Ghost Empire

by Richard Fidler

  IN HIS LATER YEARS, Emperor John V Palaeologus was obliged to travel to the courts of western Europe to beg for aid against the growing threat of the Ottoman Turks. It was the first time a Roman emperor had travelled abroad as a supplicant. John alienated the Hungarians by arrogantly refusing to dismount from his horse when their king walked towards him. He received nothing for his efforts. On his journey home John was detained in Venice as a debtor, a terrible humiliation for the emperor and autocrator of the Romans. In the absence of any material support from the west, John had no choice but to become a vassal of the Ottomans, required to pay tribute and provide military support to a Muslim sultan.

  After John’s death, the dynastic infighting among the Palaeologus family only intensified. Ottoman rulers became accustomed to receiving the envoys of emperors and would-be emperors, offering tribute in exchange for military support against a hated rival. The prestige of the imperial office declined as the Palaeologi squandered their dwindling inheritance, fighting each other for supremacy. In the eyes of the world, the Roman ‘empire’ slid from a thing of tragedy to an object of ridicule and, ultimately, of contempt.

  The Orb and the Cross

  ‘I, SINFUL STEPHEN of Novgorod the Great, came to Constantinople with my eight companions to venerate the holy places and to kiss the bodies of the saints’ – so begins the account of Stephen, a Russian pilgrim who came to Constantinople in 1349. Stephen and his companions were bewildered by the size and complexity of the metropolis. His advice reads like a post on TripAdvisor: ‘Entering Constantinople is like entering a great forest; it is impossible to get around without a good guide, and if you attempt to get around stingily or cheaply you will not be able to see or kiss a single saint.’

  As Stephen and his fellow pilgrims entered the great square of the Augustaeum, they were confronted by a mighty column ‘of wondrous size, height and beauty’, so huge Stephen imagined it could be seen from far away at sea. Atop the column was a massive bronze statue of Emperor Justinian, nine to twelve metres high, erected in a far-off time when Roman power encompassed Italy, Egypt and the Holy Land. The statue of Justinian was crowned with a feathered headdress, his figure clad in armour astride a horse. Stephen of Novgorod noted that the right hand was stretched out ‘bravely to the south, toward the Saracen land and Jerusalem’, as if to hold back the Muslim tide. Justinian’s left hand was grasping an orb with a cross on it, symbolising the emperor’s God-given dominion over the whole world.

  The orb became known in the Muslim lands as kizilelma, the Red Apple. For the Ottomans, the orb became a fixation, a prize that represented global domination. Eventually the idea took hold: take the city, seize the Red Apple and become the rightful rulers of the world.

  Then, just as the Ottoman Turks began to encircle Constantinople, the orb dropped out of Justinian’s hand and crashed onto the square below. It was a horrible portent. Several attempts were made to hoist it back up into Justinian’s hand, but the Red Apple kept crashing back to the ground. And so there the Red Apple remained, on the cracked floor of the Augustaeum, the symbol of Rome’s lost authority, ripe for the taking.

  Drawing of statue of Justinian

  public domain

  IN 1439, A SPANISH NOBLEMAN named Pedro Tafur came to visit Emperor John VIII, who he believed was distantly related to him. Pedro was warmly welcomed at Blachernae, and invited to join the imperial party on several hunting trips. In his time with the imperial family, he was able to observe their very modest living conditions. Unable to afford the upkeep of Blachernae, which had fallen into disrepair and was mostly closed off, the emperor and his family were living in a couple of cramped but well-appointed apartments in the rear of the palace.

  As he wandered the city streets, Pedro was struck by the shabby state of its citizens: ‘They are not well clad,’ he noted, ‘but sad and poor, showing the hardship of their lot.’

  Pedro happened to be present to witness the great army of the ‘Grand Turk’ as it marched by the Theodosian Walls. It was a thrilling spectacle, but it left him unsettled:

  I thought that they [the Ottomans] would sit down and besiege the city, but they continued their march to the Black Sea . . . It was, indeed, what I desired, for we had but few men, and it would have been difficult to make much resistance. It was, therefore, a gratifying thing to see so great a host depart without peril or labour. Would to God that the people of our country were closer at hand, for there are here neither ships nor fortresses, nor is there any protection except by fighting.

  JOE AND I FOLLOW the line of the Theodosian Walls northwards. We see a cabinetmaker’s workshop built into one of the postern gates. We’re walking in silence now. The dilapidation of the Golden Gate has induced a melancholic feeling, an odd sense of futility.

  The Greek description of melancholia – a weight of sadness and lethargy – sounds very much like a modern diagnosis of depression. That’s not quite what I’m feeling here at the Theodosian Walls. Orhan Pamuk, in his memoir Istanbul, uses a Turkish word, hüzün, to describe a similar emotion, which pervades his childhood memories of the city. Hüzün, he says, is not a solitary experience, but a communal feeling that arises from living in a city crowded with the monuments and signs of a glorious past. It’s a hazy sadness, a gentle conviction that one is living in a monochrome era, in a world built in a larger, more colourful age.

  Today the lethargic Istanbul of Pamuk’s childhood is being flattened and cleared to make way for the dynamic Turkish megalopolis of the twenty-first century. On this walk along the wall, we see blocks of slum housing being torn down. Joe and I walk into a newly cleared space and see a neat set of contemporary townhouses under construction, fitted with modern plumbing, air-conditioning and broadband. I wonder how long it will be before the new residents demand that the crumbling old wall be demolished too.

  Fatih district, Istanbul.

  Richard Fidler

  FURTHER ALONG, near the Gate of the Rhegium, I see some ancient steps built into the brickwork. I climb up onto the parapet and haul Joe up with me. There is no protective rail, and if either of us trip, we will fall to our deaths. We plant our feet on a stable patch of brickwork and look out to the west. Below us are the ruins of the outer wall, and beyond that, a traffic flyover ramp and more makeshift housing. The modern suburbs of greater Istanbul stretch out to the horizon.

  We climb into a tower and peer out the window, putting ourselves in the place of a Roman sentry, looking out at a sea of enemies on the plains beyond the walls. We climb down and walk further, to the point where the walls are bisected by a six-lane freeway. In the freeway underpass, we find the hand-painted mural of Mehmed II and his conquering army. It’s the first sign of Turkish triumphalism we’ve seen so far. But the sultan’s enemies, the Romans, are absent from the picture. This is the site of the greatest Ottoman victory, but over whom?

  Joe at the Theodosian Walls near the St Romanus Gate.

  Richard Fidler

  The winter sun is dropping from the sky as Joe and I walk into a steep valley near the St Romanus Gate, the weakest point in the land wall defences. The outer wall has been stripped away, giving us a clear line of sight of the final stretch of the inner wall as it sweeps majestically towards the Golden Horn, interspersed with square and hexagonal towers; still upright, still vigilant, like an old soldier recalled to duty. Joe skips across a culvert that carries a thin stream of water under the wall. Was this the Lycus River? High up on a tower I see a cross etched into the brickwork, facing out to the west like a protective talisman.

  Murad and Mehmed

  TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY kilometres to the west of Constantinople lay the city of Edirne, the European capital of the Ottoman Turks. Edirne was flourishing under Ottoman rule; the sultan had commissioned splendid mosques, fountains, hospitals and a new palace to properly reflect their newfound wealth and power. The Ottoman Turks, once a nomadic people, were transformed by their acquisition of an empire: they became richer, more settled, better educated. Their
rulers, who had once contented themselves with the title of ‘Emir’, now took the grander title of ‘Sultan’, and adopted the ceremonial trappings of a great power, to be admired and feared.

  And yet, for all that, their sultan could not fail to wonder why he should dwell in the relatively modest confines of Edirne when his lands encircled another, far more famous Roman city down the road, a city ruled by an emperor of nothing in particular, who pompously styled himself as the heir of the Caesars.

  Sultan Murad II had built on the success of his predecessors and the borders of his empire had grown steadily under his rule. He was astute, popular and widely admired, even by his enemies. Nonetheless, Murad found himself distracted again and again by major and minor insurrections from rebel generals or a pretender to his throne. Murad detected the hand of Constantinople in many of these irritating disruptions, and with good reason: lacking a sizeable army, the Romans were constantly trying to wrongfoot the Ottomans with subterfuge. When Murad’s enemies showed up at the gates of Constantinople seeking sanctuary, the emperor was all too willing to take them in, and then send a bill to the sultan for the pretender’s upkeep.

  In 1421 Murad decided he’d had enough of these meddlesome Christians and led his magnificent army to the walls of Constantinople. The siege lasted three months and despite his overwhelming numerical superiority, he was forced to call a halt to the attack: the cunning Romans had sent out Murad’s ambitious younger brother Mustafa to lead a rebellion in Asia Minor. Murad broke off the siege, hunted down his brother and executed him.

  Despite all this bad blood, by the end of Murad’s reign, the Ottomans and the Romans were at peace. Murad’s chief vizier, Halil Pasha, who was secretly receiving bribes from the Romans, persuaded Murad that an all-out attack on the Christian capital risked uniting the European Christian kingdoms in a crusade against them. In the end, Murad accepted he would simply have to tolerate the presence of this city of irksome Christians in his lands.

  IN 1451, MURAD FELL ILL and died in Edirne, and was succeeded by his nineteen-year-old son, Mehmed. In Europe, Mehmed was dismissed as a ridiculous teenager: rash, young and stupid. His earlier trial runs as sultan had ended in disaster, thanks to Halil’s sly machinations, and on both occasions Halil had contrived for Murad to be dragged out of retirement to mend the damage.

  Mehmed’s accession to the Ottoman throne was welcomed with smiles of relief among the emperor’s counsellors in Constantinople. But the chief advisor, George Sphrantzes, was less sanguine: ‘This news brings me no joy,’ he said stonily. ‘On the contrary, it is a cause for grief. The late Sultan was an old man and had given up on the conquest of our city. This man who has just become Sultan is young and an enemy of the Christians since childhood.’

  MEHMED WAS MURAD’S third-born son, and never intended for the throne. As a boy he was an insolent student and a constant vexation to his father. No tutor could induce him to study, until Murad summoned a famous mullah with a long red beard named Ahmed Gurani. Murad presented him with a branch and gave him permission to use it.

  ‘Your father has sent me to instruct you,’ Gurani told Mehmed by way of introduction, ‘but also to beat you in case you don’t obey me.’

  Mehmed laughed, and so the mullah gave him a terrible thrashing. Mehmed was thereafter in awe of Gurani and became a more attentive student. Gurani taught Mehmed a famous prophecy, attributed to Muhammad himself, which promised that the fabled capital of the Romans would eventually fall to the Muslims: ‘Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will he be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!’

  Mehmed had no expectation of succeeding his father until his oldest brother, Prince Ahmed, died suddenly in 1437. Six years later another brother, Alaeddin Ali, was strangled in his bed, along with his infant sons. Ali was Murad’s favourite, and his death filled the sultan with a terrible grief that seems to have ruined his happiness. Mehmed, at eleven, was suddenly heir to the throne.

  MEHMED WAS IN MANISA, near the Aegean coast, when he was brought a sealed envelope from a special messenger. Inside was a brief note advising him of his father’s death. Mehmed mounted his white stallion and cried out, ‘Let those who love me follow me!’ and set out for Edirne.

  He was enthroned as Sultan Mehmed II on 18 February 1451. Afterwards, Mehmed called for his nobles to attend him. The treacherous Halil was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘do my viziers stand aloof? Bring Halil here and tell him to take his usual place.’

  Halil Pasha was found and brought forward. He dropped to his knees and kissed the sultan’s hand. Mehmed confirmed him in his position as chief vizier.

  Mehmed had learnt to bide his time.

  SULTAN MEHMED II contained all kinds of contradictory impulses and ideas within his energetic mind. He was a dedicated jihadist who nonetheless ruled his Christian and Jewish subjects with tolerance and generosity. He was brittle and short-tempered but made long-range plans that he carried steadily to fruition. He took five wives but had several male lovers too.

  A miniature portrait of Mehmed in his later years portrays him as a thoughtful man with a reddish beard, small ruby lips and a prominent aquiline nose. His expression is mild as he gently holds the stem of a tiny rose to sniff its perfume. We see in this picture one authentic aspect of Mehmed: the poet-king, a man alive to the fragile beauty of things. But in the first act of his reign we see another, equally authentic aspect: his unwavering ruthlessness.

  Mehmed had an infant half-brother, a son named Ahmed Çelebi by another of Murad’s wives. Mehmed called Ahmed’s mother to the throne room. While she was out, an assassin entered her home and drowned little Ahmed in his bath. The distraught mother was married off to a Turkish nobleman and sent out to the provinces.

  With the murder of his baby brother, Mehmed affirmed a new principle of royal fratricide, writing into Turkish law, ‘whichever of my sons inherits the Sultan’s throne, it behooves him to kill his brother in the interest of the world order’. Mehmed argued the execution of rival brothers was a positive good, a stabilising principle that was preferable to the turmoil that so often afflicted the Romans when it came time to choose a new emperor.

  Secure on his throne, Mehmed could turn his mind once more to the question of Constantinople. Encouraged by his military advisors, the young sultan conceived himself both as an empire-builder like Alexander, and as a holy warrior of Islam who would overpower Christian civilisation with the force of jihad. Mehmed resolved that the ancient city of Constantinople must be his, and that the emperor must surrender it to him, or die.

  Sultan Mehmed II.

  public domain/Wikimedia Commons

  The Last Emperor

  AS MEHMED WENT back and forth from his bed to his desk each night, studying his model of the Theodosian Walls, his quarry lay sleeping behind those walls in the Blachernae Palace.

  Emperor Constantine XI Palaeologus was forty-three years old and fated to be the very last emperor of the Romans, the final link in a chain stretching all the way back to Augustus Caesar. He was an altogether different ruler from his feckless predecessors. Constantine possessed deep reserves of courage and fortitude that would sustain him in the ordeal to come. He inspired affection and loyalty among his advisors, if not from his subjects, who bridled under the hard decisions he was forced to make on their behalf. It was his awful fate to inherit the throne just as the empire’s final crisis was already engulfing it.

  He was born in Constantinople in 1405 as the son of the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and his wife Helen Dragaš. In a coincidence that underscores the multicultural nature of their realms, both Mehmed and Constantine were born from Serbian mothers: Constantine’s was a noblewoman, Mehmed’s a former slave. Constantine was the eighth of ten children, and like Mehmed, he grew up without the burden of expectation that he would become emperor. His most important childhood friend was George Sphrantzes, who would become his closest advisor.

  Constantine’s first marria
ge ended after a year when his wife died in childbirth. Twelve years later, he remarried, but his second wife also died in childbirth. His older brother John, upon becoming emperor, appointed Constantine as governor of Morea in the Peloponnese, one of the last remaining imperial outposts.

  One day in 1448, two envoys from Constantinople arrived with sombre news: John was dead, and they had come to invest Constantine as the new emperor. Constantine accepted with some sadness and reluctance, and dutifully accompanied the envoys back to Constantinople.

  THE NEW EMPEROR styled himself as ‘Constantine XI Palaeologus, in Christ True Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans’, but it was all a charade. The ‘emperor’ of the Romans was now a vassal of the Ottoman Turks, required to hand over an annual tribute to keep the peace. The sad truth was that Constantine had only been permitted to take the throne after Sultan Murad had given his assent.

  Constantine donned the imperial robes, including the loros, the long narrow winding scarf, embroidered with gold and gems, and the distinct purple leather boots, but he never dared risk a full ceremonial coronation in the Hagia Sophia. The Orthodox flock was bitterly divided between those who, like the Patriarch, wanted union with the Catholic church as a matter of political necessity, and those who denounced the union as an unthinkable heresy. Constantine was advised that a full coronation would provoke public rioting, and so a shadow always lingered around his legitimacy.