Chapter Twenty Eight: The Road to Sarisai
"Dig up his bones!"
Ritual Byzantine chant of popular de-acclamation
Ioannes III Syriakos had not enjoyed a rapturous response in Constantinople- and when the news of the fate of his brother Alexios began to spread through the City, so did the mounting unease. As summer slipped into autumn, increasing doubts filled the capital about the Syriakoi [1] as a whole- what had Konstantinos and his sons brought but warfare and disruption?
Matters reached boiling point in October when a huge Iranian army rolled into Syria, undefended since the withdrawal of the Tagmata on the frontiers by Adrianos Lekkas in the spring.[2] Ghazan, however, did not have conquest in mind. Rather, this was a direct intervention in the Roman civil war, in support of Andronikos Xanthis. At Christmas, Ioannes’ younger brother Rōmanos was raised on the shields of the eastern troops and a new “Persian Guard” and proclaimed Emperor of the Romans at Antioch, in the presence of Shah Ghazan and half the churchmen of the East. Rōmanos had a simple promise- peace, reconciliation, and a return to good governance.
The Byzantines, however, were not impressed. As Rōmanos and Xanthis sat down with the Iranians to hammer out the terms of their alliance, the capital rose in violent revolt. As Ioannes proceeded through the City to mark Epiphany, someone shouted “let’s get rid of the fornicator Ioannes, and have our daughter Sophia instead,” and the crowd erupted into violence.[3] Up went the chilling chant “Dig up his bones!”- symbolising the rejection of Ioannes’ authority by the Byzantines.[4]
Things were not looking good. With rioting reaching a fever pitch, Ioannes took the decision to retreat from the capital and joined the main body of his army at Rhaidestos. There, he heard the news that the Senate and Patriarch had chosen to endorse Rōmanos- oddly, in the circumstances, but then Rōmanos and Xanthis had much the larger army than did the Augusta Anna Dasiotissa and her daughter, still in Arischia. For Ioannes III, there was only one sensible course of action- Rōmanos and Xanthis would have to be defeated in the field.
It might have appeared to have been a hopeless task. At his side, Ioannes controlled perhaps 10,000 men, mostly Italians and various Slavic auxiliaries. This was, to put it mildly, not an army calculated to win the loyalty of the provincial Romans of Anatolia. Sure enough, as Ioannes advanced his army east across the plateau in the spring of 1335, we hear complaints of a “second Galatian invasion”[5], and stones thrown from the walls of cities closed to the Emperor’s army. Anatolia had largely been demilitarised following the campaigns of Photopoulos in the 1280s and 1290s, but it is notable that the local Strategoi also sat on their hands. At best, Ioannes III was allowed to take provisions from the militarily controlled state warehouses, the apothêkai, along the main highways of the plateau. Otherwise, despite some warm words, he was on his own.
But Xanthis and Rōmanos, too, had difficulties. Most notably, the decision to align themselves with the Shah had raised eyebrows in the cities of the East, particularly the decision to marry both Rōmanos and his younger brother Manouil to Irano-Jušen princesses. That the girls had been baptised and renamed Eirene and Eudokia by the Patriarch of Antioch himself made very little difference to popular opinion- many cities opted to ignore the request for provisions from the “Persians”, and instead see how the war developed.
The result was a series of minor insurrections that dominated the year 1335. In Constantinople, one Petros Khoupakas made a brief bid for the purple a few weeks after Ioannes’ departure, but his bid was humiliatingly rejected by the people, who continued to clamour for the return of the princess Sophia. Indeed, where the Patriarch Khristophoros attempted to remind them that their true ruler was neither Sophia, nor Petros, nor Ioannes, but the young Rōmanos, he suffered the indignity of being chased out of town by an armed mob, and forced to take refuge with the bishop of Chalcedon. In the East, meanwhile, the formidable army of the Katepánō of Egypt [6], Leon Kastamonites, bluntly refused the summons from Xanthis to join the rebel army- Kastamonites apparently feared being demoted and replaced by a crony of Xanthis’. And in Italy, imperial paralysis and the withdrawal of troops to fight in Anatolia lead to renewed raiding by Karlos of Aragon, culminating in midsummer with the relatively bloodless seizure of the main towns of Corsica and Sardinia. Meanwhile, the brothers Ioannes and Rōmanos Syriakos sat warily either side of the Syrian Gates [7], waiting for the other to make his move.
It was the catastrophic failure of the harvest in the autumn of 1335 that eventually forced the hand of Ioannes III. With rioting in Constantinople and the towns of the Aegean reaching a fever pitch, he must have felt that the war needed to be drawn to a close, to allow for the return of a measure of authority to his rule. In November, his small army forced the Syrian gates and, bypassing a force led by Andronikos Xanthis, marched on Damaskos, which swiftly capitulated. In Damaskos, Ioannes concluded treaties with the Banū Tamīm Arabs [8] who dominated the desert littoral, in which the Tanīmids undertook to launch raids into Iraq and encourage uprisings against Ghazan. Meanwhile, Ioannes would march on Egypt to take control of the army of Leon Kastamonites.
The defeat at the Syrian gates now led, we are told, to a serious disagreement of how to proceed in the camp of Xanthis and Rōmanos. The young prince, supported by his brother Manouil, urged his uncle that now was the time to make a quick march on Constantinople, to seize the capital and the legitimacy of a popular acclamation. Aged just sixteen, Rōmanos may well have been rash in his optimism: certainly, the experience of Petros Khoupakas suggested that the Byzantines were in no mind to accept any ruler other than young Sophia Pegonitissa. Nonetheless, there remained large professional armies in the field in both the Haemic Peninsula and in Anatolia- armies that, Rōmanos reasoned, would march for an unquestioned, acclaimed Emperor.
Xanthis was unconvinced. In his mind, arriving at the xenophobic capital at the head of an army largely made up of foreign barbarians, whilst leaving an unsubdued Ioannes at large in Syria was asking for trouble.[9] It was decided that the matter be put to the officers (the most notable of whom was Adrianos Lekkas) and the Jušen allies directly, and the result was clear and decisive: the men, whilst supporting the boy Rōmanos, would follow the proven experience and preference of Andronikos Xanthis. Rōmanos, for his part, apparently took the decision in apparent good grace. The struggle would be decided in the East- and Constantinople would continue to wait for a new Emperor.
Italy, meanwhile, remained in ferment. Pope Samuel had rallied the defence of the mainland against the raids of Karlos of Aragon over the year, and displayed his usual populist touch by shipping in grain to Rome and Neapolis [10] from Zirid Ifriqiya [11] at his own expense. The confused news from the east, however, deeply disturbed Samuel. He had backed Ioannes III as a strong ally, not a man who would be bogged down in a slow civil war that would ruin Rhōmanía. Accordingly, therefore, Samuel began to discreetly cast around for alternative allies to protect his position- and one was conveniently close at hand.
Now would not be the time to discuss the developments in the Aragonese kingdom that had led, by the fourteenth century, to its becoming the most formidable naval power in the Mediterranean. Suffice it to say that Karlos II had seized power in a disputed succession in 1328 thanks in large part to his reputation as a formidable captain defeating the pirates of the Balearic Islands [12], dispatching a number of relatives in naval battles off the Aragonese coast and sending his surviving kinsmen into exile in the tiny neighbouring kingdom of Nabarra.[13] With the Balearics consolidated, and a number of cities on the African coast sacked, Karlos and his captains turned their attention to denuded Italy to seize further booty and enlist volunteers for their campaigns- and despite Samuel’s efforts Corsica and Sardinia had fallen without much effort. King Karlos was still present in Karalis when Samuel’s ambassadors arrived, this time not to continue hostilities, but to draw up the terms of an alliance.
What is most notable about the treaty that Karlos signed is that the Emperor Ioannes III was barely mentioned- instead, Pope Samuel led the way on behalf of the Augusta Anna, and the “Emperor” Sophia. “From that day”, Nikolaos the Builder [14] would later recount, “he began to covet the imperial power of the Romans, which was not permitted to him by God”. By the terms of the treaty, Karlos would be granted imperial titles and honours, a number of important relics, and, most importantly, a Patriarchate for Aragon- in exchange for providing ships to bring the civil war to an end.
Conditions in the Mediterranean, as the autumn drew to a close, meant hostilities could not readily continue- but this was not the case in the East. Buoyed by the new Arab treaty, Ioannes III marched in January 1336 to Jerusalem en route to Egypt- but found the city closed to him. A more temperate man might perhaps have opted to bypass the city but for whatever reason, Ioannes III opted to make an example of the Jerusalemites- Ioannes of Kilikia [15] would attribute the decision to his fury at the condemnation of his regime by the Patriarch Simeon IV. After a brief siege, Jerusalem capitulated, but not before much of her beautiful architecture had been pulverised by Ioannes' fire-lances [16], including both the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock. The Patriarch, an ally of Xanthis, was tortured, blinded, and had his ears and lips cut off before finally being executed. Jerusalem’s citizens were butchered.
If Ioannes had thought to cower the remaining cities of Palaistine into submission by this atrocity, he would be disappointed. Instead, he created the opening that his uncle Andronikos Xanthis had been waiting for. With Leon Kastamonites remaining stubbornly neutral, Ioannes now found himself caught between two hostile forces, and opted to retreat north to draw on further support from the Arabs- but at the town of Sarisai [17] he found himself caught. Ahead, lay the army of Xanthis and Rōmanos.
The Battle of Sarisai is one of the better known clashes of the period. Ioannes attempted to neutralise the larger army of Xanthis by constructing a series of deep trenches in front of his smaller army, and using his Arab reinforcements to launch sorties against Xanthis’ drawn up professionals- but Xanthis’ Irano-Jušen allies had not permitted their primordial habits of mounted archery to lapse. Ioannes’ Arabs were driven back, and the main body of the his uncle’s army now began to ponderously advance on the trenches, working their way around the narrow paths constructed by Ioannes’ troops. For a while, the Italians and Sclavenes held their ground, but then a rumour began to spread around the camp that Ioannes had fled for Egypt. As panic spread, increasing numbers of the imperial army began to throw down their weapons, and Xanthis’ men poured across the trenches to surround the imperial tent, where Ioannes had watched his lines collapse.
Far from fleeing, Ioannes III had tried to rally his men, but then found himself caught by Xanthis’ soldiers. Xanthis had apparently tried to capture his nephew alive, but either the message was lost, or this is a later invention. Ioannes was torn from his horse and had his throat cut. So perished Ioannes III Syriakos, “the Fornicator”. Now only two sons of Konstantinos XI were left.
His was not the only death that day- but what exactly happened remains a mystery. Apparently, Andronikos Xanthis passed away later that day- having eaten a poisoned apple treacherously left by Ioannes III- or rather, he died happily in his sleep having ridden the Roman Empire of a wicked tyrant. The famous illustrative mosaic of fifteenth century Kaloula [18] illustrating the life of Xanthis goes so far as to depict his life as seven days of labour, with a blessed endless “day of rest” after the Battle of Sarisai.
Perhaps this is true. Xanthis was around sixty years old- maybe the stresses of the past year had simply been too much for him. But before we continue the story, it is worth taking a look at the Testimony of an unnamed Jewish author in Palaistine, sensationally unearthed in the 1920s by a team from Fusang. This work, apparently by an eyewitness, tells us that the “wicked child” Rōmanos V had Xanthis seized shortly after the battle, after the soldiery began to call for their great general to be raised to the purple. In private, the general was brought before his nephew- Rōmanos was still just seventeen – and accused of conspiring with Ioannes to throw the battle by luring Rōmanos and his men directly into the trenches. Given no chance to defend himself, a priest was summoned to hear Xanthis’ last confession, before the old general had his throat cut like Ioannes just hours previously.
The following day, the glorious reign of Rōmanos V began in earnest. It would not last long.
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1. I’m going to use this term to refer to the Syrian Dynasty, to avoid confusion with the people of Syria!
2. See Chapter Twenty Seven.
3. I’ve based this on the revolt against the Emperor Michael V in 1042.
4. This is a real chant, used to repudiate the authority of an Emperor.
5. The Galatians were western European Celts who established themselves on the Anatolian plateau in the third century BC.
6. Fifty years on from its reincorporation into the Empire, Egypt remains a highly militarised province requiring the dedicated attention of a Catepan, rather than a regular governor.
7. Today the Belen Pass in Hatay province of Turkey.
8. The Tanimids are the dominant Arab tribe of the OTL Hejaz and Jordan of IE’s 14th century.
9. The army of Xanthis and Rōmanos is partly made up of the professional Tagmata of the Euphrates and Duchy of Antioch, but derives perhaps half its strength from its Jurchen backers.
10. Naples
11. The Zirids are a Berber dynasty who collapsed IOTL in the 12th century. In IE, their state has been boosted by heavy immigration of skilled Muslims fleeing from a rather intolerant Byzantine Sicily, and from their heartland IOTL Tunisia, they exercise loose authority over much of OTL Libya and Algeria.
12. I was extremely tempted to use the OTL Greek term “Naked Islands” for the archipelago in IE… but in the end, decided against it.
13. Navarre
14. Nikolaos the Builder, Bishop of Kherson 1354-1361 and later Grand Logothete to the Emperor Isaakios III.
15. A chronicler writing in the early 1400s.
16. Cannons- still primitive, but the technology was brought to Rhōmanía by the Jurchens.
17. Quneitra in the Golan Heights.
18. What will become the great city and port of Rhōmanía on the horn of Africa in later centuries.
