For twenty years, medieval Trebizond was torn apart by assassinations, coups, and betrayals that set emperor against emperor. This little-known 14th-century civil war shows how chaos and ambition shaped one of the last outposts of Rome.
By Nancy Na
Oceans of ink had been spilled on the history of the Roman Republic. Idolized by the Western world as the epitome of a successful democracy founded on the rule of law, its rise and success fascinated political philosophers from Antiquity already; the universalist historian, Polybius, provided one of the most enduring explanations for the Republic’s ascendancy, in its mixed constitution, amalgamating the best aspects of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy:
The three kinds of government that I spoke of above all shared in the control of the Roman state. And such fairness and propriety in all respects was shown in the use of these three elements for drawing up the constitution and in its subsequent administration that it was impossible even for a native to pronounce with certainty whether the whole system was aristocratic, democratic, or monarchical. This was indeed only natural. For if one fixed one’s eyes on the power of the consuls, the constitution seemed completely monarchical and royal; if on that of the senate it seemed again to be aristocratic; and when one looked at the power of the masses, it seemed clearly to be a democracy.
Likewise, the subsequent Fall of the Roman Republic has received even more attention from intellectuals, both ancient and modern. It is easy to see why: the Late Republic was a tale of the dissolution of one of the most stable and effective systems of the ancient world through the personal ambitions and grievances of some of the most illustrious and ingenious Romans ever: Marius, Sulla, and the Triumvirs… a captivating era of history whose appeal is evident in how productions about it will never cease, whether in academia or popular media. And what most historians have concluded as its cause is that, Romans, victims of their own success and having no more major external enemies in the Mediterranean, turned against one another.
The civil wars, the culprit for the death of the Republic, not only did not stop in Rome’s imperial phase, but only redoubled in frequency and intensity to the extent that it had become a marker of Roman culture, persisting even when the Roman Empire’s hegemony was under threat from numerous crises in Late Antiquity. For the healthy competition of the Republic between Romans of means, outdoing each other in service to the state, had been replaced by a more violent form of contention in the imperial world, where the title of Emperor held ultimate sway and was desired by all. These civil wars may simply be seen as an alternative form of the Republican election in a now monarchical polity with the same political tradition of meritocracy, as proposed by Anthony Kaldellis in his book, The Byzantine Republic, when explaining the regularity of internal conflict in the Empire of the East, the continuation of Rome in an even more hazardous medieval world.
Having established the prevalence of civil warring in Roman political life, from the Fall of the Republic to the Fall of Constantinople, I invite the reader now to discover perhaps the least known of all civil wars, in perhaps the least known of all Roman successor states: a two decade period of strife in the northeasternmost corner of the Roman world during the mid-14th century, which I would call the “Trapezuntine Twenty Years’ Anarchy” for the lack of a better term.
The Empire of Trebizond and other states around the Black Sea – map by Trecătorul răcit / Wikimedia Commons
The Empire of Trebizond (1204-1461) was set up by the Megaloi Komnenoi, the offshoot of the original Komnenian Roman imperial Dynasty (1081-1185) after the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. In the tumultuous world of the Late Middle Ages, this little Empire did surprisingly well, outlasting even the Queen of Cities, not surrendering to the Ottomans until eight years after 1453. Although its longevity may be largely credited to the flexibility of the Trapezuntine regime, the Megaloi Komnenoi proved to be remarkably faithful to the Constantinopolitan imperial heritage of their Komnenian ancestors and Roman tradition; the most concentrated period of examples, for which it is most convenient to conduct a close study, is precisely this Trapezuntine Civil War, through an analysis of which the politics and society of Trebizond would be brought to light.
For although nearly one thousand five hundred years have passed since our city submitted to the Romans, and many things have arisen during this time and even more passed away … nevertheless, our city remains unshakeable and unchangeable, loving the masters whom it chose for itself and rendering them their due obedience. ~ Bessarion of Trebizond, Encomium, on the Roman history of Trebizond
When Bessarion, the future Renaissance Cardinal who almost attained the throne of St Peter, reflected upon his native Trebizond in the 1430s, he realized that the city had been continuously faithful to Roman tradition for a millennium and a half. Since Pompey the Great’s conquest of Pontos until his day, there had not been a day when Trebizond was not lorded over by Romans. A less eye-catching conquest of the Late Republic compared to Gaul or Egypt, Caesar could not overshadow his fellow triumvir forever, not in the accomplishment of durability. For, as Bessarion claims in the 15th century:
In previous times, dictators, consuls, the senate, and generals led and directed the Roman state; afterward, a monarch took control and passed down to posterity the imperial regime. This form of government has been that preferred by the Roman people and their subjects to this day, even though the imperial capital moved to Byzantion and the eastern half of the empire.
Neither regime changes, nor the tides of history, ever wavered the Trapezuntines’ devotion to Rome. The Eternal Empire proved to be less perpetual than it boasted; already in Antiquity the West was forever lost to Rome, and while the East defiantly withstood the test of time, its cities were all wrested from Roman hands at one point or another. Not even the mighty Queen of Cities, Constantinople, managed to evade the Crusaders’ ravishment and domination… the only exception was Trebizond and its environs. Its unique geography and citizens formed a special pocket of resistance that fended off not only the flooding of Turks into Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert, but also the Latin partition of the Roman world after the Fourth Crusade.
The Romanitas of Trebizond thrived despite these challenges. The Sack of Constantinople sent Romans seeking refuge in all other parts of their Empire in 1204, and one of those regional centers was Trebizond, taken over by the brothers Alexios I and David Megas Komnenos, grandsons of the last Komnenian Emperor to have ruled in Constantinople, Andronikos I. These Emperors of Trebizond claimed to not only be upholding Roman imperial tradition, but also planned to reclaim the City, the seat of their forefathers.
Coin of Emperor Alexios II of Trebizond – image courtesy Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com
Circumstance, however, halted their advance, and the Megaloi Komnenoi were confined to merely their holdings around Trebizond while the Palaiologoi in Nicaea recaptured Constantine’s City in 1261. Now transformed into regional hegemons, the Trapezuntine Komnenian Dynasty of the late 13th and early 14th century adapted to their situation and set out to preserve the realm left to them; in time they proved to be not just outstanding custodians of the Roman Pontos, but also innovative and flexible rulers that made their statelet flourish. Especially under Alexios II Megas Komnenos (1297-1330), it could be said that Trebizond reached its apogee: it was an Empire wealthy from Silk Road commercial profit, adorned with the most magnificent churches and monasteries, properly defended by their energetic Emperor and impenetrable mountains, with a rising Academy of Trebizond that attracted intellectuals all over to come learn astronomy……
And everything seemed to be going so well, until a century before Bessarion lifted his plume to extol the virtues of his fatherland for posterity: A civil war broke out.
By the Empire of Trebizond, the Roman constitution praised by Polybius had long changed form: the dual consuls have been replaced by the ruling Megas Komnenos Dynasty, the Senate by the Trapezuntine archontes, but the Roman Populus remained the Roman Populus, and continued to uphold Roman political tradition, even after 1500 years. Harmonious cooperation between the monarchical, aristocratic and democratic elements would still produce results akin to the ideal constitution before: the Emperor issuing decrees and commanding the military, the archontes serving in the bureaucracy and addressing their regional concerns, the people approving or condemning the conduct of their superiors; but their dysfunction led to discord.
The Emperor relied heavily on the support of the people and the loyalty of his archontes, and an example of one who lacked both would be Georgios Megas Komnenos (1266-1280), uncle of Alexios II. An ambitious autocrat with grand designs that didn’t sit well with his Empire, Georgios was deposed when the archontes betrayed him to his Mongol overlord Abaqa Khan in a faraway location, and when he attempted to regain his throne with a foreign army, the people of Trebizond repelled him from their gates, showing their preference for the new Emperor, Alexios II’s father Ioannes II Megas Komnenos. Georgios, nicknamed the “Wanderer” by his own subjects, exemplified this dysfunction; but since his rivalry with the archontes and the populace did not take place within the capital city, these struggles ended relatively quickly and bloodlessly. This would not be the case if Trebizond itself became the battlefield of these three classes.
Simple timeline of the Trapezuntine Twenty+ Years’ Anarchy, 1330-1355.
Our sun is under the earth, and we are immediately mixed with darkness; our light has set and darkness has straightaway covered us, the shining lamp has been extinguished, and the pains of death have dawned upon us immediately, and torrents of bitterness have disturbed us. ~ Konstantinos Loukites, Encomium to Alexios II, on the death of Alexios II which unleashed the following civil war
Alexios II the Great Komnenos died suddenly from bubonic plague in 1330 and left his throne to his son, Andronikos III Megas Komnenos, a ruler unkeen on sharing power. As Alexios II was a model Komnenian Emperor, he sired a swarm of children, and out of his six descendants, four were male. Michael “Azachoutlou” and Georgios “Achpougas” Megas Komnenos were two of Alexios’ sons who were unfortunate enough to be in the Trapezuntine capital with Andronikos, and they perished by their jealous brother’s whims. Unbeknownst to him, in rediscovering the timeless Ancient Roman tradition of fratricide, Andronikos would unleash another Classical Roman plague: civil war, and of a much more brutal caliber than that of their Palaiologan contemporaries to the west, who were learning to act ever more humanely.
Andronikos was repaid in kind by fate, and he ruled just a bit over a year before dying in early 1332, acceded by his young son Manuel II Megas Komnenos, an eight-year-old boy who reigned for only eight months, for the sins of his father tarnished his reputation among the people. Not even the success of Manuel’s military against the Turks of Chalybia could save him from the gruesome coup about to take place, as Andronikos failed to assassinate his last brother, a loose end residing in distant Constantinople named Basileios Megas Komnenos.
Author’s artistic interpretation of Emperor Basileios Megas Komnenos with his wives, the Palaiologan and Trapezuntine Eirene
The final son of Alexios II was invited to return home and seize power, and he usurped from his nephew, then purged the palace of the boy’s supporters, the megas doux (admiral of the imperial fleet) Lekes Tzatzintzaios and his family, in the most sanguine fashion: the new Emperor ordered the megas doux and his son, the megas domestikos (commander-in-chief) Tzambas, to be executed, while his wife Syrikaina was stoned to death. The replacement for Tzatzintzaios was Ioannes the Eunuch, who Basileios trusted to be his loyal megas doux, but instead raised the flag of revolt on behalf of the helpless Manuel in 1333. To tackle the problem, Basileios applied the brutally direct solution of his late brother Andronikos: he simply murdered his hitherto imprisoned nephew.
To maintain legitimacy after shedding so much Roman blood, Basileios turned to the sovereign of Constantinople (and nominally the whole Roman world) Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, who sent his illegitimate daughter Eirene Palaiologina to wed the Emperor of Trebizond in 1334, but in the coming years his popularity did not surge as he wished, rather plummeted. His ruthless political persecution, kinslaying, exacerbated by a recent Turkic raid that came dangerously close to the imperial capital in 1335, caused widespread discontent among the Trapezuntine populace, who demonstrated their dissatisfaction by pelting stones at their Emperor on the occasion of a solar eclipse during Lent 1336. For the subjects of the Komnenian Empire, to whom astronomy was almost a national science, this portent was none other than a sign of divine displeasure. In the same year, the stargazing Trapezuntines produced a horoscope, which grimly predicted rebellions of the grandees, further restlessness from the people and disobedience of the army.
And yet, perhaps not all was against Basileios? Since astronomy was a study in which Trebizond surpassed Constantinople considerably, there was a great influx of Constantinopolitan scholars into Pontos, eager to learn from the renowned Academy of Trebizond. One of them was the distinguished author, Andreas Libadenos, who arrived in Trebizond around 1336. In his most famous work, his Periegesis, an account detailing his travels and impressions across the Eastern Mediterranean, he refers to Basileios as “everlastingly remembered (ἀειμνήστου)” and generally writes of this Emperor with a positive outlook.
Perhaps this is an early showing of how those aligned with Constantinople would support a Constantinople-backed Emperor, as was later developed in the civil war, but a more plausible explanation could simply be that the political climate of the Trapezuntine Twenty Years’ Anarchy period was unsuitable for honest assessments from its intellectuals. Michael Panaretos, the Trapezuntine historian who sourced much of the narration today, is neutral towards Basileios in his chronicle, and Libadenos, who witnessed the unfolding of the pending chaos firsthand, also left much unsaid. Both later served a new master, the eventual victor of the civil war, Alexios III, son of Basileios. It would be unwise to heap criticism upon the father of their current lord, whose very birth was also a topic of controversy.
The future Alexios III was born with the name Ioannes in 1338, as the second son of Basileios, but not of Empress Eirene Palaiologina, no. He and his elder brother, confusingly named Alexios before Ioannes-Alexios III later took the name, were born to the Emperor by his mistress, lady Eirene of Trebizond. The following year, Basileios even married the Trapezuntine Eirene while still legally bound to the Palaiologan Eirene, becoming the only bigamous Roman Emperor in history. Although tacitly allowed by the clergy of Trebizond, the Patriarch of Constantinople objected to the mistreatment of the legitimate Empress Palaiologina. Then in 1340, Basileios died suddenly, leaving his succession unclear. The factionalism brewing at Trebizond for years now finally burst out, leading to a full scale civil war involving most of Trapezuntine society from 1340 until the triumph of Alexios III a decade later.
In the words of Andreas Libadenos, whose Constantinopolitan connections brought upon him much misfortune for the next few years when more local-leaning parties were ascendant:
approaching the terrible end of the Basileios Komnenos, as if some swirl of misfortunes and calamities descended upon us with the terrible plagues of the Egyptians…For now that he has departed to God, the terrible things of evils have been unleashed upon us…
…the leading officials started an upheaval. Of those who were splitting between themselves one party was called Amyntzantarantai, the other Scholarantai. ~ Joseph Lazaropoulos, Metropolitan of Trebizond, Synopsis
Immediately after the Emperor’s death, Empress Eirene Palaiologina seized power with her supporters and banished Eirene of Trebizond with her children. Our chronicler Panaretos proceeds to introduce the civil war’s main players; I will endeavor to acquaint the reader with some basic scholarship on each of the families/parties in the order that is related in Panaretos’ history, for I find that subsequent interpretations in modern historiography concerning the civil war have been too reliant on the explication given by J.P. Fallmerayer, a reading done in 1827 which assumes abounding bipolarity and simplicity in a society as colorful as Trebizond’s.
Author’s artistic interpretation of the Scholarioi forming in opposition to Empress Palaiologina, by St Eugenios Monastery.
For context, Fallmerayer originally conjectures that the Trapezuntine nobility formed two distinct camps after the death of Basileios, which he terms the “Scholarioi” and “Mesochaldaioi” (interchangeable with “Amytzantarantai”, a name more faithful to Trapezuntine accounts); the former being the pro-Constantinople party led by the Scholarioi, thought by the German scholar to have been descendants of the Scholae Palatinae palace guard founded by Constantine the Great, and the latter the coalition of local and provincial aristocrats from the inland regions of the Empire (Chaldia), comprised mainly of those non-Greek citizens: Laz, Armenians, Turks, etc. However, as history will show, even if two parties did exist with such names, their interests and alliances in the civil war were far from fixed, so while Fallmerayer’s classification of the Trapezuntines into two general leanings (center-periphery) is helpful, it is not definite.
The reader might be reminded of the Optimates-Populares controversy in Republican historiography, which another influential 19th century German polymath, Theodor Mommsen, popularized in his seminal work, Römische Geschichte. While Cicero and other Roman authors wrote of Optimates and Populares as two overall aristocratic ideological camps, one side emphasizing the legitimacy of the Senate and the other the will of the Populus, Mommsen overinterpreted them as distinctly formed political parties like the conservatives and liberals of his own 1850s.
Returning to Panaretos, he describes the belligerents thus:
The archontes immediately rebelled and split into two factions. Tzanichites, lord Sebastos the chief quartermaster, along with the Scholarioi, the Meizomatai, lord Constantine Doranites, the Kabazitai, Kamachenos, some of the people, and some of the palace guards seized the monastery of Saint Eugenios, while the Amytzantarantai, some of the archontes, and some of the imperial guards seized the citadel with the empress.
The Tzanichitai seemed to be one of the oldest, wealthiest and most powerful clans of the Empire of Trebizond, their earliest known mention dating to an inscription from 1305 (or even as distant as 1204, the founding of the Empire, according to previous scholarship). They were landowners who held the mighty fortress of Tzanicha (modern day Canca) and may be related to the Tzan minority of the Empire. This megas stratopedarches Sebastos Tzanichites became the first leader of the pro-Constantinople alliance, opposing Empress Palaiologina out of loyalty to the deceased Emperor Basileios. Several more of his family: Stephanos, Michael and Ioannes Tzanichites would appear over the course of the civil war, although never as prominently again, as it seems Sebastos’ failure, capture and execution in 1341 led to a demise of their family fortune.
The Scholarioi, the eponymous group which Fallmerayer used to name the whole of the pro-Constantinople faction, seemed to have taken the leadership role next. But as to the nature of the Scholarioi, scholars are still puzzled. Were they a guard faction, like the Scholae Palatinae? Or just a family? “Scholares” was certainly a common surname in the late Byzantine world, borne by the most notorious partisan of the Scholarioi and the whole civil war, Niketas Scholares; but other than this eminent schemer who seemed to dictate the direction of the whole 1340s, only three more scions of the family were known at all: a son of Niketas who aided his father near the end of the civil war, a Georgios Scholares who played a minor role during a short relapse of aristocratic insurgency in 1363, and an Amirialis Scholares from a much later period.
As Bryer demonstrates that the Scholarioi should not have been affiliated with the Scholae Palatinae as Fallmerayer suggests, and as the family shows little importance after the downfall of Niketas Scholares, I would say the naming of the pro-Constantinople party by both medieval Roman sources and Fallmerayer reveals not the prevalence of a certain imperial guard unit or any other profession within the party, but rather the personal ability and charisma of Niketas Scholares alone, who carried the Scholarioi forward with exceeding zeal, giving historians a handy label for all who shared this ideology.
Author’s artistic interpretation of Emperors Michael Megas Komnenos and his son Ioannes III Megas Komnenos.
The Meizomatai were some of the chief supporters of the Scholarioi and Niketas Scholares. The only two named Meizomatai, Gregorios and Michael Meizomates, closely cooperated with Scholares to install the two puppet Emperors Michael and Ioannes III Megas Komnenos in the early 1340s, being greatly rewarded for their efforts when the Scholarioi took absolute control. Gregorios was honored as megas stratopedarches while Michael became amyrtzantarios, which was just the Trapezuntine take on the Byzantine office of protospatharios (chief bodyguard). It seems, however, that the loyalty to Scholares was not long lasting, for in 1355 one of the Meizomatai and some of Niketas’ trusted associates captured him for the Emperor Alexios III, ending the civil war, after which reference to this family was scarce.
The Doranitai, another powerful household, was not so active in the earliest stages of the civil war. Its first known member, Konstantinos Doranites, followed the most basic Scholarian trajectory: participate in the coup against Palaiologina, install Michael and Ioannes III to the throne, and be honored with a high court title (protovestiarios). Once Konstantinos’ more memorable brother, Theodoros “Pileles” Doranites, joined the scene, though, the Doranitai energetically attempted to seize power, rebelling openly against the government of Alexios III and his kingmaker Niketas Scholares, from 1350 until 1352 when Pileles’ family was strangled.
The Kabazitai would appear to be the family which benefited the most from the civil war and the downfall of the other Scholarioi. A Leon and Ioannes Kabazites were known to have fought on the pro-Constantinople side during the civil strife, but later, a different Ioannes Kabazites was the doux of Chaldia, deep inland. The whole power base of the Kabazitai became associated with the perilous southern borderlands of the Empire, perhaps resulting from the power vacuum left by the now downtrodden Tzanichitai. Although now castle lords whose main duty was the defense of Trebizond from the Turks, the Kabazitai still frequently politicked and extorted travelers passing through their domain; the details of their subsequent nefarious deeds will be revealed later. Their reputation was not the highest in the Trebizond, though the clan’s longevity though could not be disputed, as they were recorded all throughout the 15th century, even after the Fall.
Only a single Kamachenos was known to have been involved in the civil war, and he was the unnamed Kamachenos recorded by Panaretos above. Although politically insignificant, socially they were not, and other sources, such as the Acts of Vazelon Monastery, reveal that the Kamachenoi were first and foremost landowning aristocrats, more concerned with attending to and acquiring property than the affairs of state. Their assets and transactions were many, however they don’t seem to be attested anymore after the coup of 1340.
Author’s artistic interpretation of the Amytzantarantai gathering in support of Empress Palaiologina in the citadel.
The Amytzantarantai are a real mystery, the best accurate description I can give of them is simply “the party opposing the Scholarioi”. Their nature is more ambiguous than their rival faction, and many have speculated whether they were an archontic family, a profession, a social or ethnic group. To start with the facts, the term “amytzantarantai” seems to be related to the nearly identical word amyrtzantarios, the court title given to Michael Meizomates. It is literally the local fashion of calling the protospatharios, deriving from the old Seljuq Turkish title emir candar. That, coupled with the “-antai” suffix, which in the Pontic Greek dialect refers to the totality of a family or profession or any other grouping, would mean the Amytzantarantai in its most barebone sense, means the ensemble of the protospatharioi of Trebizond?
It is tempting to describe the Amytzantarantai as “the provincial party of local ethnic minorities” but Fallmerayer’s interpretation does not really account for the fact that they debuted as the ardent protectors of Empress Eirene Palaiologina, a lady representing Constantinopolitan legitimacy at its finest, before lending their support to Palaiologina’s rival, the clearly attested championess of the Pontic provincials, Empress Anna Megale Komnene. One suggested workaround is that the Amytzantarantai simply took the citadel of Trebizond and the Empress in it as a hostage, fighting their own war with the Scholarioi. But it should also be questioned why the supposedly pro-Constantinople Scholarioi would be led by Sebastos Tzanichites, a Chaldian castle lord who was very likely of minority origin, against a Palaiologina? With no answers to offer, I could only now advance the narrative and demonstrate that the general Constantinople-inner Trebizond opposition only started clarifying in the second stage of the civil war.
Who among the citizens and the foreigners then has witnessed this civil war and passed by the cadaverous calamity without tears? ~ Andreas Libadenos, Periegesis
Palaiologina and the Amytzantarantai struggled to hold onto the citadel against the assailments of Sebastos Tzanichites and the Scholarioi, but surprise salvation came upon them in the form of Ioannes the Eunuch, the megas doux who rebelled against Basileios before. The fleet sailed from their base in Limnia to Trebizond and set Saint Eugenios Monastery aflame, driving out the Scholarioi. Palaiologina banished Sebastos and his followers to Limnia, where they were later executed, but in 1341 she received the grim tidings of her father Andronikos III Palaiologos’ passing; this means the support she hoped for from Constantinople would not arrive. One month later, more calamities befell the Romans, as the Turks of Aq Qoyunlu took advantage of the chaos of civil war to plunder the capital of Trebizond itself, burning everything and everyone so intensely that the charred remains of the Trapezuntines caused an epidemic. Palaiologina’s public support was at an all-time low.
Author’s artistic interpretation of Empress Anna “Anachoutlou” Megale Komnene
Anna “Anachoutlou” Megale Komnene, the eldest daughter of Alexios II, previously a nun, left her convent to make a bid for her father’s throne. She went through Lazia, the easternmost province of the Empire, where she secured the support of the Laz people and formed a personal army composed of them. Together, they marched on Trebizond, where the people needed no extra incentive to depose their unpopular Constantinopolitan Empress and welcome back an Empress of their beloved Komnenian dynasty.
However, another Komnenos soon made his way to Trebizond too: this was Michael Megas Komnenos, the younger brother of Alexios II, sent by the new Emperor in Constantinople, Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos, to marry Palaiologina and help her rule. Niketas Scholares and Gregorios Meizomates accompanied Michael to Trebizond, where the Scholarioi swore to serve their Emperor, but later regretted choosing such a mature and unmanipulable old man as their puppet, so they imprisoned him. Empress Anna’s Laz army then seized Michael’s ships and shot many of his supporters dead. After repelling a new Aq Qoyunlu attack, Anachoutlou expelled the Constantinopolitan pretenders, sending her uncle Michael first to Oinaion, then to Ioannes the Eunuch in Limnia for safekeeping, and Eirene Palaiologina was shipped back to Constantinople.
The Scholarioi, including Scholares, Meizomates and Konstantinos Doranites, fled the scene on a Venetian galley, and returned to Trebizond in 1342 with a new puppet, the son of Michael, Ioannes III Komnenos. With three Genoese ships and one of their own, the Scholarioi stormed Trebizond and crowned Ioannes III, then exacted their bloody revenge. The Amytzantarantai suffered a purge, and Empress Anna Anachoutlou was strangled to death, along with Lady Sargale, the mother of an important nobleman. After the Scholarian lust for vengeance was satiated, they realized their protégé was not as compliant as they thought, so they decided to replace him with his father Michael again. After Michael’s jailor, Ioannes the Eunuch, died in 1344, Scholares fetched the old Emperor and deposed Ioannes III, who reigned for just a year.
Emperor Michael Megas Komnenos reigned once more, but merely posed as a front for the ascendant Scholarioi, who ruled de facto and divided the government among themselves: Scholares became megas doux, Gregorios Meizomates the megas stratopedarches, Leon Kabazites megas domestikos, Konstantinos Doranites protovestiarios, Michael Meizomates amyrtzantarios, etc. However, the Scholarian Oligarchy also lasted for only one year, as Michael regained control of his state and arrested them all in 1345, then he sent his deposed son to Constantinople to avoid further trouble. Now truly in power, Emperor Michael came to the realization that as sole ruler, he simply lacked the capability that Niketas Scholares possessed to manage the state.
In the following years, the crucial port cities of the Empire, from Oinaion to Kerasous, suffered incessant assault from the Turks and especially the Genoese of Caffa, not to mention how the latter also spread the Black Death to Trebizond. Sickly, feeble and old, Michael was compelled to release Scholares from prison in 1349, after concluding a humiliating peace treaty with Genoa. Thus, the kingmaker returned to the political stage with his old post, and a new marriage alliance with the Sampson family; he was more dominant than ever, and little time passed before he unmade Michael, forcing the abdication of the stubborn geriatric sovereign who once defied him.
The Triumph of Alexios III and the imperial court (1350-1355)
Alexios, descendant of the Grand Komnenos Alexios, will reign over Trebizond. ~ A vision of Eugenios, patron saint of Trebizond, in Lazaropoulos’ Synopsis
Meanwhile in Constantinople, Emperor Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos had a change of heart concerning his selection of the Emperor in Trebizond. Seeing that Michael Megas Komnenos was “unduly blunt and frivolous and also old and childless”, he resolved to send another candidate back to Trebizond. Under his care were Basileios’ other wife, Eirene of Trebizond, and her children. The young Ioannes-Alexios III Megas Komnenos seemed a good fit, so he was officially renamed Alexios after his illustrious grandfather, Alexios II, and promptly sent home under the charge of Joseph Lazaropoulos, a rising Trapezuntine churchman. With assurances from St Eugenios of Trebizond of a safe journey home even in winter, Lazaropoulos’ entourage sailed hastily to the Trapezuntine capital and Alexios arrived in December 1349.
The Scholarioi were searching for a new imperial puppet, obedient and young, for themselves, and Alexios appeared to be the solution. Michael, after years of misgovernance, was forced to abdicate under the combined efforts of the Scholarioi and pressure from the populace. Alexios III was proclaimed Emperor of Trebizond, and crowned in St Eugenios Church, on St Eugenios’ feast day (January 21), in 1350. The young Emperor was destined to not reign in tranquility.
A 14th century CE manuscript illustration showing the Greek armies of the Empire of Trebizond (1204-1461 CE) depicted as those of Alexander the Great.
The archontes of Trebizond were once more plotting, notably the family of Doranites. Theodoros “Pileles” Doranites, and his brother Konstantinos, the protovestiarios, were all arrested for this, but later, in 1351, the new protovestiarios Leon Kabazites was also arrested on some charges and Pileles took his place. Now there was a serious first fissure in the Scholarian camp, vengeful Pileles was not going to forget that the steering hand behind the throne, Niketas Scholares, imprisoned him. He took his revenge by seizing the palace and arresting the kingmaker, but people in Trebizond had enough of Pileles’ conspiracies that they rose up and banished his family to Kenchrina. Alexios was evidently traumatized by his capital’s insecurity and took refuge in Tripolis, a city that his great-grandfather once sheltered in while he faced usurpers. While he hid out in the safety of Tripolis, he also planned his counter, and to sure up his position he first married Theodora Kantakouzene, a relative of the Emperor Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos.
Then he began to deal with the opposition. He and his mother, along with Michael Panaretos, the historian participating in history-making for the first time now as Alexios’ loyal protosebastos and protonotarios, marched against the revolting Konstantinos Doranites, who was now governor of Limnia. The imperial trio returned three months later, presumably succeeding in pacifying the province. In 1352, the pinkernes Ioannes Tzanichites rebelled and took his ancestral castle of Tzanicha, hoping to revive the fortune of the Tzanichitai, but peace was quickly restored once Alexios went there with his mother. Later, the troublesome Pileles and his family were strangled in Kenchrina, and while his opposants dropped like flies, Alexios innovated strategies to secure more allies. He sent his sister Maria Megale Komnene to marry Kutlu Beg of the Aq Qoyunlu. Constituting the first recorded case of a marriage alliance between a gorgeous Komnenian princess and a Turcomen emir of Eastern Anatolia.
Just when the advent of peace seemed so imminent, the scheming Niketas Scholares was exiled to Kerasous and reignited the sparks of civil conflict in 1354. He equipped a small fleet with his son and the protovestiarios, Basileios Choupakas, to assault Trebizond in 1355, but he figured that the odds were against them and retreated after much negotiation with the imperial government. Alexios in turn led his own navy to seize Kerasous. Scholares was away in Kenchrina and the Emperor easily returned the city back to the imperial fold. Then, combining maritime and siege warfare, Alexios blockaded Kenchrina with his cavalry. Soon, the Scholarian loyalist city of Kenchrina submitted, but Scholares and his party holed inside and Alexios couldn’t do anything about it for now.
Elsewhere, other dissidents arose: the doux of Chaldia, Ioannes Kabazites, took over Cheriana and ex-Emperor Michael Megas Komnenos made an advance as far as Soulchation. However, none of their efforts achieved anything, and the civil war finally ended in October; Alexios’ generals, Meizomates and Sampson, perhaps the very Gregorios Meizomates and Michael Sampson who once were Niketas’ closest ally and father-in-law, marched against Kenchrina and dragged Scholares out. Peace was restored to the Empire of Trebizond, at last.
…his archontes the faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi… ~ 15th century Trapezuntine obit
By 1355, Alexios III Megas Komnenos had restored the tranquility and prosperity that governed Trebizond in the age of his grandfather Alexios II Megas Komnenos, and opened a new era for the Komnenian Dynasty despite innumerable obstacles like his great great great grandfather Alexios I Megas Komnenos; he could now rest easy on his laurels. Or could he?
Chrysobull of Alexios III of Trebizond
Glancing at later Trapezuntine history in the 15th century, we would notice that the Komnenoi reigned without challenge, they were the sole legitimate monarchs of Pontos, and no one dared to dream of replacing them, heirs of the original Komnenian Dynasty of Constantinople. In the 1430s, Bessarion of Trebizond had to again reiterate that the Komnenoi and Megaloi Komnenoi were in perfect continuity, and how spectacular the achievement of maintaining four centuries of sovereignty over the same people was. In his words:
The fact that the Komnenos family and their descendants have already ruled us for so long and so many of them have succeeded each other is a unique characteristic and without parallel… In every other land and city, once a family of rulers has continued for four or five generations they are succeeded by another family. The same happens to the latter in turn and they pass their power on to yet others, and so it always is. It is impossible to find a family of rulers, tyrants, or emperors that has remained in power forever. But our masters and emperors have done well even in this respect and have surpassed the others. Once they took possession of this land and ascended this throne, neither time, nor fortune, nor a change of circumstances has swept them away. Instead, as if they were immortal rulers, the members of this same family and its bloodline have continued to reign perpetually over us.
So it appears that the victory of the Megaloi Komnenoi over their archontes was complete, as shown by this feat… however, it must be considered that this was always the status quo, even before and after the civil war. This dynasty had become the byword for imperial legitimacy in Pontos; as “Caesar” and “Augustus”, the names of individuals like Julius and Octavian, had evolved into titles of the highest esteem due to the prestige of its original bearer, so too has “Megas Komnenos” transformed into a name for a leadership role in the Pontic region.
Even in Constantinople, it was common knowledge that, in the words of historian Nikephoros Gregoras, there was an “inviolable law” that none but a Komnenos shall be accepted by the people of Trebizond to govern them; thus, Kantakouzenos has never sent anyone who was not a Komnenos as his approved candidate to the throne. When the son of Emperor Ioannes V Palaiologos, Michael, attempted to usurp the Trapezuntine throne from Alexios III in 1376, no military action was required before the pretender realized his attempt could never succeed.
The Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai also never attempted to usurp the purple for one of their own, and merely sought to install and manipulate a Komnenos/Komnene who shared their own ideologies and furthered their interests. They perfectly understood in their hearts that none of them possessed the required imperial legitimacy, so that even if they, the aristocracy, could subdue the monarch, the Populus would never accept them and overwhelm them. This wasn’t just another petty power grab by the grandees of the realm against their liege lord, while the people below suffer and watch on the side, so prevalent in other medieval societies. As stated already, the popular element of Trapezuntine society was dominating, as the Roman Populus in any previous era was. All the three classes were actively involved in the civil conflict.
Some examples of the crucial role the people played:
When the conduct of Basileios Megas Komnenos became overly unacceptable for the majority of Trebizond, the people demonstrated their frustration with stones during the solar eclipse of 1336
The Constantinopolitan candidate for the throne chosen by Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos, Michael Megas Komnenos, was contained by the Trapezuntine people before he could even attempt a coup against Empress Anna in 1341
The Scholarioi’s enthronement of Ioannes III Megas Komnenos would not have succeeded, had Trebizond’s inhabitants not rebelled against their Empress Anachoutlou from within in 1342
When the Doranitai revolted and imprisoned Niketas Scholares, it was the populace that forced them to release the minister of Alexios III and foiled their plot in 1351
It may be observed that the people were in 1341 anti-Scholarioi; in 1342 anti-Amytzantarantai; in 1351 pro-Scholarioi… A difference between the Byzantine populus in Constantinople and Thessaloniki during the contemporary Second Palaiologan Civil War, and the Pontic Populus in the Trapezuntine Civil War, is that while the Byzantines showed their discontent towards their corrupt nobles by supporting their monarch of choice, Ioannes V Palaiologos, and opposing the aristocratic champion, Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos, the Trapezuntines did not rally into the archontic alliances of Scholarioi or Amytzantarantai; rather, they acted in their own interests. Their actions were at times beneficial for one faction, other times detrimental, constituting something of a “third party” like the triangle Polybius described. Peter Charanis proposes that the people were actually on the side of a strong central imperial government, their only refuge from the oppressive lords, both Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai. Yet if this were true, it would be difficult to explain why the people violently assaulted an Emperor that held together the realm with effective if somewhat questionable authority in 1336, risking destabilization of the Empire.
It is my view, then, that the people were in support of not only someone with Komnenian imperial legitimacy and the capacity to govern a diverse state, but also a ruler whose behavior was acceptable and accountable to them. Not only did they have qualms with the aristocracy, but also with the imperial government. Their preferred candidate in the end was Alexios III Megas Komnenos, but they did not hesitate to threaten their champion with the possibility of rioting should he make overly rash decisions, as they demonstrated in 1362 when the Emperor considered making a marriage alliance so hastily between the Emir of Limnia and his daughter.
The medieval walls and aqueduct of Trebizond, now known as Trabzon – photo by İhsan Deniz Kılıçoğlu / Wikimedia Commons
And yet, upon closer inspection of 15th century Trapezuntine history, after the reign of Alexios III, there is diminishing of both popular participation and the projected imperial authority. Polybius’ opinion on the Roman Republican system has sometimes been accused of deliberate distortion, aggrandizing the role of the consuls and the populace in respect to that of the true powerhouse, the Senate, in order to paint a more balanced triad. Due to the prominence of the senators and archontes in both late Republican and Trapezuntine contexts, a final inspection of the aristocratic class and their story is now due as a concluding remark.
Niketas Scholares languished in custody, and that daring kingmaker died along with his endless schemes in 1361. By then, young Alexios had established himself on the throne, familiarized himself with the duties of an Emperor and began constructing his own grand dynasty. Relieved, but also deeply grieved by the passing of Scholares, who despite his conniving was a competent administrator of the Empire and raised Alexios to the imperial dignity in the first place, the grateful protégé personally led a funeral procession for Niketas in white robes of mourning. Yet the sense of security gained from the passing of Scholares was false.
In 1362, ex-Emperor Ioannes III Megas Komnenos also attempted a coup like his father Michael, but also failed and escaped to Genoese lands, never heard of again. The pitiful endeavor was not a cause of much concern, but an event the following year was. In 1363, while Emperor Alexios was sitting by St Gregorios River, he suffered an attack on his life under broad daylight; the would-be assassins were various members of the Kabazites family and Georgios Scholares, a relative of the late Niketas. Alexios turned heels and fled into the safety of his citadel, while the conspirators pursued him all the way until they realized their cause was doomed. The Kabazitai were arrested, Georgios fled to Amisos and was only allowed to return home with the mediation of a Genoese. Further investigation from the Emperor revealed the complicity of the Metropolitan of Trebizond, Niphon, in the conspiracy, so he was exiled and Alexios’ supporter Joseph Lazaropoulos was elected as the succeeding Metropolitan.
The reason for this failed takeover is unclear, perhaps it was related to Alexios’ dismissal of Ioannes Kabazites from his post as the doux of Chaldia in 1360, or simply the Kabazitai and Georgios Scholares were under the impression that there was still a window of opportunity to make a power grab before young Alexios firmly reinforces his imperial legitimacy. In any case, having experienced his share of trauma from civil discord, the policies of Alexios in his later reign were designed to curtail the influence of the Trapezuntine archontes and prevent such blatant affronts to imperial authority once more.
A combination of “carrot and stick” ensured his success: there were open rehabilitations with certain families, like the Doranitai, and Alexios’ commitment to personally involving himself in every affair of the Empire, from military to religious, limited the impact of grandees who usually occupied themselves with these matters. The Emperor’s strategies proved to be effective, and no more insurrections were known in his lifetime; he gained the acceptance and devotion of all Trapezuntine society by the end of his long and fruitful reign in 1390.
Regrettably, that stalwart central authority that Alexios III strived relentlessly for didn’t last long after his death. The historian Michael Panaretos also passed away along with his lord, and the rest of his chronicle is unclear and laconic, so history of the 1390s and the 15th century is riddled with ambiguity.
Author’s artistic interpretation of Michael Panaretos, the Trapezuntine historian.
Regardless of what happened in Trebizond in the subsequent years, by the time someone left a clear account of the Empire again, it was during the reign of Alexios III’s son, Manuel III Megas Komnenos, in 1404, after Anatolia weathered first the lighnting expansion of the Ottoman Empire then the terrible wrath of Timur Beg. That year, the Spanish traveler Clavijo was on his way to the court of Timur, and passing by Trebizond, he describes the Empire: in the days of Manuel III, it has reduced greatly in size and influence, and the Emperor himself only retained control over a small portion of Pontos along the coast. Previous Trapezuntine cities, if not overrun by Turks, were property of regional Roman archontes, like the Kabazitai, who left an ugly impression on the Spaniard. Clavijo recalls with contempt how the Emperor’s escorts feared to accompany him beyond Palaiomatzouka, for in the south the Kabazitai reigned supreme. They held the great fortresses along the important Zigana Pass and the border, allowing them to extract high tolls to pass through their territory. This victim of Kabazitic abuse also relates how party politics became rampant again when Manuel III was opposed by his son Alexios IV and the aristocrats rallied around one or another, conducting a civil war in the capital just like the one in 1340 between the Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai, perhaps including nobles like the Kabazitai once more.
The rest of 15th century Trapezuntine history was not harmonious either, as Alexios IV got along even less with his son Ioannes IV Megas Komnenos than with his father Manuel III, and father and son waged war on each other. In 1429, the Kabazitai, who acted as Alexios IV’s bodyguards, betrayed their Emperor and let some men of Ioannes IV into his father’s tent, where they murdered the sleeping monarch rather than capture him like his son wished. Having failed to assassinate one Alexios, they succeeded in inadvertently abetting the assassins of another Alexios.
These complacent regicides continued their business as usual, occupying high posts in the administration and overlording key provinces of the Empire, thriving under the fragile imperial government that ruled Trebizond in its last decades. This insignificant family before 1340 had risen to the forefront of Trapezuntine history by the 15th century, profiting from the demise of the Tzanichitai, Scholarioi and other archontes under the victorious Alexios III to fill in their roles, especially from constructing their vital Chaldian power base; then, years later, undeterred from their failed regicidal attempt, again profiting from the decline of Alexios’ dynasty to climb ever higher, leaving later Emperors helpless against them. The long-term winner of the Trapezuntine Civil War, then, was the House of Kabazites, not Komnenos.
When the civil wars of the Late Republic ended, and Augustus emerged as the ultimate victor, the Polybian mixed constitution saw a severe curtailing of the power of the aristocratic element, the Senate, for the Populus, exhausted after a century of infighting between the elites of society, would prefer the barely disguised dictatorship of an imperator who could bring peace, to the endless bickering of 600 privileged old men and their feuding with talented generals. For the rest of Roman history, from Augustus onwards, the importance of Senate was in constant decline, and it completely disappeared, even as an honorary institution, in the Eastern Roman Empire by the 14th century. In Imperial Rome, a more direct relationship between the monarchical and democratic components of society was established, and it functioned incredibly well in a highly centralized Empire; this lasted until the end of Late Antiquity, when the Roman order collapsed.
The West, after the Fall of Rome and the rise of the barbarian kingdoms, yielded to feudalism, and powerful landowning lords, the new aristocracy, dominated their world. The East resisted this trend for much longer, due to the authority of Constantinople, but the rise of a new nobility, the dynatoi, took place all throughout the Middle Byzantine Period (mid 7th to mid 11th century). The emergence of these great families, the Doukai, Phokades, Komnenoi, Palaiologoi, etc., took centuries, but eventually the imperial reins were taken over by them, and imperial dynasties were their monopoly in Late Byzantium (12th to 15th century).
None contributed more to this shift than the Komnenoi. Alexios I Komnenos worked tirelessly to completely overhaul the old Roman administration, in shambles after the Battle of Manzikert. The imperial bureaucracy became staffed with the Emperor’s kin, and the aristocracy once more took ascendancy in the Roman world; the Senate withered, but the dynatoi flourished and took their place. Once more, the monarchical and democratic were faced with a potent aristocratic element that influenced the Roman Empire, and this time it stayed for good, like in the medieval West, after the breakdown of the central authority of the Komnenoi in the 1180s. There has been much debate as to whether the Eastern Empire ever feudalized, with scholars like Ostrogorsky championing the view that from the Komnenian Dynasty onwards it did, but in either case, it was evident that lords with land held considerable sway in the latest stage of the Empire.
The Palaiologoi, the last imperial dynasty in Constantinople, were able to rise to power in the first place through the widespread support of the nobility in the Empire of Nicaea, who became disillusioned with the Laskarid imperial dynasty and brutally murdered the guardian of young Emperor Ioannes IV Laskaris, putting Michael VIII Palaiologos in charge. Although Michael’s dynasty reigned for two centuries, they suffered their fair share of headache from those very nobles, who spurred the Palaiologoi on into several ruinous civil wars.
This was not a fate that the Megaloi Komnenoi, offspring of Alexios I Komnenos, could avoid. It seemed only natural that a cunning archontic family would profit considerably from their strife and prosper henceforth in Pontos.
Nancy Na is a bibliophile with a particular appreciation for Eurasian history and civilizations. Through her YouTube channel @Byzansimp, she presents all aspects of the medieval Roman Empire and Romanitas.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Polybius, in The Histories of Polybius, Vol. III of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923. Online access: Polybius • Histories — Book 6
Bessarion, Encomium to Trebizond, translated in Kennedy, S., Michaēl Panaretos, & Bēssariōn. (2019). Two works on Trebizond. Harvard University Press.
Michael Panaretos, Peri ton megalon Komnenon, in Kennedy, S., Michaēl Panaretos, & Bēssariōn (2019). Two works on Trebizond. Harvard University Press.
Konstantinos Loukites, Encomium to Alexios II Komnenos, in Κωνσταντίνου του πρωτονοταρίου και πρωτοβεστιαρίου του Λουκίτου επιτάφιον εις τον εν βασιλεύσιν αοίδιμον εκείνον και τρισμακάριστον κύριον Αλέξιον τον Κομνηνόν, Παπαδόπουλος-Κεραμεύς, Α. (1891), Ανάλεκτα Ιεροσολυμιτικής Σταχυολογίας Ι, St. Petersburg.
Andreas Libadenos, Periegesis, in Παρανικας, Μ. (1874), Συμβολη εἰς την του Ποντου ἱστοριαν, Ἀνδρεου Λιβαδηνου περιηγησις.
Joseph Lazaropoulos, Synopsis, translated in Rosenqvist, J. O. (1996). The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond in Codex Athous Dionysiou 154. Department of Classical Philology Uppsala University.
Nikephoros Gregoras, Romaike Historia, translated to Latin in Schopen, L. and Bekker, I. (1829-1830). Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn, ii.
Secondary sources:
Kaldellis, A. (2015). The Byzantine Republic : people and power in New Rome. Harvard University Press.
Shukurov, R. (1995). AlMA: the blood of the Grand Komnenoi. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 19(1).
Karpov, S. История Трапезундской империи, Серия Византийская библиотека.
Σαββίδης, Α. (2009). Ιστορία της αυτοκρατορίας των μεγάλων Κομνηνών της Τραπεζούντας (1204-1461).
Lymperopoulos, V. Ch. (1999). O βυζαντινός Πόντος-Η Αυτοκρατορία της Τραπεζούντας, 1204-1461. Ο χώρος, οι άνθρωποι, η οικονομία.
Bryer, A. (1984). The Faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi, in Maistor: Classical, Byzantine and Renaissance Studies for Robert Browning.
Bryer, A. (1975). Greeks and Turkmens: The Pontic Exception. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 29.
Charanis, P. (1973). Internal Strife in Byzantium during the Fourteenth Century, in Social, Economic and Political Life in the Byzantine Empire. Variorum Publishing.
For twenty years, medieval Trebizond was torn apart by assassinations, coups, and betrayals that set emperor against emperor. This little-known 14th-century civil war shows how chaos and ambition shaped one of the last outposts of Rome.
By Nancy Na
Oceans of ink had been spilled on the history of the Roman Republic. Idolized by the Western world as the epitome of a successful democracy founded on the rule of law, its rise and success fascinated political philosophers from Antiquity already; the universalist historian, Polybius, provided one of the most enduring explanations for the Republic’s ascendancy, in its mixed constitution, amalgamating the best aspects of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy:
The three kinds of government that I spoke of above all shared in the control of the Roman state. And such fairness and propriety in all respects was shown in the use of these three elements for drawing up the constitution and in its subsequent administration that it was impossible even for a native to pronounce with certainty whether the whole system was aristocratic, democratic, or monarchical. This was indeed only natural. For if one fixed one’s eyes on the power of the consuls, the constitution seemed completely monarchical and royal; if on that of the senate it seemed again to be aristocratic; and when one looked at the power of the masses, it seemed clearly to be a democracy.
Likewise, the subsequent Fall of the Roman Republic has received even more attention from intellectuals, both ancient and modern. It is easy to see why: the Late Republic was a tale of the dissolution of one of the most stable and effective systems of the ancient world through the personal ambitions and grievances of some of the most illustrious and ingenious Romans ever: Marius, Sulla, and the Triumvirs… a captivating era of history whose appeal is evident in how productions about it will never cease, whether in academia or popular media. And what most historians have concluded as its cause is that, Romans, victims of their own success and having no more major external enemies in the Mediterranean, turned against one another.
The civil wars, the culprit for the death of the Republic, not only did not stop in Rome’s imperial phase, but only redoubled in frequency and intensity to the extent that it had become a marker of Roman culture, persisting even when the Roman Empire’s hegemony was under threat from numerous crises in Late Antiquity. For the healthy competition of the Republic between Romans of means, outdoing each other in service to the state, had been replaced by a more violent form of contention in the imperial world, where the title of Emperor held ultimate sway and was desired by all. These civil wars may simply be seen as an alternative form of the Republican election in a now monarchical polity with the same political tradition of meritocracy, as proposed by Anthony Kaldellis in his book, The Byzantine Republic, when explaining the regularity of internal conflict in the Empire of the East, the continuation of Rome in an even more hazardous medieval world.
Having established the prevalence of civil warring in Roman political life, from the Fall of the Republic to the Fall of Constantinople, I invite the reader now to discover perhaps the least known of all civil wars, in perhaps the least known of all Roman successor states: a two decade period of strife in the northeasternmost corner of the Roman world during the mid-14th century, which I would call the “Trapezuntine Twenty Years’ Anarchy” for the lack of a better term.
The Empire of Trebizond (1204-1461) was set up by the Megaloi Komnenoi, the offshoot of the original Komnenian Roman imperial Dynasty (1081-1185) after the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. In the tumultuous world of the Late Middle Ages, this little Empire did surprisingly well, outlasting even the Queen of Cities, not surrendering to the Ottomans until eight years after 1453. Although its longevity may be largely credited to the flexibility of the Trapezuntine regime, the Megaloi Komnenoi proved to be remarkably faithful to the Constantinopolitan imperial heritage of their Komnenian ancestors and Roman tradition; the most concentrated period of examples, for which it is most convenient to conduct a close study, is precisely this Trapezuntine Civil War, through an analysis of which the politics and society of Trebizond would be brought to light.
Prelude
Ἐνιαυτοὶ γὰρ ἤδη πρὸς τοῖς πεντακοσίοις παρω ήκεσαν χίλιοι Ρωμαίοις ὑποταγείσης, καὶ πολλὰ μὲν ἔφυσαν ἐν τῷ μέσῳ … καὶ ὅμως ἄτρεπτος ἡ πόλις ἡμῖν οὖσα διαμένει καὶ ἀμετάβλητος, οὓς ἡγεμόνας εἵλετο στέργουσα καὶ τὴν γιγνομένην αὐτοῖς ἀποδιδοῦσα πειθώ.
For although nearly one thousand five hundred years have passed since our city submitted to the Romans, and many things have arisen during this time and even more passed away … nevertheless, our city remains unshakeable and unchangeable, loving the masters whom it chose for itself and rendering them their due obedience. ~ Bessarion of Trebizond, Encomium, on the Roman history of Trebizond
When Bessarion, the future Renaissance Cardinal who almost attained the throne of St Peter, reflected upon his native Trebizond in the 1430s, he realized that the city had been continuously faithful to Roman tradition for a millennium and a half. Since Pompey the Great’s conquest of Pontos until his day, there had not been a day when Trebizond was not lorded over by Romans. A less eye-catching conquest of the Late Republic compared to Gaul or Egypt, Caesar could not overshadow his fellow triumvir forever, not in the accomplishment of durability. For, as Bessarion claims in the 15th century:
In previous times, dictators, consuls, the senate, and generals led and directed the Roman state; afterward, a monarch took control and passed down to posterity the imperial regime. This form of government has been that preferred by the Roman people and their subjects to this day, even though the imperial capital moved to Byzantion and the eastern half of the empire.
Neither regime changes, nor the tides of history, ever wavered the Trapezuntines’ devotion to Rome. The Eternal Empire proved to be less perpetual than it boasted; already in Antiquity the West was forever lost to Rome, and while the East defiantly withstood the test of time, its cities were all wrested from Roman hands at one point or another. Not even the mighty Queen of Cities, Constantinople, managed to evade the Crusaders’ ravishment and domination… the only exception was Trebizond and its environs. Its unique geography and citizens formed a special pocket of resistance that fended off not only the flooding of Turks into Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert, but also the Latin partition of the Roman world after the Fourth Crusade.
The Romanitas of Trebizond thrived despite these challenges. The Sack of Constantinople sent Romans seeking refuge in all other parts of their Empire in 1204, and one of those regional centers was Trebizond, taken over by the brothers Alexios I and David Megas Komnenos, grandsons of the last Komnenian Emperor to have ruled in Constantinople, Andronikos I. These Emperors of Trebizond claimed to not only be upholding Roman imperial tradition, but also planned to reclaim the City, the seat of their forefathers.
Circumstance, however, halted their advance, and the Megaloi Komnenoi were confined to merely their holdings around Trebizond while the Palaiologoi in Nicaea recaptured Constantine’s City in 1261. Now transformed into regional hegemons, the Trapezuntine Komnenian Dynasty of the late 13th and early 14th century adapted to their situation and set out to preserve the realm left to them; in time they proved to be not just outstanding custodians of the Roman Pontos, but also innovative and flexible rulers that made their statelet flourish. Especially under Alexios II Megas Komnenos (1297-1330), it could be said that Trebizond reached its apogee: it was an Empire wealthy from Silk Road commercial profit, adorned with the most magnificent churches and monasteries, properly defended by their energetic Emperor and impenetrable mountains, with a rising Academy of Trebizond that attracted intellectuals all over to come learn astronomy……
And everything seemed to be going so well, until a century before Bessarion lifted his plume to extol the virtues of his fatherland for posterity: A civil war broke out.
By the Empire of Trebizond, the Roman constitution praised by Polybius had long changed form: the dual consuls have been replaced by the ruling Megas Komnenos Dynasty, the Senate by the Trapezuntine archontes, but the Roman Populus remained the Roman Populus, and continued to uphold Roman political tradition, even after 1500 years. Harmonious cooperation between the monarchical, aristocratic and democratic elements would still produce results akin to the ideal constitution before: the Emperor issuing decrees and commanding the military, the archontes serving in the bureaucracy and addressing their regional concerns, the people approving or condemning the conduct of their superiors; but their dysfunction led to discord.
The Emperor relied heavily on the support of the people and the loyalty of his archontes, and an example of one who lacked both would be Georgios Megas Komnenos (1266-1280), uncle of Alexios II. An ambitious autocrat with grand designs that didn’t sit well with his Empire, Georgios was deposed when the archontes betrayed him to his Mongol overlord Abaqa Khan in a faraway location, and when he attempted to regain his throne with a foreign army, the people of Trebizond repelled him from their gates, showing their preference for the new Emperor, Alexios II’s father Ioannes II Megas Komnenos. Georgios, nicknamed the “Wanderer” by his own subjects, exemplified this dysfunction; but since his rivalry with the archontes and the populace did not take place within the capital city, these struggles ended relatively quickly and bloodlessly. This would not be the case if Trebizond itself became the battlefield of these three classes.
The First Decade (1330-1340)
Ημέτερος ἥλιος ὑπὸ γῆν, καὶ σκότους ἡμεῖς εὐθέως ἀνάμεστοι· τὸ ἡμέτερον ἔδυ φῶς καὶ ζόφωσις ἡμᾶς εὐθὺς καὶ γνόφος ἐκάλυψεν, ὁ φαίνων λύχνος ἀπέσβυστο καὶ ὠδῖνες θανάτου παραυτίκα καὶ χείμαρροι πικρίας ἡμᾶς ἐξετάραξαν.
Our sun is under the earth, and we are immediately mixed with darkness; our light has set and darkness has straightaway covered us, the shining lamp has been extinguished, and the pains of death have dawned upon us immediately, and torrents of bitterness have disturbed us. ~ Konstantinos Loukites, Encomium to Alexios II, on the death of Alexios II which unleashed the following civil war
Alexios II the Great Komnenos died suddenly from bubonic plague in 1330 and left his throne to his son, Andronikos III Megas Komnenos, a ruler unkeen on sharing power. As Alexios II was a model Komnenian Emperor, he sired a swarm of children, and out of his six descendants, four were male. Michael “Azachoutlou” and Georgios “Achpougas” Megas Komnenos were two of Alexios’ sons who were unfortunate enough to be in the Trapezuntine capital with Andronikos, and they perished by their jealous brother’s whims. Unbeknownst to him, in rediscovering the timeless Ancient Roman tradition of fratricide, Andronikos would unleash another Classical Roman plague: civil war, and of a much more brutal caliber than that of their Palaiologan contemporaries to the west, who were learning to act ever more humanely.
Andronikos was repaid in kind by fate, and he ruled just a bit over a year before dying in early 1332, acceded by his young son Manuel II Megas Komnenos, an eight-year-old boy who reigned for only eight months, for the sins of his father tarnished his reputation among the people. Not even the success of Manuel’s military against the Turks of Chalybia could save him from the gruesome coup about to take place, as Andronikos failed to assassinate his last brother, a loose end residing in distant Constantinople named Basileios Megas Komnenos.
The final son of Alexios II was invited to return home and seize power, and he usurped from his nephew, then purged the palace of the boy’s supporters, the megas doux (admiral of the imperial fleet) Lekes Tzatzintzaios and his family, in the most sanguine fashion: the new Emperor ordered the megas doux and his son, the megas domestikos (commander-in-chief) Tzambas, to be executed, while his wife Syrikaina was stoned to death. The replacement for Tzatzintzaios was Ioannes the Eunuch, who Basileios trusted to be his loyal megas doux, but instead raised the flag of revolt on behalf of the helpless Manuel in 1333. To tackle the problem, Basileios applied the brutally direct solution of his late brother Andronikos: he simply murdered his hitherto imprisoned nephew.
To maintain legitimacy after shedding so much Roman blood, Basileios turned to the sovereign of Constantinople (and nominally the whole Roman world) Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, who sent his illegitimate daughter Eirene Palaiologina to wed the Emperor of Trebizond in 1334, but in the coming years his popularity did not surge as he wished, rather plummeted. His ruthless political persecution, kinslaying, exacerbated by a recent Turkic raid that came dangerously close to the imperial capital in 1335, caused widespread discontent among the Trapezuntine populace, who demonstrated their dissatisfaction by pelting stones at their Emperor on the occasion of a solar eclipse during Lent 1336. For the subjects of the Komnenian Empire, to whom astronomy was almost a national science, this portent was none other than a sign of divine displeasure. In the same year, the stargazing Trapezuntines produced a horoscope, which grimly predicted rebellions of the grandees, further restlessness from the people and disobedience of the army.
And yet, perhaps not all was against Basileios? Since astronomy was a study in which Trebizond surpassed Constantinople considerably, there was a great influx of Constantinopolitan scholars into Pontos, eager to learn from the renowned Academy of Trebizond. One of them was the distinguished author, Andreas Libadenos, who arrived in Trebizond around 1336. In his most famous work, his Periegesis, an account detailing his travels and impressions across the Eastern Mediterranean, he refers to Basileios as “everlastingly remembered (ἀειμνήστου)” and generally writes of this Emperor with a positive outlook.
Perhaps this is an early showing of how those aligned with Constantinople would support a Constantinople-backed Emperor, as was later developed in the civil war, but a more plausible explanation could simply be that the political climate of the Trapezuntine Twenty Years’ Anarchy period was unsuitable for honest assessments from its intellectuals. Michael Panaretos, the Trapezuntine historian who sourced much of the narration today, is neutral towards Basileios in his chronicle, and Libadenos, who witnessed the unfolding of the pending chaos firsthand, also left much unsaid. Both later served a new master, the eventual victor of the civil war, Alexios III, son of Basileios. It would be unwise to heap criticism upon the father of their current lord, whose very birth was also a topic of controversy.
The future Alexios III was born with the name Ioannes in 1338, as the second son of Basileios, but not of Empress Eirene Palaiologina, no. He and his elder brother, confusingly named Alexios before Ioannes-Alexios III later took the name, were born to the Emperor by his mistress, lady Eirene of Trebizond. The following year, Basileios even married the Trapezuntine Eirene while still legally bound to the Palaiologan Eirene, becoming the only bigamous Roman Emperor in history. Although tacitly allowed by the clergy of Trebizond, the Patriarch of Constantinople objected to the mistreatment of the legitimate Empress Palaiologina. Then in 1340, Basileios died suddenly, leaving his succession unclear. The factionalism brewing at Trebizond for years now finally burst out, leading to a full scale civil war involving most of Trapezuntine society from 1340 until the triumph of Alexios III a decade later.
In the words of Andreas Libadenos, whose Constantinopolitan connections brought upon him much misfortune for the next few years when more local-leaning parties were ascendant:
approaching the terrible end of the Basileios Komnenos, as if some swirl of misfortunes and calamities descended upon us with the terrible plagues of the Egyptians…For now that he has departed to God, the terrible things of evils have been unleashed upon us…
The Archontes of Trebizond
οἱ ἐν τέλει πρὸς ταραχὰς ὥρμησαν. Οἳ καὶ ἀλλήλων διαιρεθέντες, οἱ μὲν ̓Αμιντζανταράνται ἐλέγοντο, οἱ δὲ Σχολαράνται·
…the leading officials started an upheaval. Of those who were splitting between themselves one party was called Amyntzantarantai, the other Scholarantai. ~ Joseph Lazaropoulos, Metropolitan of Trebizond, Synopsis
Immediately after the Emperor’s death, Empress Eirene Palaiologina seized power with her supporters and banished Eirene of Trebizond with her children. Our chronicler Panaretos proceeds to introduce the civil war’s main players; I will endeavor to acquaint the reader with some basic scholarship on each of the families/parties in the order that is related in Panaretos’ history, for I find that subsequent interpretations in modern historiography concerning the civil war have been too reliant on the explication given by J.P. Fallmerayer, a reading done in 1827 which assumes abounding bipolarity and simplicity in a society as colorful as Trebizond’s.
For context, Fallmerayer originally conjectures that the Trapezuntine nobility formed two distinct camps after the death of Basileios, which he terms the “Scholarioi” and “Mesochaldaioi” (interchangeable with “Amytzantarantai”, a name more faithful to Trapezuntine accounts); the former being the pro-Constantinople party led by the Scholarioi, thought by the German scholar to have been descendants of the Scholae Palatinae palace guard founded by Constantine the Great, and the latter the coalition of local and provincial aristocrats from the inland regions of the Empire (Chaldia), comprised mainly of those non-Greek citizens: Laz, Armenians, Turks, etc. However, as history will show, even if two parties did exist with such names, their interests and alliances in the civil war were far from fixed, so while Fallmerayer’s classification of the Trapezuntines into two general leanings (center-periphery) is helpful, it is not definite.
The reader might be reminded of the Optimates-Populares controversy in Republican historiography, which another influential 19th century German polymath, Theodor Mommsen, popularized in his seminal work, Römische Geschichte. While Cicero and other Roman authors wrote of Optimates and Populares as two overall aristocratic ideological camps, one side emphasizing the legitimacy of the Senate and the other the will of the Populus, Mommsen overinterpreted them as distinctly formed political parties like the conservatives and liberals of his own 1850s.
Returning to Panaretos, he describes the belligerents thus:
The archontes immediately rebelled and split into two factions. Tzanichites, lord Sebastos the chief quartermaster, along with the Scholarioi, the Meizomatai, lord Constantine Doranites, the Kabazitai, Kamachenos, some of the people, and some of the palace guards seized the monastery of Saint Eugenios, while the Amytzantarantai, some of the archontes, and some of the imperial guards seized the citadel with the empress.
The Tzanichitai seemed to be one of the oldest, wealthiest and most powerful clans of the Empire of Trebizond, their earliest known mention dating to an inscription from 1305 (or even as distant as 1204, the founding of the Empire, according to previous scholarship). They were landowners who held the mighty fortress of Tzanicha (modern day Canca) and may be related to the Tzan minority of the Empire. This megas stratopedarches Sebastos Tzanichites became the first leader of the pro-Constantinople alliance, opposing Empress Palaiologina out of loyalty to the deceased Emperor Basileios. Several more of his family: Stephanos, Michael and Ioannes Tzanichites would appear over the course of the civil war, although never as prominently again, as it seems Sebastos’ failure, capture and execution in 1341 led to a demise of their family fortune.
The Scholarioi, the eponymous group which Fallmerayer used to name the whole of the pro-Constantinople faction, seemed to have taken the leadership role next. But as to the nature of the Scholarioi, scholars are still puzzled. Were they a guard faction, like the Scholae Palatinae? Or just a family? “Scholares” was certainly a common surname in the late Byzantine world, borne by the most notorious partisan of the Scholarioi and the whole civil war, Niketas Scholares; but other than this eminent schemer who seemed to dictate the direction of the whole 1340s, only three more scions of the family were known at all: a son of Niketas who aided his father near the end of the civil war, a Georgios Scholares who played a minor role during a short relapse of aristocratic insurgency in 1363, and an Amirialis Scholares from a much later period.
As Bryer demonstrates that the Scholarioi should not have been affiliated with the Scholae Palatinae as Fallmerayer suggests, and as the family shows little importance after the downfall of Niketas Scholares, I would say the naming of the pro-Constantinople party by both medieval Roman sources and Fallmerayer reveals not the prevalence of a certain imperial guard unit or any other profession within the party, but rather the personal ability and charisma of Niketas Scholares alone, who carried the Scholarioi forward with exceeding zeal, giving historians a handy label for all who shared this ideology.
The Meizomatai were some of the chief supporters of the Scholarioi and Niketas Scholares. The only two named Meizomatai, Gregorios and Michael Meizomates, closely cooperated with Scholares to install the two puppet Emperors Michael and Ioannes III Megas Komnenos in the early 1340s, being greatly rewarded for their efforts when the Scholarioi took absolute control. Gregorios was honored as megas stratopedarches while Michael became amyrtzantarios, which was just the Trapezuntine take on the Byzantine office of protospatharios (chief bodyguard). It seems, however, that the loyalty to Scholares was not long lasting, for in 1355 one of the Meizomatai and some of Niketas’ trusted associates captured him for the Emperor Alexios III, ending the civil war, after which reference to this family was scarce.
The Doranitai, another powerful household, was not so active in the earliest stages of the civil war. Its first known member, Konstantinos Doranites, followed the most basic Scholarian trajectory: participate in the coup against Palaiologina, install Michael and Ioannes III to the throne, and be honored with a high court title (protovestiarios). Once Konstantinos’ more memorable brother, Theodoros “Pileles” Doranites, joined the scene, though, the Doranitai energetically attempted to seize power, rebelling openly against the government of Alexios III and his kingmaker Niketas Scholares, from 1350 until 1352 when Pileles’ family was strangled.
The Kabazitai would appear to be the family which benefited the most from the civil war and the downfall of the other Scholarioi. A Leon and Ioannes Kabazites were known to have fought on the pro-Constantinople side during the civil strife, but later, a different Ioannes Kabazites was the doux of Chaldia, deep inland. The whole power base of the Kabazitai became associated with the perilous southern borderlands of the Empire, perhaps resulting from the power vacuum left by the now downtrodden Tzanichitai. Although now castle lords whose main duty was the defense of Trebizond from the Turks, the Kabazitai still frequently politicked and extorted travelers passing through their domain; the details of their subsequent nefarious deeds will be revealed later. Their reputation was not the highest in the Trebizond, though the clan’s longevity though could not be disputed, as they were recorded all throughout the 15th century, even after the Fall.
Only a single Kamachenos was known to have been involved in the civil war, and he was the unnamed Kamachenos recorded by Panaretos above. Although politically insignificant, socially they were not, and other sources, such as the Acts of Vazelon Monastery, reveal that the Kamachenoi were first and foremost landowning aristocrats, more concerned with attending to and acquiring property than the affairs of state. Their assets and transactions were many, however they don’t seem to be attested anymore after the coup of 1340.
The Amytzantarantai are a real mystery, the best accurate description I can give of them is simply “the party opposing the Scholarioi”. Their nature is more ambiguous than their rival faction, and many have speculated whether they were an archontic family, a profession, a social or ethnic group. To start with the facts, the term “amytzantarantai” seems to be related to the nearly identical word amyrtzantarios, the court title given to Michael Meizomates. It is literally the local fashion of calling the protospatharios, deriving from the old Seljuq Turkish title emir candar. That, coupled with the “-antai” suffix, which in the Pontic Greek dialect refers to the totality of a family or profession or any other grouping, would mean the Amytzantarantai in its most barebone sense, means the ensemble of the protospatharioi of Trebizond?
It is tempting to describe the Amytzantarantai as “the provincial party of local ethnic minorities” but Fallmerayer’s interpretation does not really account for the fact that they debuted as the ardent protectors of Empress Eirene Palaiologina, a lady representing Constantinopolitan legitimacy at its finest, before lending their support to Palaiologina’s rival, the clearly attested championess of the Pontic provincials, Empress Anna Megale Komnene. One suggested workaround is that the Amytzantarantai simply took the citadel of Trebizond and the Empress in it as a hostage, fighting their own war with the Scholarioi. But it should also be questioned why the supposedly pro-Constantinople Scholarioi would be led by Sebastos Tzanichites, a Chaldian castle lord who was very likely of minority origin, against a Palaiologina? With no answers to offer, I could only now advance the narrative and demonstrate that the general Constantinople-inner Trebizond opposition only started clarifying in the second stage of the civil war.
The Second Decade (1340-1350)
Τίς τοίνυν ἑώρακε τῶν ἀστικῶν καὶ ἐπηλύδων τότε τὸν ἐμφύλιον πόλεμον καὶ ἀδακρυτὶ παρῆλθε τὴν ἀνάγκην τοῦ πτώματος;
Who among the citizens and the foreigners then has witnessed this civil war and passed by the cadaverous calamity without tears? ~ Andreas Libadenos, Periegesis
Palaiologina and the Amytzantarantai struggled to hold onto the citadel against the assailments of Sebastos Tzanichites and the Scholarioi, but surprise salvation came upon them in the form of Ioannes the Eunuch, the megas doux who rebelled against Basileios before. The fleet sailed from their base in Limnia to Trebizond and set Saint Eugenios Monastery aflame, driving out the Scholarioi. Palaiologina banished Sebastos and his followers to Limnia, where they were later executed, but in 1341 she received the grim tidings of her father Andronikos III Palaiologos’ passing; this means the support she hoped for from Constantinople would not arrive. One month later, more calamities befell the Romans, as the Turks of Aq Qoyunlu took advantage of the chaos of civil war to plunder the capital of Trebizond itself, burning everything and everyone so intensely that the charred remains of the Trapezuntines caused an epidemic. Palaiologina’s public support was at an all-time low.
Anna “Anachoutlou” Megale Komnene, the eldest daughter of Alexios II, previously a nun, left her convent to make a bid for her father’s throne. She went through Lazia, the easternmost province of the Empire, where she secured the support of the Laz people and formed a personal army composed of them. Together, they marched on Trebizond, where the people needed no extra incentive to depose their unpopular Constantinopolitan Empress and welcome back an Empress of their beloved Komnenian dynasty.
However, another Komnenos soon made his way to Trebizond too: this was Michael Megas Komnenos, the younger brother of Alexios II, sent by the new Emperor in Constantinople, Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos, to marry Palaiologina and help her rule. Niketas Scholares and Gregorios Meizomates accompanied Michael to Trebizond, where the Scholarioi swore to serve their Emperor, but later regretted choosing such a mature and unmanipulable old man as their puppet, so they imprisoned him. Empress Anna’s Laz army then seized Michael’s ships and shot many of his supporters dead. After repelling a new Aq Qoyunlu attack, Anachoutlou expelled the Constantinopolitan pretenders, sending her uncle Michael first to Oinaion, then to Ioannes the Eunuch in Limnia for safekeeping, and Eirene Palaiologina was shipped back to Constantinople.
The Scholarioi, including Scholares, Meizomates and Konstantinos Doranites, fled the scene on a Venetian galley, and returned to Trebizond in 1342 with a new puppet, the son of Michael, Ioannes III Komnenos. With three Genoese ships and one of their own, the Scholarioi stormed Trebizond and crowned Ioannes III, then exacted their bloody revenge. The Amytzantarantai suffered a purge, and Empress Anna Anachoutlou was strangled to death, along with Lady Sargale, the mother of an important nobleman. After the Scholarian lust for vengeance was satiated, they realized their protégé was not as compliant as they thought, so they decided to replace him with his father Michael again. After Michael’s jailor, Ioannes the Eunuch, died in 1344, Scholares fetched the old Emperor and deposed Ioannes III, who reigned for just a year.
Emperor Michael Megas Komnenos reigned once more, but merely posed as a front for the ascendant Scholarioi, who ruled de facto and divided the government among themselves: Scholares became megas doux, Gregorios Meizomates the megas stratopedarches, Leon Kabazites megas domestikos, Konstantinos Doranites protovestiarios, Michael Meizomates amyrtzantarios, etc. However, the Scholarian Oligarchy also lasted for only one year, as Michael regained control of his state and arrested them all in 1345, then he sent his deposed son to Constantinople to avoid further trouble. Now truly in power, Emperor Michael came to the realization that as sole ruler, he simply lacked the capability that Niketas Scholares possessed to manage the state.
In the following years, the crucial port cities of the Empire, from Oinaion to Kerasous, suffered incessant assault from the Turks and especially the Genoese of Caffa, not to mention how the latter also spread the Black Death to Trebizond. Sickly, feeble and old, Michael was compelled to release Scholares from prison in 1349, after concluding a humiliating peace treaty with Genoa. Thus, the kingmaker returned to the political stage with his old post, and a new marriage alliance with the Sampson family; he was more dominant than ever, and little time passed before he unmade Michael, forcing the abdication of the stubborn geriatric sovereign who once defied him.
The Triumph of Alexios III and the imperial court (1350-1355)
Αρξει δὲ Τραπεζοῦντος ̓Αλέξιος ὁ τοῦ ̓Αλεξίου ἔγγονος τοῦ μεγάλου Κομνηνού.
Alexios, descendant of the Grand Komnenos Alexios, will reign over Trebizond. ~ A vision of Eugenios, patron saint of Trebizond, in Lazaropoulos’ Synopsis
Meanwhile in Constantinople, Emperor Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos had a change of heart concerning his selection of the Emperor in Trebizond. Seeing that Michael Megas Komnenos was “unduly blunt and frivolous and also old and childless”, he resolved to send another candidate back to Trebizond. Under his care were Basileios’ other wife, Eirene of Trebizond, and her children. The young Ioannes-Alexios III Megas Komnenos seemed a good fit, so he was officially renamed Alexios after his illustrious grandfather, Alexios II, and promptly sent home under the charge of Joseph Lazaropoulos, a rising Trapezuntine churchman. With assurances from St Eugenios of Trebizond of a safe journey home even in winter, Lazaropoulos’ entourage sailed hastily to the Trapezuntine capital and Alexios arrived in December 1349.
The Scholarioi were searching for a new imperial puppet, obedient and young, for themselves, and Alexios appeared to be the solution. Michael, after years of misgovernance, was forced to abdicate under the combined efforts of the Scholarioi and pressure from the populace. Alexios III was proclaimed Emperor of Trebizond, and crowned in St Eugenios Church, on St Eugenios’ feast day (January 21), in 1350. The young Emperor was destined to not reign in tranquility.
The archontes of Trebizond were once more plotting, notably the family of Doranites. Theodoros “Pileles” Doranites, and his brother Konstantinos, the protovestiarios, were all arrested for this, but later, in 1351, the new protovestiarios Leon Kabazites was also arrested on some charges and Pileles took his place. Now there was a serious first fissure in the Scholarian camp, vengeful Pileles was not going to forget that the steering hand behind the throne, Niketas Scholares, imprisoned him. He took his revenge by seizing the palace and arresting the kingmaker, but people in Trebizond had enough of Pileles’ conspiracies that they rose up and banished his family to Kenchrina. Alexios was evidently traumatized by his capital’s insecurity and took refuge in Tripolis, a city that his great-grandfather once sheltered in while he faced usurpers. While he hid out in the safety of Tripolis, he also planned his counter, and to sure up his position he first married Theodora Kantakouzene, a relative of the Emperor Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos.
Then he began to deal with the opposition. He and his mother, along with Michael Panaretos, the historian participating in history-making for the first time now as Alexios’ loyal protosebastos and protonotarios, marched against the revolting Konstantinos Doranites, who was now governor of Limnia. The imperial trio returned three months later, presumably succeeding in pacifying the province. In 1352, the pinkernes Ioannes Tzanichites rebelled and took his ancestral castle of Tzanicha, hoping to revive the fortune of the Tzanichitai, but peace was quickly restored once Alexios went there with his mother. Later, the troublesome Pileles and his family were strangled in Kenchrina, and while his opposants dropped like flies, Alexios innovated strategies to secure more allies. He sent his sister Maria Megale Komnene to marry Kutlu Beg of the Aq Qoyunlu. Constituting the first recorded case of a marriage alliance between a gorgeous Komnenian princess and a Turcomen emir of Eastern Anatolia.
Just when the advent of peace seemed so imminent, the scheming Niketas Scholares was exiled to Kerasous and reignited the sparks of civil conflict in 1354. He equipped a small fleet with his son and the protovestiarios, Basileios Choupakas, to assault Trebizond in 1355, but he figured that the odds were against them and retreated after much negotiation with the imperial government. Alexios in turn led his own navy to seize Kerasous. Scholares was away in Kenchrina and the Emperor easily returned the city back to the imperial fold. Then, combining maritime and siege warfare, Alexios blockaded Kenchrina with his cavalry. Soon, the Scholarian loyalist city of Kenchrina submitted, but Scholares and his party holed inside and Alexios couldn’t do anything about it for now.
Elsewhere, other dissidents arose: the doux of Chaldia, Ioannes Kabazites, took over Cheriana and ex-Emperor Michael Megas Komnenos made an advance as far as Soulchation. However, none of their efforts achieved anything, and the civil war finally ended in October; Alexios’ generals, Meizomates and Sampson, perhaps the very Gregorios Meizomates and Michael Sampson who once were Niketas’ closest ally and father-in-law, marched against Kenchrina and dragged Scholares out. Peace was restored to the Empire of Trebizond, at last.
Reevaluation
…ὑπὸ τὸν ἀπίστον τῶν ἀρχόντων αὐτοῦ Καβαζίταν καὶ τὸν Σχουλαριώτων…
…his archontes the faithless Kabazitai and Scholarioi… ~ 15th century Trapezuntine obit
By 1355, Alexios III Megas Komnenos had restored the tranquility and prosperity that governed Trebizond in the age of his grandfather Alexios II Megas Komnenos, and opened a new era for the Komnenian Dynasty despite innumerable obstacles like his great great great grandfather Alexios I Megas Komnenos; he could now rest easy on his laurels. Or could he?
Glancing at later Trapezuntine history in the 15th century, we would notice that the Komnenoi reigned without challenge, they were the sole legitimate monarchs of Pontos, and no one dared to dream of replacing them, heirs of the original Komnenian Dynasty of Constantinople. In the 1430s, Bessarion of Trebizond had to again reiterate that the Komnenoi and Megaloi Komnenoi were in perfect continuity, and how spectacular the achievement of maintaining four centuries of sovereignty over the same people was. In his words:
The fact that the Komnenos family and their descendants have already ruled us for so long and so many of them have succeeded each other is a unique characteristic and without parallel… In every other land and city, once a family of rulers has continued for four or five generations they are succeeded by another family. The same happens to the latter in turn and they pass their power on to yet others, and so it always is. It is impossible to find a family of rulers, tyrants, or emperors that has remained in power forever. But our masters and emperors have done well even in this respect and have surpassed the others. Once they took possession of this land and ascended this throne, neither time, nor fortune, nor a change of circumstances has swept them away. Instead, as if they were immortal rulers, the members of this same family and its bloodline have continued to reign perpetually over us.
So it appears that the victory of the Megaloi Komnenoi over their archontes was complete, as shown by this feat… however, it must be considered that this was always the status quo, even before and after the civil war. This dynasty had become the byword for imperial legitimacy in Pontos; as “Caesar” and “Augustus”, the names of individuals like Julius and Octavian, had evolved into titles of the highest esteem due to the prestige of its original bearer, so too has “Megas Komnenos” transformed into a name for a leadership role in the Pontic region.
Even in Constantinople, it was common knowledge that, in the words of historian Nikephoros Gregoras, there was an “inviolable law” that none but a Komnenos shall be accepted by the people of Trebizond to govern them; thus, Kantakouzenos has never sent anyone who was not a Komnenos as his approved candidate to the throne. When the son of Emperor Ioannes V Palaiologos, Michael, attempted to usurp the Trapezuntine throne from Alexios III in 1376, no military action was required before the pretender realized his attempt could never succeed.
The Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai also never attempted to usurp the purple for one of their own, and merely sought to install and manipulate a Komnenos/Komnene who shared their own ideologies and furthered their interests. They perfectly understood in their hearts that none of them possessed the required imperial legitimacy, so that even if they, the aristocracy, could subdue the monarch, the Populus would never accept them and overwhelm them. This wasn’t just another petty power grab by the grandees of the realm against their liege lord, while the people below suffer and watch on the side, so prevalent in other medieval societies. As stated already, the popular element of Trapezuntine society was dominating, as the Roman Populus in any previous era was. All the three classes were actively involved in the civil conflict.
Some examples of the crucial role the people played:
It may be observed that the people were in 1341 anti-Scholarioi; in 1342 anti-Amytzantarantai; in 1351 pro-Scholarioi… A difference between the Byzantine populus in Constantinople and Thessaloniki during the contemporary Second Palaiologan Civil War, and the Pontic Populus in the Trapezuntine Civil War, is that while the Byzantines showed their discontent towards their corrupt nobles by supporting their monarch of choice, Ioannes V Palaiologos, and opposing the aristocratic champion, Ioannes VI Kantakouzenos, the Trapezuntines did not rally into the archontic alliances of Scholarioi or Amytzantarantai; rather, they acted in their own interests. Their actions were at times beneficial for one faction, other times detrimental, constituting something of a “third party” like the triangle Polybius described. Peter Charanis proposes that the people were actually on the side of a strong central imperial government, their only refuge from the oppressive lords, both Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai. Yet if this were true, it would be difficult to explain why the people violently assaulted an Emperor that held together the realm with effective if somewhat questionable authority in 1336, risking destabilization of the Empire.
It is my view, then, that the people were in support of not only someone with Komnenian imperial legitimacy and the capacity to govern a diverse state, but also a ruler whose behavior was acceptable and accountable to them. Not only did they have qualms with the aristocracy, but also with the imperial government. Their preferred candidate in the end was Alexios III Megas Komnenos, but they did not hesitate to threaten their champion with the possibility of rioting should he make overly rash decisions, as they demonstrated in 1362 when the Emperor considered making a marriage alliance so hastily between the Emir of Limnia and his daughter.
And yet, upon closer inspection of 15th century Trapezuntine history, after the reign of Alexios III, there is diminishing of both popular participation and the projected imperial authority. Polybius’ opinion on the Roman Republican system has sometimes been accused of deliberate distortion, aggrandizing the role of the consuls and the populace in respect to that of the true powerhouse, the Senate, in order to paint a more balanced triad. Due to the prominence of the senators and archontes in both late Republican and Trapezuntine contexts, a final inspection of the aristocratic class and their story is now due as a concluding remark.
Niketas Scholares languished in custody, and that daring kingmaker died along with his endless schemes in 1361. By then, young Alexios had established himself on the throne, familiarized himself with the duties of an Emperor and began constructing his own grand dynasty. Relieved, but also deeply grieved by the passing of Scholares, who despite his conniving was a competent administrator of the Empire and raised Alexios to the imperial dignity in the first place, the grateful protégé personally led a funeral procession for Niketas in white robes of mourning. Yet the sense of security gained from the passing of Scholares was false.
In 1362, ex-Emperor Ioannes III Megas Komnenos also attempted a coup like his father Michael, but also failed and escaped to Genoese lands, never heard of again. The pitiful endeavor was not a cause of much concern, but an event the following year was. In 1363, while Emperor Alexios was sitting by St Gregorios River, he suffered an attack on his life under broad daylight; the would-be assassins were various members of the Kabazites family and Georgios Scholares, a relative of the late Niketas. Alexios turned heels and fled into the safety of his citadel, while the conspirators pursued him all the way until they realized their cause was doomed. The Kabazitai were arrested, Georgios fled to Amisos and was only allowed to return home with the mediation of a Genoese. Further investigation from the Emperor revealed the complicity of the Metropolitan of Trebizond, Niphon, in the conspiracy, so he was exiled and Alexios’ supporter Joseph Lazaropoulos was elected as the succeeding Metropolitan.
The reason for this failed takeover is unclear, perhaps it was related to Alexios’ dismissal of Ioannes Kabazites from his post as the doux of Chaldia in 1360, or simply the Kabazitai and Georgios Scholares were under the impression that there was still a window of opportunity to make a power grab before young Alexios firmly reinforces his imperial legitimacy. In any case, having experienced his share of trauma from civil discord, the policies of Alexios in his later reign were designed to curtail the influence of the Trapezuntine archontes and prevent such blatant affronts to imperial authority once more.
A combination of “carrot and stick” ensured his success: there were open rehabilitations with certain families, like the Doranitai, and Alexios’ commitment to personally involving himself in every affair of the Empire, from military to religious, limited the impact of grandees who usually occupied themselves with these matters. The Emperor’s strategies proved to be effective, and no more insurrections were known in his lifetime; he gained the acceptance and devotion of all Trapezuntine society by the end of his long and fruitful reign in 1390.
Regrettably, that stalwart central authority that Alexios III strived relentlessly for didn’t last long after his death. The historian Michael Panaretos also passed away along with his lord, and the rest of his chronicle is unclear and laconic, so history of the 1390s and the 15th century is riddled with ambiguity.
Regardless of what happened in Trebizond in the subsequent years, by the time someone left a clear account of the Empire again, it was during the reign of Alexios III’s son, Manuel III Megas Komnenos, in 1404, after Anatolia weathered first the lighnting expansion of the Ottoman Empire then the terrible wrath of Timur Beg. That year, the Spanish traveler Clavijo was on his way to the court of Timur, and passing by Trebizond, he describes the Empire: in the days of Manuel III, it has reduced greatly in size and influence, and the Emperor himself only retained control over a small portion of Pontos along the coast. Previous Trapezuntine cities, if not overrun by Turks, were property of regional Roman archontes, like the Kabazitai, who left an ugly impression on the Spaniard. Clavijo recalls with contempt how the Emperor’s escorts feared to accompany him beyond Palaiomatzouka, for in the south the Kabazitai reigned supreme. They held the great fortresses along the important Zigana Pass and the border, allowing them to extract high tolls to pass through their territory. This victim of Kabazitic abuse also relates how party politics became rampant again when Manuel III was opposed by his son Alexios IV and the aristocrats rallied around one or another, conducting a civil war in the capital just like the one in 1340 between the Scholarioi and Amytzantarantai, perhaps including nobles like the Kabazitai once more.
The rest of 15th century Trapezuntine history was not harmonious either, as Alexios IV got along even less with his son Ioannes IV Megas Komnenos than with his father Manuel III, and father and son waged war on each other. In 1429, the Kabazitai, who acted as Alexios IV’s bodyguards, betrayed their Emperor and let some men of Ioannes IV into his father’s tent, where they murdered the sleeping monarch rather than capture him like his son wished. Having failed to assassinate one Alexios, they succeeded in inadvertently abetting the assassins of another Alexios.
These complacent regicides continued their business as usual, occupying high posts in the administration and overlording key provinces of the Empire, thriving under the fragile imperial government that ruled Trebizond in its last decades. This insignificant family before 1340 had risen to the forefront of Trapezuntine history by the 15th century, profiting from the demise of the Tzanichitai, Scholarioi and other archontes under the victorious Alexios III to fill in their roles, especially from constructing their vital Chaldian power base; then, years later, undeterred from their failed regicidal attempt, again profiting from the decline of Alexios’ dynasty to climb ever higher, leaving later Emperors helpless against them. The long-term winner of the Trapezuntine Civil War, then, was the House of Kabazites, not Komnenos.
When the civil wars of the Late Republic ended, and Augustus emerged as the ultimate victor, the Polybian mixed constitution saw a severe curtailing of the power of the aristocratic element, the Senate, for the Populus, exhausted after a century of infighting between the elites of society, would prefer the barely disguised dictatorship of an imperator who could bring peace, to the endless bickering of 600 privileged old men and their feuding with talented generals. For the rest of Roman history, from Augustus onwards, the importance of Senate was in constant decline, and it completely disappeared, even as an honorary institution, in the Eastern Roman Empire by the 14th century. In Imperial Rome, a more direct relationship between the monarchical and democratic components of society was established, and it functioned incredibly well in a highly centralized Empire; this lasted until the end of Late Antiquity, when the Roman order collapsed.
The West, after the Fall of Rome and the rise of the barbarian kingdoms, yielded to feudalism, and powerful landowning lords, the new aristocracy, dominated their world. The East resisted this trend for much longer, due to the authority of Constantinople, but the rise of a new nobility, the dynatoi, took place all throughout the Middle Byzantine Period (mid 7th to mid 11th century). The emergence of these great families, the Doukai, Phokades, Komnenoi, Palaiologoi, etc., took centuries, but eventually the imperial reins were taken over by them, and imperial dynasties were their monopoly in Late Byzantium (12th to 15th century).
None contributed more to this shift than the Komnenoi. Alexios I Komnenos worked tirelessly to completely overhaul the old Roman administration, in shambles after the Battle of Manzikert. The imperial bureaucracy became staffed with the Emperor’s kin, and the aristocracy once more took ascendancy in the Roman world; the Senate withered, but the dynatoi flourished and took their place. Once more, the monarchical and democratic were faced with a potent aristocratic element that influenced the Roman Empire, and this time it stayed for good, like in the medieval West, after the breakdown of the central authority of the Komnenoi in the 1180s. There has been much debate as to whether the Eastern Empire ever feudalized, with scholars like Ostrogorsky championing the view that from the Komnenian Dynasty onwards it did, but in either case, it was evident that lords with land held considerable sway in the latest stage of the Empire.
The Palaiologoi, the last imperial dynasty in Constantinople, were able to rise to power in the first place through the widespread support of the nobility in the Empire of Nicaea, who became disillusioned with the Laskarid imperial dynasty and brutally murdered the guardian of young Emperor Ioannes IV Laskaris, putting Michael VIII Palaiologos in charge. Although Michael’s dynasty reigned for two centuries, they suffered their fair share of headache from those very nobles, who spurred the Palaiologoi on into several ruinous civil wars.
This was not a fate that the Megaloi Komnenoi, offspring of Alexios I Komnenos, could avoid. It seemed only natural that a cunning archontic family would profit considerably from their strife and prosper henceforth in Pontos.
Nancy Na is a bibliophile with a particular appreciation for Eurasian history and civilizations. Through her YouTube channel @Byzansimp, she presents all aspects of the medieval Roman Empire and Romanitas.
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