Byzantine Empire (Byzantine Khazaria)
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| Anthem: | "Glorious Imperium Romanum" | ||||
| Capital: | Constantinople | ||||
| Largest city: | Constantinople | ||||
| Language: | Greek | ||||
| Religion: | Eastern Orthodox Christianity | ||||
| Ethnic groups: main: | Greek, Roman | ||||
| others: | Armenians, Persians, Germans, Slavs, Syrians, Jews, Russians, Swiss | ||||
| Type of government: | Autocracy | ||||
| government: | Senate | ||||
| Population: | 36,000,000 | ||||
| Established: | 395 | ||||
| Currency: | Solidus | ||||
The Empire recovered during the Comnenus dynasty, rising again to become a pre-eminent power in the Eastern Mediterranean by the late eleventh century, rivaling the Fatmid Caliphate of Egypt. Despite more losses to the Seljuks, the empire began to concentrate on its northern borders. By the 1400's, it had underwent a massive transformation into one of the largest nations in Europe, with the conquest of much of Russia. Byzantine rule extended from Syria in the east to Switzerland in the west, and ushered in a new golden age remembered today as the 'Glory Years of Great Byzantium'.
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History
Edit
Added by Emperor of TrebizondIn 395, the empire was permanently split into a Latin Western Roman Empire and a Greek Eastern Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire quickly disintegrated and collapsed with the fall of Rome in 476. The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire's early history was marked by struggle after struggle to repel encroaching Germanic and Slavic tribes. Persian invasions also weakened the crumbling empire. In 610, the emperor Heraclius temporarily rid Constantinople of the Persian threat by winning the Romano-Persian wars and driving the Persian shahs back to Mesopotamia. In 634, the Byzantines begin to collapse again when they were struck by an invasion of the Arab Muslims, who went on to overrun North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. A large Byzantine army was destroyed in Syria by 642, and the Arabs went on to defeat the Byzantine navy off the coast of Anatolia.
By the 700's, the Byzantine Empire had barely managed to turn back the Muslims from the gates of Constantinople itself. During the 800's, however, the Byzantines begin to expand again. Their control of the major trade routes made Constantinople one of the richest cities in the known world. Business grew, and the empire prospered. However, the Byzantine Greeks were shaken again when a quarrel with Western Europe began in 1054 over matters of religion. That year, growing disputes over Papal authority led to a permanent split between the Roman church, into eastern (Orthodox) and western (Catholic) sections.
Byzantine KhazariaEdit
The Komnenian EraEdit
The Komnenian era was born out of a period of great difficulty and strife for the Byzantine Empire. Following a period of relative success and expansion under the Macedonian dynasty (c.867-c.1054), Byzantium experienced several decades of stagnation and decline, which culminated in a vast deterioration in the military, territorial, economic and political situation of the Byzantine Empire by the accession of Alexios I Komnenos in 1056.After Manzikert, a partial recovery was made possible due to the efforts of the Komnenian dynasty. This is sometimes referred to as the Komnenian restoration. The first emperor of this royal line was Alexios I Komnenos (Comnenus). Alexios's long reign of nearly 37 years was full of struggle. His early years were marked by battles to suppress revolts and repel Normans in southern Italy. By the time he had ascended the throne, the Seljuks had also taken most of eastern Asia Minor.
Added by Emperor of TrebizondBy that time, Alexios had consolidated and stabilized Byzantine Italy, as well as accepting a formal union with the states of Georgia. He saw the chance for more such gains when the second and much more formidable host of crusaders gradually made its way to Constantinople, led by the Holy Roman emperor and other important members of the German nobility. Many of the other Western medieval kingdoms were at the time paralyzed by various expansionist wars and unwilling to send troops for the Crusade. Alexios used the opportunity of meeting the crusader leaders separately as they arrived and extracting from them oaths of homage and the promise to turn over conquered lands to the Byzantine Empire. Transferring each contingent into Asia, Alexios promised to supply them with provisions in return for their oaths of homage. The crusade was a notable disappointment for Byzantium, as the Turks were able to destroy it and capture the German emperor. Upon his execution, the Crusading spirit began to fall apart at the seams.
Checked by the failure of the Crusade, the Byzantines turned their attention away from the Turks and, with the Crusading spirit in Western Europe broken, began focusing their attention elsewhere. First, Alexios used a considerable amount of diplomatic and military pressure to force a peace with the Norman County of Sicily to stabilize his western borders. He then turned his attention to a grand conquest he had envisioned of the northern black sea area and the people that dwelt there: The Khazars.
Conquest of KhazariaEdit
The Byzantines had found themselves utterly checked by Normans and Western European nation-states in the west, and by the Turks and the Fatmid Caliphate in the east and south. Thus, it was only inevitable that a warlike emperor would choose to turn the Greek theater of war towards the north.The conquest of Khazaria was done swiftly and with an impressive amount of little bloodshed. Crimea was the first to be completely absorbed, as the Khazar governor was bribed by the Greeks to join them and cede Crimea to them. As a reward, he was appointed Duke of Crimea. In the following years, all of the Khazar commanders in Ukraine had received offers to join the Byzantine ranks for considerable amounts of gold, corrupting the military and crippling the Khazars' ability to resist Byzantine conquest, accomplished through diplomacy instead of warfare.
With Crimea in Byzantine hands, the last Khazar Khagan attempted to raise his army to retake the region but was unsuccessful. Instead, finding his generals deserting him, he retreated to a castle in eastern Ukraine and refused to come out. After a week of siege, the Byzantines convinced the Khagan he could only profit by surrender. Indeed, the Khagan was allowed to retain control of Khazaria as a Byzantine-appointed governor. Thus, by 1114, the Khazars had quietly ceased to be as an independent nation. The Khazars remained content under Byzantine rule, but the Eastern Orthodox Church began a series of religious reforms across Khazaria, bringing in Greek clergymen from Georgia to help convert the population.
Added by Emperor of TrebizondFurther Expansions into Russia and Middle Eastern ConquestsEdit
Alexios took only three years to govern and keep Khazaria before he was eager for further Russian expansion. From 1118-1124, the Byzantines made massive territorial gains in Russia. The Kievan Rus' former territories were soon overrun, and the Greeks continued to push further and further north, meeting less and less resistance.Around this time, Alexios also annexed Bulgaria and Serbia, adding them to his growing empire. Bulgaria fell due to treachery, corruption, and diplomacy. The Bulgar khan was assassinated by a Byzantine agent, and his heirs played off against each other. After a three year war had spent them and devastated the entire country, the Greek forces marched in and restored order. The Serbs, meanwhile, were able to offer only token resistance due to the massive sizes of the Byzantine armies sent against them.
By 1126, Moscow and Kiev had both been overrun by a Byzantine expeditionary force. The Greeks' main advantage was their ability to move swiftly over winter wastelands and use local militia troops, guides, and mercenaries for their conquest. Georgia in particular became a recruiting ground for many mercenaries. Members of the Teutonic Knights were among those who traveled to Georgia seeking mercenary work. In 1129, Alexios realized his chance had come for revenge against the Seljuk Turks. The sultans of Egypt and Turkey alike had offered him alliances, all of which he had rejected. When central Anatolia revolted against the Turks, Alexios himself led a large army out to capture it. The rebels were only defeated after a narrowing, fierce, battle. Greek casualties were especially staggering, and included among them were over one half of the Varangians, the emperor's Scandinavian bodyguards.
But their battle was far from over. The same year, the Turkish sultan Mesud I marched a large army into Anatolia. The Byzantine forces crushed the Turks after the sultan unwisely attempted to draw the Greeks into a pitched battle on an open field. Mesud himself fell slain on the plains, and his own bodyguards decapitated his corpse. Upon his death, the Seljuk sultanate broke apart into several minor Turkish sultanates and emirates, based in Armenia, the Caspian Sea, and Syria. The Fatmid Caliphate went on to seize some of these minor states, but Armenia was absorbed into the Byzantine Empire. Alexios died the same year, mourned all over the empire as a true Roman conqueror. His age is incredible; Greek sources state that he died at 93, which was extremely old for his time. He was perhaps the longest ruling Roman emperor. Alexios was succeeded by his relative Alexios II Komnenos, who was born the same year Alexios I had ascended to the throne.
Reign of Alexios IIEdit
The reign of Alexios II saw further Byzantine expansion into Russia and the conquest of Syria. His early reign proceeded peacefully as he attempted to begin administrative reforms in the new territory conquered by Alexios I. In 1134, seeing the Byzantines recalling many of their border troops for conflicts in faraway Russia and the Middle East, the Norman County of Sicily launched an invasion of Byzantine Italy, hoping to strike out towards Naples and crush the Greek garrisons. However, their onslaught was repelled with such tenacious violence that the count was forces to withdraw his troops. A pitched battle near Croton doomed the ravaging Norman army, and destroyed the bulk of the county's forces.Alexios himself proceeded to southern Italy to access the damages of war. He concluded a profitable peace treaty with the Normans, and forced them to pay him an annual tribute. However, the Normans continued to harass Greek ships in the Adriatic and continually launched probing expeditions into southern Italy. Alexios seemed unwilling or unable to deal with these problems during his reign. In 1136, the Byzantines pushed the borders of their Russian empire as far west as Prussia, where they finally halted.
Alexios had his eye on the Fatmid Caliphate and was continually wary of them. After surviving two attempted assassination attempts orchestrated by the Egyptians, Alexios ordered an invasion of Syria. Several especially bloody battles were fought in the Syrian desert, which the Byzantines only won with agonizing difficulty. Alexios also hired Egyptian and Moorish mercenaries to help him better combat the Fatmid forces. By 1140, Antioch itself was in his hands. The Fatmid Caliphate called a Jihad against the Byzantine Empire, but Alexios had wisely developed an alliance with the faraway Almoravids, who retracted the alliance but refused to join the Fatmids in the Jihad.
As many as 50,000 Byzantine troops were amassed on the borders of southern Syria to prevent the Jihad, but the Fatmids continually tried to attack isolated Greek positions in the Syrian desert instead. After four years of scattered fighting and skirmishes, the Arab forces withdrew back to Palestine, leaving Syria firmly in Byzantine hands. Alexios II ended his reign with a forced white peace on the Fatmid Caliphate.
Sicilian WarsEdit
Added by Emperor of TrebizondThe Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos decided it was time to take action against the County of Sicily once and for all. In 1167, the entire Norman fleet was destroyed off the coast of Sardinia. By 1168 they had been driven back to Sicily itself. The Byzantines then made a massive land and sea invasion into Sicily. A number of ferocious battles were fought along the coast, including the Battle of Alcantara River, in which nearly five hundred Norman knights were slaughtered by heavily armored Byzantine infantry wielding pole-arms.
After a siege lasting nearly two years, Palermo fell to the invaders. The count requested a peace, but instead the Byzantines rejected his offer outright. In 1171, the count himself was captured by Greek agents and beheaded. All of Sicily was then swiftly overrun by Byzantine forces, and the Normans retreated to Malta. Manuel opted not to pursue them any further, and instead turned to rebuilding and reconstructing Sicily.
Wars of Byzantine AggressionEdit
Upon the death of Manuel I in 1180, the northern Kingdom of Hungary began to press on Byzantine borders. The Hungarians had soon annexed all of Croatia from the Venetians, with the exception of a few scattered coastal outposts. Venice retained these until the 1300's. Several incursions into Byzantine territory alarmed Alexios III, Manuel's successor, and Polish expeditions began to raid Byzantine territory in Bulgaria as well.Thus, in 1183, Alexios III launched an invasion of Croatia. The hopelessly outnumbered Hungarians withdrew, and the province fell without a fight. Encouraged by this victory, Alexios proposed a peace with the king of Hungary, but was refused. The remainder of his reign was spent raising more troops to garrison Byzantium's Russian territories. However, in 1190, Alexios was overthrown by Zeno II, an Italian commander in charge of Naples in Byzantine Italy. Zeno's reign of two years marked a steady decline in Byzantine fortunes. During this time Egyptian forces crushed a Byzantine army near Antioch in Syria.
While the Fatmids quickly withdrew before Zeno could catch up with them, this rudely shook the confidence and morale in Byzantine Syria. Zeno was deposed in 1192, and replaced with Andronikos I Komnenos. Andronikos hoped to take the war to Hungary, which was still causing trouble on Byzantium's borders. Until 1200, the emperor waged a bloody war against the Hungarians, defeating them in 1194 and again in 1199. He was ambushed and killed by a band of Hungarian knights in 1201 while away campaigning.
John III Komnenus ascended to the Byzantine throne in 1201. He was made emperor of an empire dissatisfied with his father's constant warfare with the Hungarians and an exhausted treasury. But John proved to be resourceful. His shrewd business and trade dealings with the Muslims and Italians made him a popular man. He was able to replenish the treasury, eliminate most of the national debt to the Venetians, and even reduce taxes in Greece. In 1205, the Second Crusade finally materialized due to the pope's appeals for the Crusading spirit in Western Europe. Unfortunately, unwilling to fight the Turks or deal with the Byzantines by traveling overland, they tried to ask the Venetians to help ferry them by sea directly to Palestine, and the goal of the Crusade: Jerusalem itself.
The Greeks made no secret of their hostility and coldness towards the 'Frankish Barbarians'. It was especially aggravated by the sacking of Trebizond by the Holy Roman emperor during the First Crusade. But the hostility only added to the growing rift when the Venetians turned the Second Crusade aside to attack Constantinople instead. The French knights who comprised it turned aside and began ravaging their way through Serbia. John III hurried to meet them with a massive army. He also posted garrisons across the borders of Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria to prevent the Crusaders from slipping through unopposed. The fighting came to a huge battle in Bulgaria. The Crusaders and their Venetian allies at first defeated the armored Byzantine cavalry with the use of mercenary pikemen, but a sudden counterattack by John III and his Turkish archers routed the Crusader army and shattered their front line.
Nearly 1,000 French soldiers were made prisoners of the Byzantines, and most of them were executed, save for the few knights and Venetian barons who were able to ransom themselves and return to Italy. The disastrous Second Crusade not only disillusioned Europe about the Crusading spirit, and mortified the pope, but it drove a permanent wedge between Venice and Byzantium. In 1206, John III accused the Catholic Hungarians of having supported the Crusade and annexed southern Hungary. The king was reduced to the status of a vassal, and forced to pay an annual tribute.
However, John was far from finished. He bribed the garrison of Budapest to join the Byzantines and desert the Hungarians. However, the king realized the truth and laid siege to Budapest. As John was unable to send support, he could only watch. But much to his amazement, the garrison bottled up the king and his army within the city walls and massacred 600 of them, including the king himself, who was struck down by a crossbow bolt as he entered the walls on his horse.
A Serbian mercenary sent the head of the Hungarian king to John III, to satisfy him that the king was really dead. The Kingdom of Hungary was dissolved, and completely occupied by the Byzantine Empire. In quick succession, Poland declared war on the Byzantines. Although the reasons for the declaration of war have not been preserved, it is likely that the Poles were fearing the growth of Greek power in Europe and were probably allies of the Hungarians. However, after several minor campaigns, the Polish forces withdrew, leaving the Byzantine forces firmly entrenched in Hungary. To prevent revolts, reestablish order, and guard the empire's northern borders, Emperor John assigned a Byzantine military force with guarding each of the Hungarian border provinces and defending them. A general was assigned to each province to oversee operations there.
Added by Emperor of TrebizondDeclineEdit
Upon the death of John III, his son Manuel II Komnenos rose to the imperial throne. He ruled from 1209-1222. His reign was marked by constant attempts to suppress revolts in Sicily and in Hungary. A military rebellion in Constantinople nearly cost him his crown, and severely depleted manpower and morale. His son Alexios III succeeded him. The imperial treasury was spent on gifts to favourites of the emperor, extravagant court banquets, and expensive luxuries for the imperial family.Alexios III was fair and capable as Byzantine emperors went, but he was never very popular in Constantinople and was forced by the growing feudalism in Byzantium to share his power with many of the local aristocracy and the Greek nobles. He died the plot of an assassination and was replaced by his brother David I, who hunted down the killers. David I set up a more constitutional monarchy over the Byzantine Empire, sharing power with a senate of elected members of the imperial ruling family. He also had many of the Greek feudal nobles stripped of their titles and exiled. Their lands and estates were in turn given to the emperor. This did little to help the problem, as peasants were now chained to the state, rather than a particular feudal noble.
David was replaced by George I Komnenos, who released the peasants chained to their feudal lands and allowed them to buy back their own farms from the state. In doing so, George abolished feudalism in the Byzantine Empire. This life soon proved difficult to adjust to for many Hungarians who had known only feudalism their entire life. George sought to reverse the decline of the Byzantines by setting in place a series of bold administrative and military reforms. He also limited the power of the Senate in Constantinople. George died in 1240.
George I Komnenos was succeeded by his son Manuel III, who ruled Byzantium for nine years. Upon his death, the empire plunged into civil war. Manuel's son Manuel IV eventually defeated five of his rivals, after a two-year civil war, in claiming the imperial purple. He sought alliances with Western European countries, particularly the English. However, the king of England had already accepted a strategic trade alliance with the Mamluk Sultanate, ensuring he would refuse the Byzantine offer. Manuel IV also reconstructed a number of palaces and fortifications in Constantinople, which have remained more or less preserved as they were, to this day.
RevivalEdit
After Manuel IV was killed in battle against the Mamluks in 1263, he was succeeded by his nephew David II Komnenos. David's only noteworthy deed was fighting no less than four civil wars and establishing an alliance with the Principality of Novogrod, which bordered the Byzantine Empire to the north. This would lead to a series of unsuccessful emperors, throwing the empire into serious debt and instability. It was not until 1333. In 1333, Skantarios II came to power. He sought to reverse the decline of the empire by establishing trade relations with other European nations, allowing the Greeks to profit from business in the western Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.The same year he ascended to the throne, his wife, a Russian princess, died of an unknown disease. Skantarios married again, this time to the daughter of the doge of Genoa. As a wedding payment, Skanatarios granted the Genoese trade rights in Byzantine territories and allowed them to establish colonies in Constantinople and Trebizond. In 1340, he drove the Venetians out of Croatia and eliminated their final outposts in the Balkans. His grandson, Philippos I, established the Said dynasty of Byzantium in 1360.
Under the Saids, the Byzantines entered a new age of wealth and prosperity in the 1400's. In 1406, the Greeks destroyed the last of the rump Hungarian states established after the Byzantine conquest of Budapest. They also developed a stable and friendly alliance with the Genoese. In 1421, the Byzantines amassed at the border of the Republic of Venice itself. The Genoese amassed on the other border. Together, they crushed the Venetians between them. A combined Genoese-Byzantine army inflicted a decisive defeat on the Venetian forces near the gates of Venice, and by the end of the year the city had fallen into their hands. Several German and Florentine mercenaries captured the doge of Venice and executed him.
With the fall of Venice, Genoa became the new 'Lion of the Mediterranean'. Under Byzantine protection, they monopolized trade in the entire sea, controlling European shipping lines from Africa, the Middle East, and Christendom.
However, a year later, the Genoese doge was assassinated by spies of the Holy Roman Empire, throwing Genoa into anarchy. A bloody civil war followed, and the Italians under Genoese rule in northern Italy seized the chance to declare their independence as the Duchy of Tuscanny. In 1424, the Byzantine emperor Pavlos I saw his chance to expand further into Italy and invaded Tuscanny. The capital, Florence, was taken by the storm and the duke trampled by his own panic-stricken soldiers as they retreated through the gates.
By 1425, the entire former duchy of Tuscanny was under Byzantine rule. Surviving armies of Tuscanny fled to Genoa, where they were shown no mercy. Emperor Pavlos considered invading Genoa itself to end the chaos there, but in 1426 the Republic of Genoa was officially reestablished, with a new doge. The city of Genoa, having been captured by the Holy Roman emperor, was sieged back and the German garrison massacred. Pavlos warmly recognized the new doge, but the response was bitter and cold.
The Genoese demanded the return of Tuscanny, but the Byzantines refused. From 1428-1435, the Genoese fought a drawn out war with the Greeks in an attempt to recapture their lost Italian territories. They overwhelmed Florence and captured Milan, but the Byzantines were able to force them out again. The bloody fighting raged until December of 1435, when the war-exhausted Genoese finally retreated back to Genoa, broken. In 1436, Pavlos died and was succeeded by his son Georgios III.
Georgios worked to better relations with the Genoese and repaired their old alliance. Under Georgios and his successors, a war was waged against the Holy Roman Empire to restore lost Genoese territories to the old republic and make more territorial gains. The war ended in 1473 with the fall of Vienna. The Byzantine emperor himself now sat on the throne of the Holy Roman rulers, proclaiming that there was no Roman empire but the true Eastern one, to the irrepressible humiliation of the German emperor.
Added by Emperor of TrebizondIoannes VI was recognized across the Byzantine Empire and the known world for his superior administrative skill and battle against corruption in Byzantine government. He reformed the imperial administration of the emperor's bureaucracy and was able to maximize taxes in Constantinople. He remained consistently popular throughout his lengthy reign and visited many of the courts of Western Europe. In 1480, he secured a peace with the German states, formed an alliance with England, and visited the Spanish royal houses in Iberia. Under his reign, the Byzantine Empire became one of the richest and largest powers of the European continent. When he finally died in 1484, he left behind an enduring legacy and ushered a new age of peace for known civilization.
Second Sack of Rome (Byzantine Khazaria)
| Location | Rome, Papal States |
| Date | December, 1444 |
| Attacking Army | Byzantine Empire (Emperor Georgios III) with about 15,000 men. |
| Defending Army | Papal States (Pope Gilio I) with about 2,600 men. |
| Result | Major victory for Byzantines; Looting of Rome |
| Casualties | Papacy 700, Byzantines 200 |
BackgroundEdit
In the 1400's AD, Pope Gilio I instituted a series of attempts to form an alliance with the Holy Roman Empire and Genoa against the expanding Byzantine Empire to combat their interests in Western Europe; but neither the doge nor the emperor dared oppose Greek military might. By this point, the Byzantines controlled all territory both north and south of the Papal States. According to the Pope, who had seen the Byzantines take advantage of unrest in Genoa to seize their central Italian territories, he knew it was only a matter of time before tensions between the Papacy and Byzantium rose to open hostility.The Papal States, unwilling to challenge the power of the Byzantine Greeks, had formed an alliance with the emperor John III. However, they became increasingly alarmed as the Byzantines expanded into Western Europe, subduing Tuscanny, annexing Switzerland, and defeating the Austrian emperor in a war. The Papacy backed Genoa against the Greeks during the Italian Wars of the 1400's, but with Genoese defeat, the Popes realized that the Byzantine emperors had their eyes on his sovereign dominion, the Papal States.
For the next few years, the Pope, now surrounded on all sides by Byzantine territory, tried to break the political stranglehold he was caught in while never directly challenging the government in Constantinople. The Pope also played Genoa, the Holy Roman emperor, and the Byzantine Empire against each other. When this failed, he tried to have the emperor Georgios III assassinated. Unfortunately for the Pope, the assassin, a Milanese, was captured. When put to torture he admitted a cardinal near Rome had contacted him for the assassination, Georgios took this as a sign of war. He immediately dissolved his alliance with the Pope and invaded the Papal States.
Battle and SackEdit
Added by Emperor of TrebizondOn December 13, after bombarding Rome for twenty-four hours, the Byzantine troops attacked the land walls. The Papal defenses, although solid, were in fact in bad repair, as allegedly the Pope had entrusted the reconstructing of the walls to two greedy cardinals, who neglected their duties and placed most of the funds in their own pocket. By the time of the siege, the walls of Rome were evidently in such bad shape that the defenders were afraid to mount heavy cannon on them!
Pope Gilio entrusted defense of the city to a knight by the name of Rossi, who was apparently in very high opinion of the clergy of Rome. Rossi lacked nothing in bravery, but was considered by many to be a fool on the battlefield. On the assault of December 13, the Papal forces met the Byzantines with a withering hail of bullets and crossbow bolts, which drove the Greeks back. However, despite some losses, the Byzantines managed to find the weakest points in the wall.
On the night of December 14, a light sprinkling of snow fell on Rome. The citizens, on the verge of preparing for Christmas celebrations, instead huddled in their homes listening to the clamor of battle outside. The knight Rossi was struck down by a stray arrow during the attack. It was by this point clear that the Pope's tiny army could not resist any longer. They fought like heroes, but were inevitably thrown back from the walls. By midnight, Byzantine banners were flying over Rome's walls for the first time in centuries. Rossi's demoralized forces were quickly rallied by Cardinal Giuliano, who was himself a former soldier but probably no more competent than Rossi. By this point, Greek soldiers fighting on the walls had managed to open the gates, and the Byzantine army poured into Rome from three sides. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Guiliano gathered together a contingent of mounted knights, along with the Papal Swiss Guard, and retreated to the center of the city. He also advised the Pope to flee, as the Greeks were inside the walls. Gilio took the advice and escaped before the onslaught to a secret chamber in his personal residence, where he would remain a virtual prisoner for the next two days as the Byzantines sacked the ancient city.
At the north gate of Rome, the Byzantines came under fire from the surviving towers, but within half an hour had secured this area and were already storming the cardinals' palaces. Towards the west gate, for a while the Greeks were held in check. About 200 of the Swiss Guard led a determined counterattack, which brought them under a murderous cross-fire and driving them back into the city after especially bloody fighting around this area. It is estimated that nearly half the Byzantine casualties in the battle came from this fight against the Swiss.
Meanwhile, many of Rome's shrines and the prelates' palaces were already being looted. The halls of grand churches, once glittering with Papal ornaments, jeweled crosses, valuable tapestry, and scarlet cloth were laid bare. At St. Peter's square the last of the fighting was already taking place. The cardinal Guiliano fought on for quite some time, but was eventually felled. His ornamental armor, in fact, only served to mark him out as a target. The Papal knights made a doomed charge into a number of Byzantine spearmen, which bogged them down while the remaining Byzantine infantry poured into the square and cut the defenders to pieces. All of the Pope's troops in St. Peter's Square were killed that day, and no prisoners were taken.
For the next forty-eight hours, the Byzantines thoroughly pillaged the city. Numerous treasures of the church, sacred Papal ornaments, jeweled icons, and ancient Roman works of art were carried back to Constantinople. The Pope formally surrendered on December 16. The Byzantines chose to spare the Pope himself, as even the Emperor Georgios III approached his hiding place yet chose to leave him in peace. Having gained all the fear and loot they, the Greek army encamped outside Rome and celebrated for December 17, then marched away, arriving in Byzantine Tuscanny the following night.
AftermathEdit
The emperor Georgios was merciful to Rome's population, and only sacked the city, avoiding unnecessary murder or rape of the Italian civilians. However, the ferocity of the battle against the Papacy only served to darken his reputation. For the entirety of his reign, Georgios would be known as the 'Merciless Mauler of Rome'.The Papal States still clung to existence--but the Sack of Rome was a clear warning of Byzantine power. Georgios III had looted the Eternal City, and would take it by force and threatened to place the Pope's head on a pike if the Papacy dared to betray him again. The only reason the Byzantines allowed the Papacy to retain its dominion probably lies in the fact that they were overextended from their recent European conquests and feared the wrath of all the Catholic nations. Had it not been for this happy decision of Georgios, the Papacy would've possibly been wiped from the face of the Earth.
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