The Immortal Emperor

by Donald M Nicol

  Constantine was the least troublesome and the most trustworthy of the Emperor's brothers. He had proved his competence as regent in Constantinople during John VIII's absence in the west in 14z3-i4; and he had the full support of his mother, the Dowager Empress Helena Dragas. She was elderly but still active in affairs of state; and Constantine was her favourite son. As ministers and counsellors he had Loukas Notaras, later Grand Duke, a man of great experience, and Demetrios Palaiologos Cantacuzene, his cousin; while at his side there was the faithful George Sphrantzes, at whose wedding in 1438 he acted as best man." The fact that the Turks held to their truce and made no move against Constantinople while the Emperor was away may be a tribute to Constantine's careful handling of a dangerous situation. There was a moment, however, in 1439, when he felt impelled to write to his brother in Italy, urging him to remind the pope that he had promised to send at least two warships for the defence of Constantinople by the end of spring. He hoped that the ships would be on their way within fifteen days of his message, for there were ominous signs that the Sultan was preparing a great offensive. Nothing came of his request; and it was in any case a false alarm. For the Sultan's offensive was directed not against Constantinople but against the Serbian fortress of Smederevo on the Danube.32

  The council which John VIII had gone to attend was a protracted and often quarrelsome gathering. It concluded its business at Florence in June 1439, with a declaration to the effect that the union of the Greek and Latin churches had been achieved. The Decree of Union was signed by all but one of the Byzantine hierarchy.33 Not until i February of the following year did the Emperor get back to Constantinople. He was escorted to his palace with a great show of pomp and ceremony by his brothers Constantine and Demetrios, who had left Italy before him.34 By then the news that the Greek delegation to the council had been browbeaten into signing the document of union with the pope had stirred a wave of bitterness and resentment among the Byzantines. They gave their Emperor a cool reception. Many felt that he had betrayed them. His sadness was deepened by the tragic news that his beloved wife, whom he had not seen for more than two years, had died while he was on his way home.

  Constantine's own feeling about the union of the churches was in line with that of his brother. He was not fanatically for or against it. If the sacrifice of the amour propre of the Orthodox Christians resulted in a crusade from the west for the salvation of Constantinople then it would not have been in vain. The Orthodox church had always believed in the principle of `economy' or compromise. Many, however, protested that the Union of Florence had overstepped the limits of that principle. It became a point of vigorous and sometimes violent dissension in the last years of Byzantine society. There were those who said, as Constantine's father had said when the prospect of union was raised, that it was a diplomatic blunder. The union of eastern and western Christians would surely arouse the suspicions of the Turks.35 There were many more, like Mark Eugenikos, the Bishop of Ephesos who had refused to sign the Decree of Union at Florence, who saw it as the ultimate betrayal of their inherited Orthodoxy. It would bring down upon them the wrath of God. Constantine's friend George Sphrantzes was to record in retrospect that the most potent causes of the Turkish conquest of Constantinople were the Council of Florence and the union of the churches. It was an opinion that he would not have expressed at the time because of his loyalty to the Emperor and his master Constantine. He put the dilemma in the form of a parable. `For many years', he said, `I and others have been wont to meet in the church of the Holy Wisdom by walking down the Middle Road of the city. Then, after a while, others found a different road leading, so they say, to the same church; and they begged me to take that road with them, saying that the road that I took was good and old and familiar to them for a long time, but that the road they had found was also good. Now I hear from some that the new road is good and from others that it is bad. Why then can I not say: "Go in peace and in love to the Holy Wisdom by whichever road you please. I shall take the road that I have followed with you for a long time, a road which your ancestors and mine travelled and which they acknowledged to be good ".138 Such a tolerant attitude was unusual. Tolerance was rare in the emotive atmosphere of Constantinople in the fifteenth century and rare too in Florence and in Rome. Perhaps the Despot Constantine Palaiologos had a measure of it. But he felt himself committed to the policy of his brother the Emperor John.

  Constantine's responsibilities as regent ended in February 11440 when the Emperor came back from Italy. He stayed in Constantinople for the rest of that year. One reason for his delay in returning to the Morea was that he had it in mind to marry again. Ten years had passed since the death of his first wife Maddalena Tocco. The lady finally selected was Caterina Gattilusio, daughter of the Genoese lord of Lesbos. The Gattilusio family were slightly more respectable than the Tocchi of Epiros. They had contracted marriages with the Palaiologi before. They were also wealthy. In December 1144o George Sphrantzes was sent to Lesbos to propose and arrange the betrothal and marriage. Towards the end of the following year Constantine sailed from Constantinople in com pany with Sphrantzes and the Grand Duke Loukas Notaras. They made first for Lesbos and there at Mitylene in August Constantine married Caterina Gattilusio. In September he continued his journey to the Morea, leaving his new wife in the care of her father on Lesbos.37

  He had been away from the Morea for more than three years. He found that his brothers Theodore and Thomas had managed quite well without him. He felt that his own interests might be better served if he were nearer to Constantinople. His other brother Demetrios, on his return from Italy, had been allotted the appanage on the Black Sea coast where the Emperor could keep an eye on him, for he was known to be bitterly opposed to the union of the churches, probably more from political motives than religious conviction. Constantine had the idea that Demetrios might care to change places with him. He sent Sphrantzes to put this suggestion to the Emperor, to Demetrios and to the Sultan Murad. The Sultan, as suzerain of them all, had to be consulted about such matters. It was not the right moment to tempt Demetrios to new pastures. He had already made a deal of his own with the Sultan and had declared war on the Emperor, posing as the champion of the growing anti-unionist faction, a role that suited his personal ambition for the throne and the political purposes of the Turks. When Sphrantzes reached him Demetrios was preparing to march on Constantinople with troops kindly supplied by his friend the Sultan. He was in no mood to listen to the proposal brought to him from his brother Constantine, and Sphrantzes left him empty-handed. The danger was so imminent that the Emperor summoned Constantine to hurry back from the Morea to help defend the city.

  The Turkish attack began in April 1442.. In July Constantine left the Morea yet again. On his way he stopped at Lesbos to pick up his wife Caterina. But the Turks had got to hear of his coming and when he reached the island of Lemnos he and his wife were trapped there by a Turkish fleet. For some months he could get no further, though the Venetians sent eight galleys from Constantinople to help him in what they described as his praiseworthy resistance. In the midst of this disaster Caterina fell ill. Her illness was aggravated by the circumstances; and in August she died. She was buried at Palaiokastro on Lemnos. The Turks soon sailed away. But it was November before Constantine, a widower for the second time, reached Constantinople. By then Demetrios's coup had failed. The Emperor was more than ready to make over to Constantine the fortress of Selymbria on the Sea of Marmora, from where he could spy on the movements of his brother Demetrios. In March 1443 George Sphrantzes was made governor of Selymbria in his master's name. The game of musical chairs between Constantine and his brothers was not yet over, however. In June of the same year a messenger from Theodore at Mistra arrived in Constantinople with yet another proposal for the Emperor to consider. Theodore now suggested that he should make over the Despotate of Mistra to Constantine in exchange for Selymbria. All were in accord with this arrangement, although it is doubtful whether Demetrios was consulted. It would put Theodo
re potentially nearer to the throne. But it would make Constantine, the evident heir-apparent, Despot of the capital city of the Morea. In October 1443 Constantine left for his new post at Mistra. Theodore took the same ship on its return voyage to Constantinople.3B

  Constantine's professed adherence to the union of Florence naturally brought him the favour of the pope; and no doubt the Emperor John had briefed him on the state of affairs in the Morea, the last Byzantine province in Christian hands. It was a province where there were many Roman Catholic residents, especially the Venetians, whose fortified harbours at Modon and Coron in Messenia still did a thriving business. The Florentine family of Acciajuoli also retained control, albeit tenuously, of Athens. The pope had deplored Constantine's eviction of the Latin Archbishop of Patras. The Venetians regarded the various Despots of the Morea as a menace to the security of their property and their trade in southern Greece. But Pope Eugenius IV nourished a pious hope that, now that Greeks and Italians were united in the Roman faith, they would live happily together under the banner of St Peter. In April 1441 he had written to the Despot Constantine in these terms, commending him for his promise to make the union of Florence a reality, both in the present and in the future when, as seemed likely, he would succeed his brother as Emperor.3s

  2

  CONSTANTINE: DESPOT AT MISTRA

  When Constantine succeeded his brother Theodore as Despot at Mistra in October 1443, the government, administration and defence of the Morea were effectively committed to himself and his younger brother Thomas. Thomas ruled over the former Principality of Achaia which had come to him by marriage. Constantine resided in the Palace of the Despots at Mistra, which had always been recognised as the capital city and centre of the Byzantine Peloponnese: and his dominions covered the larger part of the peninsula. He had never found Thomas to be troublesome. With his other brothers Theodore and Demetrios out of the way, Constantine saw the possibility of reuniting the Despotate and making it a secure and nearly self-sufficient principality. He had plans for so doing; and he had well-meaning advisers eager to offer him schemes, workable or Utopian, for reinvigorating the agriculture, the economy and the defence of the Morea.

  Mistra had become a cultural capital of the Byzantine world. Its earlier Despots, notably Theodore II and his talented wife Cleope Malatesta, had patronised scholarship and the arts. Men of taste and learning had settled there. Mistra in the fifteenth century provided a more exciting and creative atmosphere than the gathering gloom and despair of Constantinople. Churches, monasteries and mansions were still being built, remodelled and decorated with wall-paintings. Libraries were being collected and manuscripts were being copied for posterity. Among the intellectual luminaries of Mistra in Constantine's day were Bessarion of Trebizond, titular Bishop of Nicaea, and his erudite teacher George Gemistos Plethon. Bessarion had been so persuasive and eloquent an advocate of the union of the churches at the Council of Florence that the pope had made him a cardinal. He left Mistra for Rome soon after his return from the council.' But he was constantly concerned about its welfare and its future. Plethon had also been in Florence. He had been much admired in Italy as a scholar, though he found the council to be boring and irrelevant. He left it early to go back to Mistra, where he had lived, studied and taught for about thirty years.

  Plethon had earlier presented a series of addresses to the Emperor Manuel II and the Despot Theodore II outlining his own plans for the regeneration of the Morea as a new centre for what he called Hellenism. He also knew and corresponded with the Emperor John VIII and with Constantine.' His proposed reforms were based on the premise that the Morea or the Peloponnese was, as its ancient name implied, an island, protected from invasion by the sea and defensible by land through the construction of the wall across the Isthmus of Corinth which he regarded as one of the greatest achievements of Manuel II. Its insularity and security made it an ideal testing-ground for the theory, held by all civilised men, that the most stable and effective form of government is monarchy. This was a commonplace of Byzantine political theorists. But Plethon seemed to suggest that the Despots of the Morea should exercise an authority over their little kingdom as great as that of an emperor in Constantinople. Constantinople might once have been the New Rome. Mistra should become the New Sparta. Within the Island of Pelops a strongly centralised monarchy would have the power to institute a thorough reform of the administration, the economy, the social structure, the agriculture and above all the defence of the Morea. It would become a Kingdom of the Hellenes, thus being true to its past. For Plethon claimed that it was the only part of the Greek world which had always been inhabited by men of Hellenic stock with no admixture of foreign blood. This was the special pleading of one who ignored the countless invasions of Slavs, Bulgars and other non-Hellenic races in the past, let alone the Albanians whom the Despot Theodore I had encouraged to come and settle in the Morea in Plethon's own time. He also disregarded the fact that Constantine Palaiologos and his brothers were the sons of a Serbian mother, Helena Dragas, and that Constantine at least was proud to bear her name.

  Plethon's Utopian schemes had the merit of being comprehensive, covering every aspect of public and private life. Society was to be divided into two classes, the soldiers and the taxpayers, the former defending the island of the Morea and native to its soil, the latter supporting them by their taxes, payable not in cash but in kind. The monarch, or Despot of them all, would be advised by a council not of the aristocracy but of men of moderate means who would set standards of conduct for all to imitate. All land was to be common property. The cultivation of waste or virgin land was to be encouraged. But one-third of all produce was to be paid into the common funds. Such a reform would, as Plethon well knew, be fiercely contested by the great landlords of the Despotate who had defied much less draconian attempts to bring them to heel for many years. He also put forward proposals for reforming the currency and for protecting and stimulating home produce by restricting imports. His priority, however, was the creation and maintenance of a standing army composed not of mercenaries or foreigners but of native Greeks loyal to their country and its sovereign ruler. If his schemes had been realised they would no doubt have produced an unpleasant military dictatorship in which everything was subordinated to the interests of the state and the state was personified in what it was hoped would be a platonic philosopher king. The Emperor Manuel and his son Theodore had patiently and courteously taken note of Plethon's advice and rewarded him with honours and privileges. But there is no proof that they ever acted on it.3

  The Despot Constantine, however, did not need to be told that the defence of the Morea must be strengthened at its weakest point. As soon as he was established at Mistra he set to work on reconstituting the wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. The Turks had easily breached it in 14z3 and demolished it in 1431. Constantine and his brother Thomas, with the often reluctant collaboration of the leading men of the district, had it completely restored. It was called the Hexamilion or six-mile wall. The work was finished in March 1444.4 It was not the first of its kind. The Isthmus had been fortified in ancient times, before the invasion of Xerxes in 480 ac. Justinian had built a much more substantial wall in the sixth century. Manuel II had used the ruins of Justinian's building in 1415. The wall ran from the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf, a distance of between 7,oz8 and 7,760 metres. It was strongly fortified along its length with 153 towers. Another account speaks of 130 small towers and nine large ones, in addition to forts at either end and a castle on the site of Justinian's fortress at Isthmia. Manuel is said to have completed his Hexamilion in twenty-five days in April and May 1415. Many were impressed by the achievement at the time, not least the Venetians who, however, politely declined to contribute to its cost: and the cost in manpower and in money was so great that many of the local Greeks and landlords chose to decamp to Venetian territory rather than be pressganged as labourers or impoverished as taxpayers. Others took to open rebellion and had to be forced into submission.


  A curious series of prophecies came to be associated with the Hexamilion. They were said to have been pronounced by the Pythia at Delphi at the time of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. The Italian traveller Ciriaco of Ancona seems to have been the first to record them. They foretold that there would be four such walls across the Isthmus of Corinth. Three would succumb to foreign attacks. Only the fourth would stand firm against its enemies. The third of the prophecies was taken, after the event, to refer to Manuel's reconstruction of Justinian's wall, which had twice failed to hold back the Turks. The last prophecy intimated that the fourth rebuilding of the wall would prove to be the ultimate deterrent of the foreign enemies of the Greeks. They would be driven back from it and worsted `when the pine-tree falls to the ground and blood is shed upon the pine'. The builder of the fourth wall would therefore be the fortunate one. No names were mentioned but it is clear that the Despot Constantine was intended. The prophecy was a cryptic yet touchingly optimistic declaration of faith in the future and, like so many oracular utterances, turned out to be sadly mistaken.'

  Not long after the wall was finished in 1444, Cardinal Bessarion, writing from the comfort of Rome, addressed a long letter to Constantine. He congratulated him especially on rebuilding the Hexamilion. But that, he said, was only a beginning.' Bessarion, like his former master Plethon and in a very similar vein, went on to propose a list of reforms to improve the defence, the economy, the stability and the intellectual life of the Morea. He suggested that the capital of the Despotate should be moved from Mistra to a site near the point of greatest danger. A new city should be founded at the Isthmus to provide a base for the standing army needed to guard the wall, for it could never properly be manned and garrisoned by piecemeal recruitment of troops in emergencies. He stressed the importance of training and military discipline for the soldiers who would constitute the reformed army. Bessarion's vision was wider and more international than that of Plethon. He saw the Despotate of the Morea under Constantine playing its part by land and sea in the combined effort of eastern and western Christians against the infidel which, with God's help, was to result from the union of the churches. He was thinking of the crusade then being planned by Pope Eugenius IV in the wave of western optimism that followed the Council of Florence.'