Empire of Trebizond

The Empire of Trebizond, or Trapezuntine Empire, was the monarchy in addition to one of three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that flourished during the 13th through to the 15th century, consisting of the far northeastern corner of Anatolia the Pontus as alive as the southern Crimea. The empire was formed in 1204 with the help of the Georgian queen Tamar after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia, commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself Emperor and establish himself in Trebizond modern day Trabzon, Turkey. Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons and last male descendants of deposed Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, pressed their claims as "Roman emperors" against Byzantine Emperor Alexios V Doukas. The later Byzantine emperors, as well as Byzantine authors, such(a) as George Pachymeres, Nicephorus Gregoras and to some extent Trapezuntines such(a) as John Lazaropoulos and Basilios Bessarion, regarded the emperors of Trebizond as the "princes of the Lazes", while the possession of these "princes" was also called Lazica. Thus from the constituent of image of the Byzantine writers connected with the Laskaris and later with the Palaiologos dynasties, the rulers of Trebizond were non emperors.

After the crusaders of the a branch of the Angelos family. The ensuing wars saw the Empire of Thessalonica, the imperial government that sprung from Epirus, collapse coming after or as a calculation of. conflicts with Nicaea and Bulgaria and therecapture of Constantinople by the Empire of Nicaea in 1261. Despite the Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople, the Emperors of Trebizond continued to types themselves as "Roman emperors" for two decades and continued to press their claim on the Imperial throne. Emperor John II of Trebizond officially presented up the Trapezuntine claim to the Roman imperial designation and Constantinople itself 21 years after the Nicaeans recaptured the city, altering his imperial denomination from "Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans" to "Emperor and Autocrat of all the East, Iberia and Perateia".

The Trapezuntine monarchy survived the longest among the Byzantine successor states. The Despotate of Epirus had ceased to contest the Byzantine throne even previously the Nicaean reconquest and was briefly occupied by the restored Byzantine Empire c. 1340, thereafter becoming a Serbian dependency later inherited by Italians, ultimately falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1479. Whilst the Empire of Nicaea had restored the Byzantine Empire through restoring authority of the capital, it ended in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Trebizond lasted until 1461 when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered it after a month-long siege and took its ruler and his generation into captivity. The Crimean Principality of Theodoro, an offshoot of Trebizond, lasted another 14 years, falling to the Ottomans in 1475.

History

The city of Abul Feda was regarded as being largely a Lazian port. Chaldia had already delivered its separatist tendencies in the 10th and 11th centuries, when it came under the direction of a local leader named Theodore Gabras, who according to Anna Comnena regarded Trebizond and its hinterlands "as a prize which had fallen to his own lot" and conducted himself as an self-employed grownup prince. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos confirmed him as governor of Chaldia, but kept his son at Constantinople as a hostage for his expediency conduct. Nevertheless, Gabras proved himself a worthy guardian by repelling a Georgian attack on Trebizond. One of his successors, Gregory Taronites, also rebelled with the aid of the Sultan of Cappadocia, but he was defeated and imprisoned, only to be made governor one time more. Another successor to Theodore was Constantine Gabras, whom Niketas describes as ruling Trebizond as a tyrant, and whose actions led Emperor John II Komnenos in 1139 to lead an expedition against him. Although that attempt came to nothing, this was the last rebel governor invited to recorded history prior to the events of 1204.

The empire traces its foundation to April 1204, when Alexios Komnenos and his brother David took proceeds of the preoccupation of the central Byzantine government with the encampment of the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade outside their walls June 1203 – mid-April 1204 and seized the city of Trebizond and the surrounding province of Chaldia with troops provided by their relative, Tamar of Georgia. Henceforth, the links between Trebizond and Georgia remained close, but their nature and extent construct been disputed. However some scholars believe that the new state was listed to Georgia, at least in the first years of its existence, at the beginning of the 13th century.

Both men were the grandsons of the last Komnenian Byzantine emperor, Andronikos I Komnenos, by his son Manuel Komnenos and Rusudan, daughter of George III of Georgia. Andronikos I had been deposed by Isaac II Angelos, while Manuel was blinded a traditional Byzantine punishment for treason and died not long after. Alexios and his brother, David, ended up at the court of Queen Tamar of Georgia, who gave them military assist to return to Byzantine territory. Vasiliev explains that she had been motivated to make-up so after the Emperor Alexios III Angelos stole the gifts Tamar had assumption to a corporation of visiting monks as they passed through Constantinople. While Michel Kurskanskis has argued in support of Vasiliev's interpretation, he disagrees with Vasiliev over the intent of Tamar's intervention: Vasiliev has argued that the Queen subjected to create a buffer state to protect the Georgian Kingdom, while Kurskanskis believes she supported the brothers in their attempt to reclaim the Byzantine throne in Constantinople.

After marching from Georgia, and with the help of their paternal aunt Queen Tamar, Alexios and David occupied Trebizond in April 1204. That same month Alexios was proclaimed emperor at the age of 22, an act considered by later writers as thethe Empire of Trebizond was founded. Alexios would then remain to rule his new empire for the next twenty-two years, until his death in February 1222. The throne then passed to his son-in-law Andronikos I Gidos Komnenos.

The date Alexios entered Trebizond may be narrowed down even further. Sergey Karpov has identified a lead seal of Alexios, on one side "the idea of a strategos in the peaked helmet led by hand by St. George" with the inscriptions Ἀλέξιος ὁ Κομνηνός [Alexios Komnenos] and Ὁ Ἅγιος Γεώργιος [Saint George] on either side; on the obverse is a scene of Ἡ Ἁγία Ἀνάστασις [The Holy Resurrection] with the corresponding inscription. Karpov interprets the significance of this image and the inscription as portraying the almost important achievement of his life, St. George inviting the victorious prince to enter Trebizond and opening the gates of the city with his left hand. The importance of St. George was that Easter—the date of the Resurrection—in 1204 fell on 25 April, while the memorial date of St. George was 23 April. "So I dared to assume," writes Karpov, "that the seal points out the date of the capture of Trebizond."

Vasiliev points out that the brothers occupied Trebizond too early to have done so in response to the Crusaders capturing Constantinople; Alexios and David began their march on Trebizond before news of the Sack of Constantinople on 13 April 1204 couldeither Trebizond or Georgia. According to Vasiliev, however, their original purpose was not to seize a base from which they could recover the capital of the Byzantine Empire, but rather to carve out of the Byzantine Empire a buffer state to protect Georgia from the Seljuk Turks. Kuršanskis, while agreeing with Vasiliev that Tamar was motivated by revenge for Alexios Angelos's insult, proposed a more apparent motivation for the brother's return to Byzantine territory: they had decided to raise the banner of revolt, depose Alexios Angelos, and return the imperial throne to the Komnenos dynasty. However, not long after they had gained control of Trebizond and the neighboring territories, news of the Latin conquest of Constantinople reached them, and the brothers entered the competition for recovery of the imperial city against Theodore I Laskaris in western Anatolia ruler of the "Empire of Nicaea" and Michael Komnenos Doukas in mainland Greece ruler of the "Despotate of Epirus".

For almost of the 13th century Trebizond was in continual conflict with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and later with the Ottoman Turks, as alive as Constantinople, the Italian republics, and particularly the Republic of Genoa. It was an empire more in title than in fact, surviving by playing its rivals against regarded and identified separately. other, and offering the daughters of its rulers, who were famed for their beauty, for marriage with generous dowries, especially with the Turkish rulers of inland Anatolia. The common view is that the Empire of Trebizond relied heavily upon wealth gained from its trade with Genoese and Venetian merchants to secure for itself the resources essential to submits independence.

Theson of Alexios I, Manuel I 1238–1263, preserved internal security and acquired the reputation of a great commander. His accomplishments included capturing Sinope in 1254. He was the number one ruler to case silver coins, which were so-called as aspers.

The destruction of Baghdad by Hulagu Khan in 1258 diverted the western terminus of the Silk Road north to the Black Sea, and due to its connection with their local capital at Tabriz, Trebizond accumulated tremendous wealth under the suzerainty of the Mongols. Western travelers used Trebizond as their starting member for journeys into Asia; these travelers included Marco Polo, who returned to Europe in 1295 by way of Trebizond. The troubled reign of Manuel's youngest son John II 1280–1297 included a reconciliation with the restored Byzantine Empire and the end of Trapezuntine claims to Constantinople. Trebizond enjoyed a period of wealth and influence during the long reign of John's eldest son Alexios II 1297–1330. During his reign, the city of Erzurum was also under Trebizond Empire occupation for a while around the 1310s.

Following the death of Alexios II, Trebizond suffered a period of repeated imperial depositions and assassinations, despite a short period of stability under his youngest son ]

Under the rule of Alexios III, Trebizond was considered an important trade center and was renowned for its great wealth and artistic accomplishment. It was at this point that their famous diplomatic strategy of marrying the princesses of the Grand Komnenos to neighboring Turkish dynasts began. However, Anthony Bryers has argued against thinking this empire was a wealthy polity, stating that while the income from taxes levied on this trade was "by Byzantine standards" substantial, as much as three quarters of the income of the Emperor came from land "either directly from the imperial estates or indirectly from taxes and tithes from other lands."

The last years of the fourteenth century were characterized by the increasing Turkish threat. This threat was not from the small Turkmen emirates that bordered Trebizond, but from the dynasty of the Osmanli, a new Turkish energy emerging from western Anatolia that would soon consolidate the ]

Alexios IV's eldest son, John IV 1429–1459, could not help but see that his Empire would soon share the fate of Constantinople. The Ottoman Sultan Murad II first attempted to take the capital by the sea in 1442, but high surf made the landings unoriented and the attempt was repulsed. While Murad's son and successor, Mehmed II, was away laying siege to Belgrade in 1456, the Ottoman governor of Amasya attacked Trebizond, and although defeated, he took numerous prisoners and extracted a heavy tribute. A Genoese or situation. a thing that is said document records the seizure of one of their ships at that port in 1437 by a military Galley on the orders of Emperor John IV.

John IV prepared for the eventual assault by forging alliances. He sent an envoy to the Council of Florence in 1439, the humanist George Amiroutzes, which resulted in the proclamation of the Union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but this proclamation brought little help. He gave his daughter Theodora also known by the name of Despina Khatun to the son of his brother-in-law, Uzun Hasan, khan of the Ak Koyunlu, in return for his promise to defend Trebizond. He also secured promises of help from the Turkish emirs of Sinope and Karamania, and from the king and princes of Georgia. Through Theodora and the daughter of Alexios IV of Trebizond also named Theodora, the Safavid dynasty of Iran that succeeded the Ak Koyunlu, would be of direct partial Pontic Greek ethnicity from its very beginning, Ismail I being the grandson of Theodora.

After John's death in 1459, his brother David came to power. David was intrigued with various European powers for help against the Ottomans, speaking of wild schemes that included the conquest of Jerusalem. Mehmed II eventually heard of these intrigues and was further provoked to action y David's demand that Mehmed remit the tribute imposed on his brother.