There was now once more a Byzantine empire, and to an unobservant reader
 the history of the reigns of the Paleologi looks like the natural
 continuation and sequel of the history of the reigns of Isaac Angelus and
 his brother. If the annals of Michael VIII. and his son were written on to
 the end of that of Alexius Angelus, the intervening gap of the Latin
 Conquest might almost pass unperceived, and the reader might imagine that
 he was investigating a single continuous course of events. The Frank
 dominion at Constantinople, and the heroic episode of the Empire of
 Nicaea, would pass equally unnoticed.
 
 We need not insist on the perniciousness of such a view. Great as may seem
 the similarity of the Byzantine Empire of 1204, and that of 1270, it had
 really suffered an entire transformation in that period. To commence by
 the most obvious and external sign of change, it will be observed that the
 lands subject to Michael Paleologus were far more limited in extent than
 those which had obeyed Alexius Angelus. The loss in Asia was less than
 might have been expected: Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas had kept back
 the Turk, and only two districts of no great extent had fallen into Moslem
 hands--the Pisidian coast with the seaport of Adalia on the south, and the
 Paphlagonian coast with the seaport of Sinope on the north. Besides these
 the distant Pontic province had now become the empire of Trebizond.
 
 In Europe the loss was far more serious: four great blocks of territory
 had been lost for ever. The first was a slip along the southern slope of
 the Balkans, in Northern Thrace and Macedonia, which had fallen into the
 hands of the Bulgarians, and become completely Slavonized. The second was
 the district which is represented by the modern land of Albania. When the
 Angeli of Thessalonica fell before John Ducas, a younger member of the
 house retired to the original mountain house of the dynasty, and preserved
 the independence of the "Despotate of Epirus." Here the Angeli survived
 for some generations, maintaining themselves against the Emperors of
 Constantinople by a strict alliance with the Latin princes of Southern
 Greece.
 
 Next in the list of Old-Byzantine territories which Michael never
 recovered, we must place Greece proper, now divided between the Princes of
 Achaia, of the house of Villehardouin, and the Briennes, who had succeeded
 to the Duchy of Athens. But the Paleologi still retained a considerable
 slice of the Peloponnesus, and were destined to encroach ere long on their
 Frankish neighbours. Lastly, we must mention the islands of the Aegean, of
 which the large majority were held either by the Venetian government, or
 by Venetian adventurers, who ruled as independent lords, but subordinated
 their policy to that of their native state.
 
 But the territorial difference between the empire of 1204 and the empire
 of 1261 was only one of the causes which crippled the realm of the
 Paleologi. Bad though the internal government of the dominions of Alexius
 III. had been, there was still then some hope of recovery. The old
 traditions of East-Roman administrative economy, though neglected, were
 not lost, and might have been revived by an emperor who had a keen eye to
 discover ability and a ready hand to reward merit. New blood in the
 _personnel_ of the ministry, and a keen supervision of details by the
 master's eye, would have produced an improvement in the state of the
 empire, though any permanent restoration of strength was probably made
 impossible by the deep-seated decay of society. But by the time of Michael
 Paleologus even amelioration had become impossible. The three able
 emperors who reigned at Nicaea, though they had preserved their
 independence against Turk and Frank, had utterly failed in restoring
 administrative efficiency in their provinces. John Vatatzes, himself a
 thrifty monarch, who could even condescend to poultry-farming to fill his
 modest exchequer, found that all his efforts to protect native industry
 could not cause the dried-up springs of prosperity to flow again. The
 whole fiscal and administrative machinery of government had been thrown
 hopelessly out of gear.
 
 It was the commercial decline of the empire that made a reform of the
 administration so hopeless. The Paleologi were never able to reassert the
 old dominion over the seas which had made their predecessors the arbiters
 of the trade of Christendom. The wealth of the elder Byzantine Empire had
 arisen from the fact that Constantinople was the central emporium of the
 trade of the civilized world. All the caravan routes from Syria and Persia
 converged thither. Thither, too, had come by sea the commodities of Egypt
 and the Euxine. All the Eastern products which Europe might require had to
 be sought in the storehouses of Constantinople, and for centuries the
 nations of the West had been contented to go thither for them. But the
 Crusades had shaken this monopoly, when they taught the Italians to seek
 the hitherto unknown parts of Syria and Egypt, and buy their Eastern
 merchandize from the producer and not from the middleman. Acre and
 Alexandria had already profited very largely at the expense of
 Constantinople ere the Byzantine Empire was upset in 1204. But the Latin
 conquest was the fatal blow. It threw the control of the trade of the
 Bosphorus into the hands of the Venetians, and the Venetians had no desire
 to make Constantinople their one central mart: they were just as ready to
 trade through the Syrian and Egyptian ports. To them the city was no more
 than an important half-way house for the Black Sea trade, and an emporium
 for the local produce of the countries round the Sea of Marmora.
 
 From 1204 onward Italy rather than Constantinople became the centre and
 starting-place for all European trade, and the great Italian republics
 employed all their vigilance to prevent the Greek fleet from recovering
 its old strength. Henceforth the Byzantine war-navy was insignificant, and
 without a war-navy the Paleologi could not drive away the intruders and
 restore the free navigation of the Levant to their own mercantile marine.
 
 The emperors who succeeded each other on the restored throne of
 Constantinople were, without exception, men more fitted to lose than to
 hold together an exhausted and impoverished empire. Their lot was cast, it
 is true, in hard times; but hardly one of them showed a spark of ability
 or courage in endeavouring to face the evil day. The three monarchs of the
 house of Lascaris who ruled at Nicaea had been keen soldiers and competent
 administrators, but with the return of the emperors to Constantinople the
 springs of energy began to dry up, and the gloom and decay of the ruined
 capital seemed to affect the spirit and brain of its rulers.
 
                               
 
     Byzantine Chapel At Ani, The Old Capital Of Armenia. (_From "L'Art
           Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 Michael Paleologus, though it was his fortune to recover the city which
 his abler predecessors had failed to take, was a mere wily intriguer, not
 a statesman or general. Having usurped the throne by the basest treachery
 towards his infant sovereign, he always feared for himself a similar fate.
 Suspicion and cruelty were his main characteristics, and in his care for
 his own person he quite forgot the interests of the State. Even
 contemporary chroniclers saw that he was deliberately setting himself to
 weaken the empire, because he dreaded the resentment of his subjects. He
 disbanded nearly all the native Greek troops, and refrained as far as
 possible from employing Greek generals.
 
 One of his minor acts in this direction may be said to have been the
 original circumstance which set the Ottoman Turks, the future bane of the
 empire, on their career of conquest. The borders of the empire in Asia
 were defended by a native militia, who held their lands under condition of
 defending the castles and passes of the Bithynian and Phrygian mountains.
 The institution, which somewhat resembled a simple form of European
 feudalism, had worked so well that the Byzantine Empire had for a century
 and a half kept its Asiatic frontier practically intact, in spite of all
 the pressure of the Seljouk Turks of the Sultanate of Iconium. But the
 Bithynian militia were known to be attached to the house of Ducas, which
 Michael had dethroned, and he therefore resolved to disarm them. The
 measure was carried out, not without bloodshed, but the disbanded levy
 were not replaced by any adequate number of regular troops. Michael's
 financial straits did not permit him to keep under arms a very large
 force, such as was required to garrison his eastern line of forts after
 the abolition of the previous machinery of defence. Ten years only before
 Othman, the father of the Ottoman Turks, succeeded to the petty
 principality which was destined to be the nucleus of the Turkish Empire,
 the way for him had been thrown open by Michael's suspicious disarmament
 of the guards of his own frontier.
 
 Michael lived for twenty-one years after the recovery of Constantinople,
 but he did not win a single important advantage in all the rest of his
 reign. In Europe he barely held his own against the Bulgarians, the
 Franks, and the fleets of Genoa and Venice. The troubles which befell him
 at the hands of the two naval powers were largely of his own creation, for
 he shifted his alliance from one to the other with such levity and
 suddenness that both regarded him as unfriendly. Though all through his
 reign he was at war either with Genoa or Venice, yet such was the distrust
 felt for him that, when at war with one of the rivals, he could not always
 secure the help of the other. Venice had been the mainstay of the Frank
 emperors of Constantinople, and Michael might, therefore, have been
 expected to remain staunch to the Genoese. On the other hand, the Genoese
 had designs on the Black Sea trade, which touched the Emperor's pocket
 very closely, while the Venetians were more connected with the distant
 commerce of Syria and Egypt, which did not concern him. Balancing one
 consideration with the other, Michael played false to both the powers, and
 often saw his coast ravaged and his small fleet compelled to take refuge
 in the Golden Horn, while the enemy's vessels swept the seas. On land he
 was less unlucky, and the Duke of Athens and the despot of Epirus were
 both kept in check, though neither of them were subdued.
 
 But it was in Asia that Michael's rule was most unfortunate. In the second
 half of his reign the Seljouks, though split into several principalities
 owing to the break up of the Sultanate of Iconium, united to assail the
 borders of the empire. They conquered the Carian and Lydian inland, though
 Tralles and several other towns made a vigorous resistance, and reduced
 Michael's dominion in South-western Asia Minor to a mere strip along the
 coast. A similar fate befell Eastern Bithynia, where the Turks forced
 their way as far as the river Sangarius.
 
 But the ruin of Byzantine Asia was reserved to fall into the times of
 Michael's son and successor, Andronicus II. This prince had all the faults
 of his father, levity, perfidy, and cruelty, with others added from which
 Michael had been free--cowardice and superstition. The main interest which
 Andronicus took in life was concerned with things ecclesiastical--it would
 be wrong to say things religious--and he spent his life in making and
 unmaking patriarchs of Constantinople. No prelate could bear with him
 long, and in the course of his reign he deposed no less than nine of them.
 
 While Andronicus was quarrelling with his patriarchs the empire was going
 to ruin. The Seljouk chiefs from the plateau of Asia Minor were pressing
 down more and more towards the coast, and making their way to the very
 gates of Ephesus and Smyrna. At last the emperor, growing seriously
 alarmed when the Turks appeared on the shores of the Propontis itself, and
 threatened the walls of Nicaea and Prusa, resolved to make an unwonted
 effort to beat them back.
 
                               
 
    Adronicus Paleologus Adoring Our Lord. (_From "L'Art Byzantin." Par
                   Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
 
 
 In 1302 the long war of the "Sicilian Vespers" between the houses of Anjou
 and Aragon came to an end, and the hordes of mercenaries of all nations
 which the two pretenders to the crown of Sicily had maintained were turned
 loose on the world. It occurred to Andronicus that he might hire enough of
 the veterans of the Sicilian war to enable him to beat back the Turks into
 their hills. All Europe acknowledged that they were the hardiest and
 best-disciplined troops in Christendom, though they were also the most
 cruel and lawless. Accordingly the emperor applied to Roger de Flor, a
 renegade Templar, the commander of the mercenaries who had served Frederic
 of Aragon, and offered to take him into his service, with as many of his
 followers as could be induced to accompany him. Roger accepted with
 alacrity, and came to Constantinople in 1303 with 6,000 men at his back;
 other bodies were soon to follow. Andronicus loaded the "Grand Company,"
 as Roger de Flor styled his men, with unlimited promises, and a certain
 amount of ready money. Roger himself was given the title of "Grand Duke,"
 and married to a lady of the imperial house. After clearing the Turks out
 of the Bithynian coast-land the "Grand Company" spent the winter of 1303-4
 in free quarters along the southern coast of Propontis. Their plundering
 habits and their arrogance soon brought them into ill odour with the
 inhabitants, who complained that they were well-nigh as great a curse as
 the Turks. In the next year Roger moved south with his host, and drove the
 Turks out of Lydia and Caria; but instead of putting the emperor into
 possession of the reconquered land, he garrisoned every fortress with his
 own men, and raised and appropriated the imperial taxes. There can be
 little doubt that he was plotting to seize on the provinces he had
 regained, and to reign at Ephesus as an independent prince. At last Roger
 went so far as to lay formal siege to Philadelphia, because its
 inhabitants preferred to obey orders from Constantinople, and would not
 admit him within their gates. Andronicus then lured him to an interview at
 Adrianople, and in his very presence the great _condottiere_ was
 assassinated by George the Alan, an officer whose son had been slain in a
 brawl by Roger's soldiers. The Emperor had probably arranged the murder,
 and certainly refused to arrest its perpetrator [1307].
 
 He was promptly punished. The "Grand Company" was not disorganized by the
 loss of its leader, and thought of nothing but revenge. Assembling
 themselves in haste, and abandoning Asia Minor to the Turks, they marched
 on Constantinople, harrying the land far and wide with fiendish cruelty.
 The Emperor sent his son Michael against them, but the young prince was
 disgracefully beaten in two fights at Gallipoli and Apros, and the
 mercenaries spread themselves all over Thrace and plundered it up to the
 gates of the capital. It almost looked as if a second Latin Conquest of
 Constantinople was about to take place, for the leaders of the "Grand
 Company" got succour from Europe, raised a corps of Turkish auxiliaries,
 and occupied Thrace for two years. But they could not storm the walls of
 Constantinople or Adrianople, and at last, after two years of plundering,
 they had stripped the country so bare that they were driven away by
 famine. Drifting southward and westward they ravaged Macedon and Thessaly,
 and at last reached Greece. Here they fell into a quarrel with Walter de
 Brienne, Duke of Athens, slew him in battle and took his capital. Then at
 last did the wandering horde settle down; they seized the duchy, divided
 its fiefs among themselves, and established a new dynasty on the Athenian
 throne. The empire was at last quit of them, for when once they ceased to
 wander the "Grand Company" ceased to be dangerous.
 
 This disastrous war with the mercenaries not only ruined Thrace and
 Macedonia, but was the cause of the final loss of the Byzantine provinces
 of Asia Minor. While Andronicus was feebly attempting to cope with the
 "Grand Company," the Seljouk chiefs had conquered Lydia and Phrygia once
 more, and then advanced yet further north to siege Mysia and Bithynia. By
 1325 they had reduced the Emperor's dominions on the east of the straits
 to a narrow strip, reaching from the Dardanelles to the northern exit of
 the Bosphorus, and bounded by the Bithynian hills to the south. Five
 Seljouk leaders had carved out for themselves principalities in the
 conquered districts, Menteshe in the south, Aidin and Saroukhan in Lydia,
 Karasi in Mysia, and in the Bithynian borderland Othman, destined to a
 fame very different from that of his long-forgotten compeers.
 
 While Othman and the rest were turning the once thickly-peopled countries
 of Western Asia Minor into a desert sparsely inhabited by wandering
 nomads, Andronicus II. was busied in a war even more uncalled for than
 that with the mercenaries. He wished to exclude from the succession to the
 throne his grandson and heir, who bore the same name as himself. But the
 younger Andronicus took measures to defend his rights, and raised armed
 bands. Grandfather and grandson were ere long engaged in a long but
 feebly-conducted war, which was only terminated in 1328, when the old man
 acknowledged Andronicus the younger as his heir, and made him his
 colleague on the throne. But his grandson, not contented with this measure
 of success, made him retire from the conduct of affairs, and assumed
 control over every function of government. The name of Andronicus II. was
 still associated with that of Andronicus III. on the coinage and in the
 public prayers, but he took no further part in the rule of the empire. In
 1332 he died, at a good old age, lamented by no single individual in the
 realm which he had ruled for fifty years. At his death the empire was only
 two-thirds of the size that it had been at his accession.