE ZACCARIA OF PHOCÆA AND CHIOS (1275-1329)

Genoa played a much less important part than Venice in the history of Greece. Unlike her great rival on the lagoons, she had no Byzantine traditions which attracted her towards the Near East, and it is not, therefore, surprising to find her appearing last of all the Italian Republics in the Levant. But, though she took no part in the Fourth Crusade, her sons, the Zaccaria and the Gattilusj, later on became petty sovereigns in the Ægean; the long administration of Chios by the Genoese society of the Giustiniani is one of the earliest examples of the government of a colonial dependency by a Chartered Company, and it was Genoa who gave to the principality of Achaia its last ruler in the person of Centurione Zaccaria.

The earliest relations between Genoa and Byzantium are to be found in the treaty between the two in 1155; but it was not till a century later that the Ligurian Republic seriously entered into the field of Eastern politics. After the establishment of the Latin states in Greece, the Genoese, excluded from all share of the spoil, endeavoured to embarrass their more fortunate Venetian rivals by secretly urging on their countryman, the pirate Vetrano, against Corfù, and by instigating the bold Ligurian, Enrico Pescatore, against Crete—enterprises, however, which had no permanent effect. But the famous treaty of Nymphæum, concluded between the Emperor Michael VIII and the Republic of Genoa in 1261, first gave the latter a locus standi in the Levant. Never did a Latin Community make a better bargain with a Greek ruler, for all the advantages were on the side of Genoa. The Emperor gave her establishments and the right to keep consuls at Anæa, in Chios, and in Lesbos, both of which important islands had been assigned to the Latin Empire by the deed of partition, but had been recaptured by Michael’s predecessor Vatatzes in 1225[450]. He also granted her the city of Smyrna, promised free trade to Genoese merchants in all the ports of his dominions, and pledged himself to exclude the enemies of the Ligurian Commonwealth, in other words, the Venetians, from the Black Sea and all his harbours. All that he asked in return for these magnificent concessions was an undertaking that Genoa would arm a squadron of fifty ships at his expense, if he asked for it. It was expressly stipulated that this armament should not be employed against Prince William of Achaia. Genoa performed her part of the bargain by sending a small fleet to aid the Emperor in the recovery of Constantinople from the Latins; but it arrived too late to be of any use. Still, Michael VIII took the will for the deed; he needed Genoese aid for his war against Venice; so he sent an embassy to ask for more galleys. The Genoese, heedless of papal thunders against this “unholy alliance,” responded by raising a loan for the affairs of the Levant[451]; and it was their fleet, allied with the Greeks, which sustained the defeat off the islet of Spetsopoulo, or Sette Pozzi, as the Italians called it[452], at the mouth of the Gulf of Nauplia in 1263. But the Emperor soon found that his new allies were a source of danger rather than of strength; he banished the Genoese of Constantinople to Eregli on the Sea of Marmara, and made his peace with their Venetian rivals. In vain Genoa sent Benedetto Zaccaria to induce him to revoke his decree of expulsion; some years seem to have elapsed before he allowed the Genoese to return to Galata, and it was not till 1275 that the formal ratification of the treaty of Nymphæum marked his complete return to his old policy[453], and that Manuele and Benedetto Zaccaria became the recipients of his bounty.

The Zaccaria were at this time one of the leading families of Genoa, whither they had emigrated from the little Ligurian town of Gavi some two centuries earlier. The grandfather of Manuele and Benedetto, who derived his territorial designation of “de Castro,” from the district of Sta Maria di Castello, in which he resided, had held civic office in 1202; their father Fulcho had been one of the signatories of the treaty of Nymphæum[454]. Three years before that event Benedetto had been captured by the Venetians in a battle off Tyre. Three years after it, he was sent as Genoese ambassador to Michael VIII and, though his mission was unsuccessful, the Emperor had the opportunity of appreciating his business-like qualities[455]. Early in 1275, the year when Genoa had returned to favour at the Imperial Court, the two brothers started from their native city upon the voyage to Constantinople, which was destined to bring them fame and fortune—to Manuele, the elder, the grant of the alum-mines of Phocæa at the north of the Gulf of Smyrna, to Benedetto the hand of the Emperor’s sister[456]. Phocæa at that time consisted of a single town, situated to the west of the alum-mountains; but, later on, the encroachments of the Turks led its Latin lords to build on the sea-shore at the foot of the mountain a small fortress sufficient to shelter about fifty workmen, which, with the aid of their Greek neighbours, grew into the town of New Phocæa, or Foglia Nuova, as the Italians called it. The annual rent, which Manuele paid to the Emperor, was covered many times over by the profits of the mines. Alum was indispensable for dyeing, and Western ships homeward-bound were therefore accustomed to take a cargo of this useful product at Phocæa[457]. The only serious competition with the trade was that of the alum which came from the coasts of the Black Sea, and which was exported to Europe in Genoese bottoms. A man of business first and a patriot afterwards, Manuele persuaded the Emperor to ensure him a monopoly of the market by prohibiting this branch of the Euxine trade—a protective measure, which led to difficulties with Genoa. He was still actively engaged in business operations at Phocæa in 1287, but is described as dead in the spring of the following year[458], after which date the alum-mines of Phocæa passed to his still more adventurous brother, Benedetto.

While Manuele had been accumulating riches at Phocæa, Benedetto had gained the reputation of being one of the most daring seamen, as well as one of the ablest negotiators, of his time. He was instrumental, as agent of Michael VIII, in stirring up the Sicilian Vespers and so frustrating the threatened attack of Charles I of Anjou upon the Greek Empire, and later in that year we find him proposing the marriage of Michael’s son and the King of Aragon’s daughter[459]. In the following years he was Genoese Admiral in the Pisan War, and led an expedition to Tunis; in 1288 he was sent to Tripoli with full powers to transact all the business of the Republic beyond the seas. After negotiating with both the claimants to the last of the Crusaders’ Syrian states, he performed the more useful action of conveying the people of Tripoli to Cyprus, when, in the following year, that once famous city fell before the Sultan of Egypt. In Cyprus he concluded with King Henry II a treaty, which gave so little satisfaction to the home government, that it was speedily cancelled. More successful was the commercial convention which he made with Leo III of Armenia, followed by a further agreement with that monarch’s successor, Hethum II. But his rashness in capturing an Egyptian ship compelled the Republic to disown him, and in 1291 he sought employment under a new master, Sancho IV of Castile, as whose Admiral he defeated the Saracens off the coast of Morocco[460]. From Spain he betook himself to the court of Philip IV of France, to whom, with characteristic audacity, he submitted in 1296 a plan for the invasion of England[461]. During his absence in the West, however, war broke out between the Genoese and the Venetians, whose Admiral, Ruggiero Morosini, took Phocæa and seized the huge cauldrons which were used for the preparation of the alum[462]. But upon his return he speedily repaired the walls of the city, and ere long the alum-mines yielded more than ever. Nor was this his only source of revenue, for under his brother and himself Phocæa had become a name of terror to the Latin pirates of the Levant, upon whom the famous Tartarin of the Zaccaria ceaselessly preyed, and who lost their lives, or at least their eyes, if they fell into the hands of the redoubtable Genoese captains[463]. The sums thus gained Benedetto devoted in part to his favourite project for the recovery of the Holy Land, for which he actually equipped several vessels with the aid of the ladies of his native city—a pious act that won them the praise of Pope Boniface VIII, who described him as his “old, familiar friend[464].” This new crusade, indeed, came to nought, but such was the renown which he and his brother had acquired, that the Turks, by this time masters of the Asian coast, and occupants of the short-lived Genoese colony of Smyrna, were deterred from attacking Phocæa, not because of its natural strength but because of the warlike qualities of its Italian garrison. Conscious of their own valour and of the weakness of the Emperor Andronikos II, the Genoese colonists did not hesitate to ask him to entrust them with the defence of the neighbouring islands, if he were unable to defend that portion of his Empire himself. They only stipulated that they should be allowed to defray the cost out of the local revenues, which would thus be expended on the spot, instead of being transmitted to Constantinople. Benedetto had good reason for making this offer; for Chios and Lesbos, once the seats of flourishing Genoese factories under the rule of the Greek Emperor and his father, had both suffered severely from the feeble policy of the central government and the attacks of corsairs. Twice, in 1292 and 1303, the troops first of Roger de Lluria and then of Roger de Flor had ravaged Mytilene and devastated the famous mastic-gardens of Chios—the only place in the world where that product was to be found, while a Turkish raid completed the destruction of that beautiful island[465].

Andronikos received Benedetto’s proposal with favour, but as he delayed giving a definite decision, the energetic Genoese, like the man of action that he was, occupied Chios in 1304 on his own account. The Emperor, too much engaged with the Turkish peril to undertake the expulsion of this desperate intruder, wisely recognised accomplished facts, and agreed to let him have the island for ten years as a fief of the Empire, free of all tribute, on condition that he flew the Byzantine standard from the walls and promised to restore his conquest to his suzerain at the expiration of the lease[466]. Thus, in the fashion of Oriental diplomacy, both parties were satisfied: the Italian had gained the substance of power, while the Greek retained the shadow, and might salve his dignity with the reflexion that the real ruler of Chios hoisted his colours, owed him allegiance, and was a near kinsman of his own by marriage.