But the year was not destined to close without further losses to the Gattilusj. While the deputation was still at Philippopolis, a second Turkish fleet, under Junis, set out to attack the Genoese colony of Chios. Off the Troad a storm arose, in which several of the Turkish vessels perished, while the rest of the fleet, except the flagship, took refuge in the harbour of Mytilene, where Nicolò was then representing his absent brother. It had been one of the treaty obligations of the lords of Lesbos, ever since they had been vassals of the Sultan, to warn the Turks who inhabited the opposite mainland between the mouth of the Kaïkos and the town of Assos, of the approach of Catalan corsairs, and the Gattilusj were bound to pay compensation for any loss caused by negligence in performing this service. Now it chanced that the scout, employed on this business, sailed into the harbour while the Turks were there, followed by the missing Turkish flagship. The admiral, a very different man from his predecessor, requited Nicolò Gattilusio’s generous hospitality by demanding that this vessel with all on board should be given up to him as a prize, including the wife of a very distinguished member of the Chian Chartered Company, Paride Giustiniani Longo, with all her jewelry. The lady in question was none other than Domenico’s mother-in-law, whom he had invited to Lesbos to keep his wife company while he was away—for Domenico’s love for his wife was proverbial, and it is narrated of him that he could never bear to be out of her sight and even shared her bed when she was afflicted with leprosy. Nicolò protested that the vessel was his brother’s and that the wealthy Chian dame had not been on board but had already been long in the island. At this, the Turkish commander complained to the Sultan, and sailed for Foglia Nuova, of which Paride Longo was then governor for the Chian Company. Arrived there, he summoned the governor and the chief men of the place to appear before him. Such was their alarm, that even before his summons arrived they had started to meet him, only to hear the Sultan’s written orders that they should all be imprisoned and their city levelled with the ground, unless they surrendered the fort. The citizens, without attempting to argue or reply, at once admitted the Turks; the Genoese merchants were plundered and led on board; the names of all the citizens were taken down, about a hundred of their children carried off, and a Turkish guard placed in the fort. Thus on October 31, 1455, fell the Genoese colony of Foglia Nuova, the old possession of the Zaccaria and of the Cattaneo families, and then for a century a dependency of the maona of Chios.
When Domenico returned home and learnt from his brother what had occurred, he sent Doukas to plead the case at Constantinople. The Lesbian envoy’s arguments and appeals to justice were, however, all in vain; Mohammed gave Domenico the alternative of paying 10,000 gold pieces or of war; and, when Doukas resisted this monstrous ultimatum, secretly despatched one of his servants to take Foglia Vecchia, which had been held by the Gattilusj of Lesbos ever since 1402 at least. This, their sole possession on the Asian main, was seized on December 24, 1455. As soon as the Sultan received the news of its capture, he ordered Doukas to be sent away free and declared the question settled. Well might Domenico, after this experience, write urgently to Genoa for succour[612].
It was now the turn of the younger branch of the Gattilusj. Palamede of Ænos had died in 1455; and, as his elder son Giorgio had predeceased him[613] in 1449, he had bequeathed his dominions to his second son, Dorino II, and to Giorgio’s widow and her children. While Giorgio was still alive, his father had given him all his estates, except his Lesbian property, which was the share of Dorino II, and even after Giorgio’s death, his widow and family had a preference in the old lord’s will, as representing the first-born. No sooner, however, was Palamede dead than Dorino, defying the dictates alike of justice and prudence, seized the whole of the estate. In vain Giorgio’s widow and his own advisers implored him not to drive her to appeal to the judgment-seat of the Sultan, his suzerain. Finding her arguments useless, she begged her uncle to lay her case before Mohammed, and that undiplomatic envoy, anxious to punish Dorino even at the price of annexation to Turkey, depicted the usurper as a faithless vassal, who was conspiring with the Italians, collecting arms, hiring soldiers, and preparing to increase the garrisons of Ænos and the two islands with the object of proclaiming his complete independence. His advocacy found a willing hearer, for Mohammed coveted Ænos because of its favourable situation, on the estuary of the Maritza, then navigable for a considerable distance, opposite the islands, of which it was the natural mart, and in close proximity to the lake of Jala Göl. Thanks to these natural advantages, to the river and lake fisheries, and above all to its valuable salt-beds, which supplied all Thrace and Macedonia, Ænos was then a very rich city, from which Palamede had received 300,000 pieces of silver. It was true, that two-thirds of the proceeds of the salt-beds and of the other revenues were already handed over to the Sultan; but it was suggested by the people of the neighbouring towns of Ipsala and Feredchik that the Gattilusj did not administer the salt-works honestly, while they gave refuge at Ænos to fugitive Turkish slaves.
Mohammed resolved to act at once. Despite the terrible Balkan winter, which made havoc with his troops, he left Constantinople on January 24, 1456, and marched against Ænos, while Junis with the fleet menaced it from the sea. Dorino was absent in Samothrace, whither he had gone to spend the winter in Palamede’s castle; and his subjects, thus left to themselves, made no attempt at resistance. They sent a deputation of leading citizens to the Sultan’s headquarters at Ipsala, and surrendered the city on condition that no harm was done to its inhabitants. Mohammed received them kindly, granted some of their requests, and sent Mahmûd Pasha back with them to take over the town. On the next day he came in person, carried off all the silver, gold and other valuables, which he found in Dorino’s palace and plundered the houses of that prince’s absent suite. Then, after a three days’ stay, during which he organised the future administration of the place and appointed a certain Murad as its governor, he marched away, taking 150 children, the flower of the youth of Ænos, with him, and entrusting Junis with the annexation of Samothrace and Imbros, the maritime dependencies of that city.
The Turkish admiral, on his arrival at Imbros, summoned Kritoboulos the historian, whose personality and opinions were already well-known at the Turkish court, and made him governor in the room of Dorino’s representative, at that time apparently Joannes Laskaris Rhyndakenos, whom he carried off on board. Meanwhile, a vessel had been despatched to Samothrace to fetch Dorino. But the latter, mistrusting the admiral, as he well might, preferred to throw himself upon the mercy of the Sultan. He therefore manned his yacht, crossed over to Ænos, and thence proceeded to Adrianople. Mohammed received him, and promised to restore to him his islands; but the malicious admiral, indignant at what he considered a slight upon himself, persuaded his sovereign to give Dorino instead some place on the mainland, on the ground that the islanders would not tolerate him and that he would be less able to plot at a distance from the sea. The Sultan thereupon changed his mind, and granted to the dethroned prince the district of Zichna in Macedonia. Dorino did not, however, long remain there; after slaying the Turkish officials, who were his guard of honour, he fled to Lesbos, and thence to Naxos, where he married his cousin, Elisabetta Crispo, daughter of the late Duke, Giacomo II, and settled down at the ducal court[614].
The Turkish annexation of Samothrace and Imbros and the appointment of a native governor had an immediate effect upon the neighbouring island of Lemnos. The Lemnians had had little more than two years of Gattilusian Government, and the experience had been unfortunate, for Domenico had entrusted their island to his brother Nicolò, against whose tyrannical conduct they made secret complaint to the Sultan, begging him to send one of his servants to rule over them. Mohammed gladly consented, and ordered Junis’ successor, Ismael, to sail for Lemnos, and install the amiable Hamza as governor. Before the Turks arrived, Domenico despatched a small force under Giovanni Fontana and Spineta Colomboto with orders to induce the Lemnians by promises to return to their allegiance, and failing that to escort his brother, then encamped behind the walls of Palaiokastro, back to Lesbos. His emissaries, however, disobeying his orders, resorted to force, with the result that the islanders routed them with considerable loss, and those who escaped had to content themselves with conveying Nicolò home. When the Turkish admiral arrived, he commended the Lemnians, landed the new governor and returned, in May, 1456, with the Lesbian prisoners on board, to the Dardanelles. The news of what had occurred so infuriated Mohammed against Domenico, that when in August Doukas came with the annual tribute and begged for their release, he commanded their heads to be cut off, and only repented when they had actually mounted the scaffold, ordering that they should be sold, instead of being beheaded[615].
Of the seven possessions of the Gattilusj Lesbos now alone remained; and Genoa, which a few months earlier had been mainly concerned lest rebellious citizens of the friendly Republic of Ancona should find shelter in Domenico’s ports, now sent a ship with arms and 200 men to his aid, purchased cannon and powder on his behalf, and appealed to Pope Calixtus III and to Kings Alfonso V of Portugal and Henry VI of England to join in a crusade against the enemy which threatened him. Meanwhile, the Pope organised a fund for the redemption of the captives of the two Foglie[616], plans were laid for the reconquest of the places lost, and a certain George Dromokaïtes, a noble Greek of Lemnos, offered to deliver that island and Imbros to Venice[617]. In the autumn of 1456 a papal fleet under the command of Cardinal Scarampi, the Patriarch of Aquileia, appeared in the Ægean; and, after vain attempts to make Domenico refuse to pay his tribute and fight, annexed Lemnos without opposition, thanks to the influence of George Diplovatatzes[618], the Greek archon of Kastro, occupied Samothrace, and took Thasos after an assault upon the harbour fort. Imbros was, however, saved by the diplomacy of Kritoboulos, its governor, who bribed and flattered the Cardinal’s lieutenant, a certain “Count,” whom we may identify with the Count of Anguillara. Garrisons were left in the three conquered islands, and the papal commander appointed governors in the name of the Holy Father—for these former possessions of the Gattilusj were not restored to their lawful owners, but retained by the Holy See. Both the Venetians and the Catalans in vain begged the Pope to give them the three islands; but, in 1459, Pius II offered to consign them to the Bank of St George, which then managed the Genoese colonies, on condition that it would hold them as his vicar. The papal offer was, however, unanimously declined, from fear of offending the Sultan, who might then attack the Black Sea colonies, and from considerations of expense. Besides, Genoa could scarcely have accepted Lemnos, Thasos and Samothrace without a breach of good faith towards her own children[619].
The indignation which Mohammed felt at the capture of the Thracian islands, he vented upon Domenico. Although Doukas, the person most likely to know, expressly tells us that the lord of Lesbos had continued to pay his tribute, and he had certainly not profited by the losses of his suzerain, nevertheless the Sultan accused him of being entirely responsible for what had occurred and the Turcophil Kritoboulos insinuates that he and his brother Nicolò, now resident in Lesbos, refused to send the usual tribute and harboured corsairs who preyed upon the opposite coast and plundered Turkish merchantmen. Domenico was, however, himself a sufferer from these raids, and had begged the Pope to excommunicate the pirates who had injured his subjects. But Mohammed was doubtless glad of an excuse for attacking Lesbos, and in August, 1457, sent Ismael, his admiral, with a large fleet against it. Ismael landed at Molivos, the scene of a former Turkish defeat; and, after ravaging all the countryside, besieged the castle. Such was the terror, inspired by the Turks, that a detachment of the papal fleet, which had been sent under a certain “Sergius,” perhaps Raymond de Siscar, to the relief of Lesbos, at once weighed anchor for Chios. But the garrison of Molivos resisted with such courage, that the Turkish commander was forced to retire on August 9 with much loss, after venting his rage on the defenceless portions of the island. As soon as he had gone, the papal lieutenant returned, only to be greeted with reproaches by the justly indignant Gattilusj. The Pope, indeed, described Lesbos as “Our island” and calmly stated that he had only allowed its lord to retain it on condition that he recognised the authority of the Holy See. But Domenico wrote to the “Office of Mytilene”—a body which then existed in Genoa for the promotion of trade with Lesbos—stating frankly that he could hold out no longer unless Genoa helped him, and threatening, that, in case of her refusal, he must perforce submit to some other rule. Meanwhile, he sent envoys to the Sultan to pay his tribute and obtain peace. The Bank of St George assured him that it would not desert him, and decided to appoint a committee of four shareholders in the Chian Chartered Company and two other Chians, who should raise 300 soldiers for the defence of Lesbos at the Bank’s expense. A new duty on merchandise exported to Chios was to defray the equipment of these men; their pay was to be provided by Domenico, if possible; or, if he could not find the ready money, he was to mortgage his property as security. Genoa was none too generous to her outpost in the Levant; she calculated her Lesbian policy by the maxims of the counting-house[620].
Domenico did not, however, live to fall by the hands of the Turks. He had a more sinister enemy in his own household. So long as Nicolò had been able to gratify his love of power at the expense of the unhappy Lemnians, he was harmless to his brother; but, when his intractable disposition had estranged the sympathies of the governed and caused the loss of that island, the two brothers were both restricted to Lesbos, the sole fragment of the Gattilusian dominions that remained. Nicolò was quarrelsome and ambitious; he chafed at the inferior position which he occupied, and resolved to usurp Domenico’s place. Accordingly, with the assistance of his cousin, Luchino, and a Genoese named Baptista (possibly the Baptista Gattilusio, who is described as a very influential person at Lesbos 14 years earlier[621]), he deposed his elder brother towards the end of 1458, and threw him into prison, on the pretext that he was plotting to surrender the island to the Turks. Soon afterwards the usurper strangled his prisoner, having, according to one account, first cut off his arms so that he could no longer embrace the faithful wife who still clung to him[622]. Her father demanded from the murderer repayment of the sums which Domenico had received as her dowry and of those which he had subsequently borrowed; and the Doge of Genoa threatened the lord of Lesbos with the forcible intervention of the Republic unless he liquidated these debts[623]. The fate of the widow is unknown; more fortunate, however, in one respect than other ill-fated heroines of Frankish Greece, she has given her name to the only modern poem, based upon the mediæval history of Sappho’s island, while her bust by Mino da Fiesole is in the National Museum at Florence[624].
The fratricide’s position was, indeed, unenviable. The papal fleet had returned to Italy upon the death of Calixtus III in the summer of 1458, leaving the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes as vicar of the three Thracian islands, and the new Pope, Pius II, was too busy with the internal politics of that country to provide for their defence, which the Bank of St George did not think it prudent to undertake, but contented himself with founding a new Order of the Knights of St Mary of Bethlehem with its seat at Lemnos[625]. Thus inadequately defended by the Italians and terrified at the possible advent of the Turkish fleet, the islanders had no option but to submit to the Sultan. Lemnos set the example. In the winter of 1458-9, Kritoboulos, ever ready to do the work of the Turk, entered into secret negotiations with the Lemnian leaders for the surrender of their island. The Greeks were nothing loth, for they found the papal yoke irksome, as it must naturally have been to “schismatics,” and above all they feared the vengeance of Mohammed. The Imbriote diplomatist thereupon wrote to Demetrios Palaiologos, the Despot of Mistra, suggesting that this was the moment to crave Lemnos and Imbros from the Sultan, which the Despot had already coveted as a peaceful retreat, and offering to drive the Italians out of the former island. Demetrios at once sent Matthew Asan, his brother-in-law, whose family was, as we saw, connected with Imbros, to ask Mohammed for the two islands. The Sultan consented, on condition that Demetrios paid 3000 gold pieces as tribute for them, and it then devolved upon Kritoboulos to carry out his mission. Evading the Italian guard-ships, he landed in Lemnos; his confederates at Kastro opened the gates of that fortress; the townsfolk of Kokkinos shut up the small Italian garrison in the public offices, till it surrendered unconditionally, whereupon Kritoboulos told them that they could go or stay as they pleased, and sent their Calabrian commander with presents to Eubœa. The fort of Palaiokastro, the strongest in the island, alike by its natural position and its triple wall of huge stones, contained provisions for a year and was commanded by a young and resolute soldier, named Michele. When Michele received a summons to surrender, his sole reply was a sword, drawn in blood, and an invitation to Kritoboulos to come and take the castle by force, if he were a man. He could not, however, trust the Greeks in the town below, whose vines and fields Kritoboulos was careful to respect; and, when he saw the superior forces drawn up against him, he begged for three months’ grace, till he had time to communicate with the Grand Master at Rhodes, the papal vicar of the islands. Later on, he surrendered Palaiokastro for 1000 gold pieces, and in 1460, after the Turkish conquest of the Morea, Lemnos and Imbros were bestowed by the Sultan upon the dispossessed Despot, Demetrios.