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Byzantine Greece - 330-1453

Two crises between AD 330 and 518 helped shape the Greek part of the empire. The first was the invasion by barbarian Huns, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths in the fifth century. Constantinople averted the fate of Rome, which fell to similar onslaughts, by a combination of skillful bribery and a strong army. Thus, as the West was carved into minor kingdoms, the East remained largely intact, and the balance of power in the former Roman Empire moved conclusively to the East.

The second major crisis was religious in nature. In the East, great heresies such as Arianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism drew on the rich Greek metaphysical tradition and clashed with the emerging Roman Catholic Church in the fourth and fifth centuries. Among the challengers was an eastern branch of the church with Greek as its language, closely bound to the political world of Constantinople. The Greek Orthodox Christian empire established at this time would bridge Asia and Europe for centuries.

During the late sixth and seventh centuries, Slavic peoples began to invade the Balkan Peninsula. Major cities such as Athens, Thebes, and Thessaloniki were safe behind defensible walls. Much of the indigenous population of the Balkans, Greeks included, fled, especially to Calabria at the southern tip of Italy, or relocated their settlements to higher, more secure regions of the Balkans. Under these conditions, urban centers no longer were the basis of Byzantine society in the Balkans.

But the Slavic arrivals were unable to preserve their own distinct cultural identities; very soon their hellenization process began. Greek remained the mother tongue of the region, and Christianity remained the dominant faith. Although the Slavic invasions and Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries shrank the Byzantine state, it survived as a recognizable entity grounded more firmly than ever in the Balkans and Asia Minor.

When a new dynasty, which came to be called Macedonian, took the throne of the Byzantine Empire in 867, its forces began to roll back the tide of Islamic expansion. Antioch, Syria, Georgia, and Armenia were reconquered. The Byzantine fleet regained Crete and drove Muslim pirates from the Aegean Sea, reopening it to commercial traffic. Consolidation of the Balkans was completed with the defeat of the Bulgarian Empire by Basil II in 1018.

The prosperity of the Macedonian Dynasty was followed by a period of decline. In the late eleventh century, a Norman army, allied with the pope and commanded by Robert Guiscard, ravaged parts of Greece, including Thebes and Corinth. Civil war among rival military factions impaired the empire's ability to respond to such incursions. In a disastrous loss at Manzikert (in present-day eastern Turkey) in 1071, Seljuk Turks from Central Asia captured Romanus IV, one of the first rulers after the end of the Macedonian Dynasty. Through the next century, the empire became more and more a European domain. The worst humiliation came in 1204, when marauders of the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople, carrying off many of its greatest treasures.

Greece was carved up into tiny kingdoms and principalities ruled by Western princes. Venice gained control of substantial parts of Greece, some of which were not relinquished until 1797. Architectural remains from the Venetian period are still visible in the Greek countryside and seaside ports.

In the late eleventh century, a Norman army, allied with the pope and commanded by Robert Guiscard, ravaged parts of Greece, including Thebes and Corinth. Civil war among rival military factions impaired the empire's ability to respond to such incursions. Greece was carved up into tiny kingdoms and principalities ruled by Western princes. Venice gained control of substantial parts of Greece, some of which were not relinquished until 1797. Architectural remains from the Venetian period are still visible in the Greek countryside and ports.

Only the actions of the Palaeologus Dynasty (1261-1453) prevented the empire from falling. The Palaeologi recaptured Constantinople and most of the southern Balkans. But Gibbon noted that "The first Palaologus had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son. In modern times, our debts and taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom of peace; but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle ages, it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life of rapine; they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless and their presence importunate, endeavoured to discharge the torrent on some neighbouring countries."

Obscure and various dynasties rose and fell on the continent and in the isles. After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes by the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between the first and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable land was disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts of freedom and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and intestine war; and if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might repose with joy under the Turkish yoke.

In the partition of the empire, the principality of Athens and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la Eoche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, with the title of great duke, which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. Otho followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat; the ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct ot fortune was peaceably inherited by his son ind two grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne.

The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of Athens; and with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighbouring lords. But when he was informed of the approach and ambition of the great company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, six thousand four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the river Cephisus in Boeotia. The Catalans amounted to no more than three thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and order. They formed round their camp an artificial inundation ; the duke and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the verdant meadow ; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the constable of France, lost his life in the field of Poitiers.

Attica and Boeotia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain ; and, during fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of Arragon; and, during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily.

After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly ; and their reign was finally determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio.