Constantine XI Palaiologos- the last Byzantine emperor who found his death in the battle for Constantinople. After his death, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as an emperor who must wake up, restore the empire and deliver Constantinople from the Turks. His death ended Roman Empire, which dominated the East for 977 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Constantine was born in Constantinople. He was the eighth of ten children Manuel II Palaiologos and Elena Dragas, daughter of the Serbian magnate Konstantin Dragas. He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under the care of his parents. Constantine, became despot of the Morea (the medieval name of the Peloponnese) in October 1443. While Mystras, a fortified city, was a center of culture and art, rivaling Constantinople.
After his accession as despot, Constantine began work to strengthen the defenses of the Morea, including reconstructing the wall across Isthmus of Corinth.
Despite foreign and domestic difficulties during his reign, which ended with the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, modern historians usually respect the reign of Emperor Constantine.
Died in 1451 Turkish Sultan Murad. He was succeeded by his 19 year old son Mehmed II. Shortly thereafter, Mehmed II began inciting the Turkish nobility to conquer Constantinople. In 1451-52, Mehmed built Rumelihisar, a hill-fortress on the European side of the Bosphorus. Then everything became clear to Konstantin, and he immediately set about organizing the defense of the city.
He managed to raise funds to create food supplies for the upcoming siege and repair the old walls of Theodosius, but bad condition The Byzantine economy did not allow him to raise the necessary army to defend the city from the numerous Ottoman hordes. Desperate, Constantine XI turned to the West. He confirmed the union of the Eastern and Roman churches, which was signed at the Ferrara-Florence Cathedral.
The siege of Constantinople began in the winter of 1452. On the last day of the siege, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine emperor said: "The city has fallen, but I am still alive." Then he tore off his royal regalia so that no one could distinguish him from an ordinary soldier and led his remaining subjects to the last battle, where he was killed.
Legend has it that when the Turks entered the city, an angel of God rescued the emperor, turned him into marble and placed him in a cave near the Golden Gate, where he waits to rise up and take back his city.
Today the emperor is considered national hero Greece. The legacy of Constantine Palaiologos continues to be a popular topic in Greek culture. Some Orthodox and Greek Catholics regard Constantine XI as a saint. However, he was not formally canonized by the Church, partly due to controversy surrounding his personal religious beliefs, and because death in battle is not considered martyrdom in Orthodox Church.

Disaster in Crete

Monasteries of Mount Athos. Lavra of Saint Athanasius.

Great Lavra or Lavra of St. Athanasius is the largest and most important Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos. It is located in the southeastern part of the peninsula at a distance of half an hour from the coast at the very foot of Mount Athos. The patronal feast of the monastery is the feast day of St. Athanasius, who founded it, is celebrated on July 5 according to the old style.

Religion and sects in Greece

Islands of Greece, which one to choose?

There are more than 2 thousand islands in Greece. Picturesque rocks, exotic grottoes - provide ample opportunities for recreation and tourism. When traveling around Crete, one cannot help but look at Elafonisi Beach, with pink sand. Namely, here the waters of three seas merge: the Aegean, the Libyan and the Ionian. Warm water in the first, cold - in the second, and in the third ... Come and find out. They say Greece has it all! Almost 300 sunny days per year, 4 seas, many islands. Yes, Greece has everything a tourist needs.

A trip to Greece - how to make it as safe as possible.

Greece is considered one of the safest European countries. It has a well-deserved reputation as the "most honest" country European Union and the crime rate in Greece is very low. Serious crimes are very rare, especially robbery and theft. A common thing that no one is surprised at is the situation of almost 100% return of a thing forgotten in a public place. For example, you forgot your wallet or purse in a cafe, and returned a day later, and it lies in the same place or with the owner in a cafe in a separate signed bag.

Porphyrogenitus was born in 905. He was the son of Leo VI, originally from the Macedonian dynasty. His figure is of particular interest to historians. The fact is that this ruler during his time on the throne was not so much involved in politics as he devoted his time to science and the study of books. He was a writer and left behind a rich literary legacy.

Heir to the throne

The only son of Leo VI the Philosopher Constantine Porphyrogenitus was born from his marriage to his fourth wife. Because of this, according to Christian rules, he could not occupy the throne. Nevertheless, Leo wanted to see his son as emperor and therefore, during his lifetime, he made him his co-ruler. With his death in 912, the year began. As a result, the younger brother of the deceased Alexander came to power. He removed the young Constantine from the administration of affairs, and also deprived all the supporters of his nephew of influence. It seemed that the new emperor firmly took power into his own hands. However, already in 913, not yet old Alexander died from a long illness.

Loss of real power

Now Constantine finally became emperor. However, he was only 8 years old. Because of this, a regency council was established, headed by Patriarch Nikolai Mystik. has always been distinguished by the instability of power, which was transferred from hand to hand through conspiracies and military coups. The precarious position of the regency council allowed the naval commander Roman Lekapin to stand at the head of the state.

In 920, he declared himself emperor. At the same time, at first, the new autocrat declared himself only as a defender of the legitimate minor emperor. However, Lekapinus managed to paralyze the will of Constantine without much difficulty, who was not at all interested in power and treated it as a burden.

Under Romanus Lakapinus

The new ruler did not belong to the previously reigning dynasty, so he decided to legitimize himself by marrying Constantine to his daughter Elena. The young man was removed from real power. He devoted his youth to science and reading books. At that time, Constantinople was one of the world centers of education. Thousands of unique tomes dedicated to various disciplines and cultures were stored here. It was they who fascinated the young man for life.

At this time, Roman Lecapenus surrounded Constantine with people loyal to himself, who followed the legitimate monarch. As the real ruler usurped power more and more, conspiracies began to appear among the aristocracy directed against him. Almost every year, new traitors were identified, who were dealt with without much ceremony. Any methods were used: intimidation, confiscation of property, monastic tonsure and, of course, executions.

Return of the imperial title

Konstantin Porphyrogenitus received his nickname in honor of the name of the hall in the imperial palace in which he was born. This epithet emphasized his legitimacy, which Father Leo VI wanted so much.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus for most of his life was content with only attending formal ceremonies. He was not trained to lead an army, and therefore military career he was not interested. Instead, Konstantin was engaged in science. Thanks to his works, modern historians can draw up the most complete picture of the life of Byzantium in the 10th century.

In 944, the usurper Romanus Lekapenos was overthrown by his own sons. Riots broke out in the capital. Ordinary residents did not like the chaos in power. Everyone wanted to see the legitimate heir of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and not the children of the usurper, at the head of the state. Finally, the son of Leo VI finally became emperor. He remained so until 959, when he died unexpectedly. Some historians are supporters of the theory that the ruler was poisoned by his son Roman.

Literary works of Constantine

The main book that Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus left behind was the treatise "On the Management of the Empire." This document was compiled by the ruler for his predecessors. hoped that his advice on state administration would help future autocrats avoid conflicts within the country. The book was not intended for the general public. It was printed after the fall of Byzantium, when several copies miraculously found their way to Europe. The title was also given by the German publisher (Konstantin VII Porphyrogenitus did not give a title to the secret treatise).

In his book, the author examined in detail the life and foundations of the state. It has 53 chapters. Many of them are dedicated to the peoples who inhabited the empire or neighboring it. Foreign culture has always been the area that Konstantin Porphyrogenitus was interested in. About the Slavs, he left unique essays that are no longer found in any source of that era. It is curious that the emperor even described a visit Kievan princess Olga in Tsargrad. As you know, in Constantinople, the Slavic ruler received Christian baptism, when her people still professed the pagan faith.

In addition, the author examined the administrative and economic structure of Ancient Russia. AT different chapters there are descriptions of Slavic cities: Novgorod, Smolensk, Vyshgorod, Chernigov, and also Kyiv. The emperor also paid attention to other neighboring peoples: Bulgarians, Hungarians, Arabs, Khazars, etc. The original treatise was written in Greek. Later, the book was translated into Latin, and after that - into other European languages. This work mixes the most diverse genres of narration, which Konstantin Porphyrogenitus skillfully used. "On the Management of the Empire" is a unique example of medieval literature.

"About Ceremonies"

Another important book written by the emperor was the collection On Ceremonies. In it, the autocrat described all the rituals adopted in the Byzantine court. The collection also includes an interesting appendix dedicated to military tactics. As conceived by Constantine, these notes were to become a teaching aid for the future rulers of a vast state.

Philanthropist and educator

Constantine not only wrote books, but also patronized various authors and institutions. Having matured, he first of all took up the processing of a huge literary array that Orthodox Byzantium had accumulated. These were various lives of saints kept in the libraries of monasteries. Many of them existed in a single copy, and rare books were damaged from antiquity and poor storage conditions.

In this undertaking, the emperor was assisted by the logothete and master Simeon Metaphrastus. It was in his processing that many Christian literary artifacts have come down to our times. The master received money from the emperor, with which he bought rare copies of books, and also maintained an office with big staff employees: clerks, librarians, etc.

Encyclopedia of Constantine

The emperor became the inspirer and sponsor of other similar educational events. Thanks to him, an encyclopedia was published in Constantinople, consisting of more than fifty volumes. This collection included knowledge from the most different areas both humanities and natural sciences. The main merit of the encyclopedia of the era of Constantine was the codification and ordering of a huge array of disparate information.

Much knowledge was also needed for practical purposes. For example, Konstantin funded the compilation of a collection of articles on farming. The knowledge contained in these documents helped for several generations to achieve the greatest harvest in the open spaces.

It is enough to get acquainted with a series of emperors - Armenians by origin on the throne of the Byzantine Empire, in order to see a huge layer of state-administrative, legal and military Armenian culture, which held together diverse tribes and multilingual peoples.

This experience and managerial knowledge were the lot of the Armenian royal dynasties and were inherited. There were almost no non-Armenian emperors in the Byzantine Empire. Are there any heirs of those great traditions left? How did they manage to lead a host of peoples without resorting to tyranny or repression, and at the same time, protecting the empire from external enemies?

The foundation for the foundation of the Byzantine Empire was laid by its first emperor, Constantine the Great, who transferred the capital from Rome to Constantinople, about whom Armenian origin The Armenian historian Nikifor Bryennius testifies (see the note from the book at the end of the article).

“Historical Notes”, M., 2006, p.220). But why exactly Constantine I the Great (285-337), Roman and then Byzantine emperor, who lived 17 centuries ago, can be of interest to the modern Armenian reader? How did this person influence the development of human history?

What deeds immortalized his name? Much of what he did has sunk into oblivion, but all modern public institutions which, to one degree or another, were formed under him.

So, for example, the monarchical form of government created by Constantine I, contrary to the assertions of some historians, was not autocratic. Here the main thing was the rule of the Law, and not the will of one person - the emperor: the Law was higher than the legislator himself. And it was not autocracy, but precisely the power of the Law that gave rise to a strong state, therefore the empire created by Constantine I lasted for a millennium.

Here are his views on government: “Starting from that British Sea,” Constantine wrote in his law in favor of Christians, “and from those limits where, by some necessity, it is determined to set the sun, I, with the help of some supreme power drove before him and dispelled all the horrors that he encountered, so that the human race, brought up under my influence, would be called to the service of the most sacred law and, under the guidance of the Highest Being, increase the most blessed faith. (Eusebius. Life of Constantine. II, 8).

Let us single out two thoughts - Konstantin considers the upbringing of the human race to be the most important function of public administration - i.e. the state is conceived as an organization that aims to create conditions and opportunities for the improvement of the human race.

Note that it should not deal with the economy and agriculture, but with the education of the people. The second thought speaks of the essence of this upbringing - serving the sacred law, the formation of a certain worldview and faith in its truth.

We see that there were no contradictions between Christianity and the state already in the time of Constantine, who issued the Edict on Toleration. The persecution of Christians that arose later was considered by ancient authors precisely as a conspiracy against Christians.

They saw no reason for the Empire to persecute Christians other than the hatred of warlocks and the slander of the Jews. And those emperors who succumbed to the actions of the conspirators were regarded as tyrants.

The persecution was considered by the then Christians not just as a pagan, but as an occult-magical coup. And from the point of view of the Roman political theory as tyranny, the rule of lawless emperors who ruled contrary to divine laws, the traditions of the empire and the opinion of good citizens.

From this position, all Western, so-called "democratic" states, which rejected Christianity as incompatible with secular power, are tyrannical and occult-magical, if not black-booked.

Today, when this occultism has flourished in the West in all its glory in the form of immoral television and tyrannical media, supported by a bunch of insolent financiers, we see the correctness of the assessment of the Roman theory.

How strong was the aversion to tyranny among the best Romans is shown by the wonderful words of Emperor Trajan when he handed over the sword to the prefect of the Praetorians: “take this sword to use it for my defense if I rule well, and against me if I rule badly” ( Cassius Dio, LXVIII, 16, 1).

The conclusion that follows from this ancient theory is: a state that does not moral education population, can be equated with tyranny.

In other words, the state was given a great religious task, a great goal and a feat - to preserve the “priceless pearls” of the true faith in pristine purity and pass it on to the population. The emperor is conceived, first of all, as a symbol and bearer of this religious or educational mission of the empire.

This installation served as the core of the existence of the Byzantine Empire for more than a thousand years after Constantine.

Constantine I made Christianity the main religion of Europe, and this kind of revolution determined the development of the entire Western civilization from antiquity to the present day. Constantine understood the power possessed by the Christian religion: the moral laws and commandments of Christianity became under him the norm of the political life of a civilized society.

The Byzantine monarchy, having become a powerful system, passed on its methods and principles of government to other states of Europe - the difference is only in the level of their economic and political development.

In the modern era, there are, for example, states with a constitutional monarchy - Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, where the power of the monarch is limited by parliament and where society is built on the basis of law.

Naturally, each country has its own difficulties, its own problems - both ethnic and everyday life, but democracy is where all residents observe the law, regardless of their position in society, in a state where there is respect for a person in general, and not as to a representative of any nation, race, religion, political concept and, finally, material security.

Constantine I considered the main defense little man from the mighty of the world this, in return receiving support for his rule. It was the rule of law, the general obedience to which ensured not only the unity of the whole people, but also the protection of the individuality of each.

The government of Constantine I included representatives of all classes and peoples who voluntarily submitted to general laws and traditions. The Church, embodying the experience and aspirations of the empire, raised the banner of brotherhood, unity, peace and harmony, common work for the good of all fellow citizens - this was successfully achieved by Constantine the Great.

Rivalry, anger, hatred, internecine wars* began to recede into the past. Constantine the Great gained particular popularity among the people with the introduction of the practice of helping the poor, widows, children and ruined people.

The custom of the church to give gifts without demanding anything in return became an innovation aimed at improving people's lives - this was the case under Constantine I. His policy in everything was distinguished by novelty and originality.

Without suppressing public institutions, he managed to take control not only of the church, but also high council empires - the senate, and all major movements, and a victorious army that did not know defeat.

The new city he founded, called Constantinople by his contemporaries, turned into a stronghold of Christianity, into its military outpost: all attempts to enslave Europe crashed against it, like an indestructible rock.

Konstantin Great first in the history of mankind proclaimed: all people are born free and equal. The solution to the problem of equality and human rights, some historians associate with its interpretation by John Locke in the Second Treatise on Government 390).

This idea is also reflected in the "US Declaration of Independence" (1776), which K. Marx called "the first declaration of human rights"; and in the political manifesto of the French Revolution called "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" (1789); and later, after the victory over Nazism, in the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", adopted in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In the interpretation of equality, many different - political, philosophical, economic, social - concepts have developed, but the palm belongs to Constantine the Great, who, not in words, but in practice, realized his idea of ​​the equality of all citizens. “He was looking for the Kingdom of God and led his subjects” - with these words Bishop Eusebius, biographer of the emperor, assessed the 30-year reign of Constantine the Great.

The Armenians, as the dominant ethnic group of the Byzantine Empire, developed this managerial culture to the highest level and subsequently passed it on to a number of neighboring countries, including Georgia and Russia. Many state-political and administrative-legal acts of Byzantium became the basis of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire.

Although many works of Byzantine thought were written in Greek, the Greeks were not the most active intellectual part of the empire. For example, as Procopius of Caesarea, a 6th-century Byzantine historian, testifies, the Greeks were even taxed additionally as a second-class people of the empire.

He writes: logothetes (tax collectors) tormented people with many “types of penalties, accusing some of being Greeks, as if it were absolutely impossible for a native of Hellas to be noble” (Procopius of Caesarea.

Secret History, p.396). The existence of a state, and especially an empire, depends on the qualities of its main ethnic group. Only possessing certain qualities of political literacy, military training, administrative experience and outstanding courage, could these individuals who did not have " European education”, to hold vast geopolitical spaces, creating in them a fair political order and the internal dynamics of a constant spiritual growth citizens of different nationalities.

Where is this legacy? Has it been preserved among today's Armenians? Or is it another tribe, unable to be reborn to the glory of their ancestors? Separating the East of Europe from the West, Constantine the Great became the creator of the East Byzantine Oikoumene, which united Eastern Europe and Western Asia (the Middle East), and laid the foundation for the Armenian-Greek-Slavic cultural-historical type.

The countries and peoples included in the Byzantine world, due to their high spiritual development and due to their objective historical significance, they played a leading role in the development of mankind in many respects.

Note: from Nikephoros Bryennios

“So Komnenos19 by no other means achieved royal power, but by right, since he was a blood relative of the house of Komnenos and was in family proximity with the Dukes20.

Taking for himself a friend of life from the Douk family, he combined both of these genera together and formed from them, as it were, one (family) tree. Moreover, it is distinguished by antiquity, as they say, worthy of great respect. Therefore, respecting the ancient house of Komnenos and Dukas and the one who came from it, such as, for example, Alexei Komnenos, considering him to have a greater right to the kingdom than anyone else, everyone willingly elected him king.

After all, if anyone wanted to go back with the flow of time, he would find that the genus of Doukas is the first branch of the generation of the great Constantine; because that first Doukas, who belonged to the number of persons who, following the great Constantine, left ancient Rome and moved to a new one, was his closest relative by blood, namely, his nephew, whom he elevated to the rank of Constantinopolitan. From him, all his descendants began to be called Duks ”(p. 220). (Duks and Komnenes are famous Armenian families).

Constantine XI - the last Byzantine emperor, from 1449. Born February 8, 1405, died May 29, 1453 in Constantinople. Son Manuel II Palaiologos and Serbian princess Elena Dragash, brother of the emperor John VIII. From 1428 he was a despot Moray together with his brothers. In 1429 or 1430 he occupied Patras - main city Latin Ahai Principality. Becoming emperor, he tried to organize resistance Turks, sought help in the West. In December 1452 he recognized the union with the Catholic Church. He died in battle with the Turkish troops, defending Constantinople. In 1992 he was canonized by the Greek Orthodox Church as a martyr tsar; a monument to this emperor was erected in the Greek city of Mistra in the Peloponnese. In a number of historical studies, he is listed not as Constantine XI, but as Constantine XII. Constantine XI in them is considered Konstantin Laskar, proclaimed emperor in 1204, but apparently uncrowned and certainly not ruling.

Byzantine Dictionary: in 2 volumes / [ comp. Tot. Ed. K.A. Filatov]. St. Petersburg: Amphora. TID Amphora: RKhGA: Oleg Abyshko Publishing House, 2011, v. 1, p. 506.

Constantine XI (according to the German historian B. Zinogovits, Konstantin XII) Palaiologos (Palaiologos); by mother, the Serbian princess Elena - Dragas (1403 - 29.V.1453), - the last Byzantine emperor (since 1449). Despot of the Morea (together with his brothers) from 1428, Constantine XI by 1432 subjugated almost all Latin possessions in the Peloponnese. During the stay of John VIII at the Florence Cathedral, he was regent of the empire. In 1444 he successfully acted against the allies of the Sultan in Boeotia and Thessaly, but in 1446 he was defeated by the Turks. Having become emperor, he sought an alliance with the West at the cost of a church union. Led the defense of Constantinople in 1453; died in battle.

Soviet historical encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 7. KARAKEEV - KOSHAKER. 1965.

Body found under a pile of corpses

Constantine XI Palaiologos Dragash - Byzantine emperor, who ruled from 1449-1453. Son of Manuel II. Born February 8, 1405 + May 29, 1453

Before his accession to the throne, Constantine won the respect of the Romans as a brave despot of the Seas. He did not shine with education, preferring military exercises to books, he was quick-tempered, but possessed common sense and the gift of convincing listeners. He also had such qualities as honesty and nobility of soul. When John VIII died, Constantine was in Mistra. His younger brother Dmitry was the first to arrive in Constantinople in the hope that he would get the throne, but no one supported him. Constantine himself was proclaimed emperor in early January at Mistra. In March, he arrived in the capital and assumed power. The following years, the emperor did the same as his three predecessors: he prepared the city for defense in case of a siege, sought help from the Turks in the west, and tried to reconcile the church unrest caused by union with the Catholics. In all this he succeeded only in part, but it was difficult to expect more in his position (Dashkov: "Konstantin Dragash").

Sultan Mehmed, who swore to take Constantinople, also carefully prepared for the siege, knowing full well that he would have to deal with a first-class fortress, from which the conquering army had retreated more than once with losses. He paid special attention to artillery. In the autumn of 1452, the Turks invaded the Peloponnese and began hostilities against the despots, the emperor's brothers, so that they would not come to the aid of Constantinople (Sfran-dizi: 3; 3). In March 1453, the Turks took Mesemvria, Achelon and other fortifications on Pontus. Silimvria was besieged. The Romans could not leave the city. But from the sea they devastated the Turkish coast on their ships and took many prisoners. In early March, the Turks pitched tents near the walls of the capital, and in April the city was besieged (Duka: 37-38).

In view of the scarcity of funds, many of the fortifications of the capital dilapidated. So, from the side of the land, the city was protected by two walls: one large, reliable, and the other smaller. A moat passed from the outside of the fortifications. But the wall on the side of the bay was not very strong. The emperor decided to defend himself by building defenders on the outer wall. A strong decline in the population made itself felt in the most pernicious way. Since the city occupied a large space and people were placed along all the walls, there were not enough soldiers to repel the assaults.

The first half of April was spent in minor fights. Then the Turks brought up two huge bombards, throwing heavy stone cannonballs weighing more than 2 talents. One was installed against the "palace, the other - against the gates of Roman. In addition to them, the sultan had many other smaller cannons (Chalkondil: 8). On April 22, the Turks dragged their ships through the Gadatsky hill by land, bypassing the chain blocking the bay and let them inside the harbor. Then a floating bridge was built, artillery was placed on it, and thus the siege ring was closed. For forty days, the besiegers beat the walls hard day and night and caused great disturbance to the defenders with all kinds of fighting machines, shooting and attacks. Destroying in some places the walls with throwing weapons and cannons, the Turks proceeded to the fortifications themselves and began to fill up the ditches. At night, the Romans cleared the ditches, and the collapsed towers were strengthened with logs and baskets of earth. On May 18, having destroyed the tower near the gates of St. over the ditch. After this, according to Sphrandisi, a destructive and terrible battle began. the tower was restored, and the siege engine was burned. The Turks began to dig, but on May 23 the defenders put a mine under it and blew it up (Sfrandisi: 3; 3). On May 28, with the onset of evening, the Sultan began a general assault and did not give the Romans rest all night. Constantine himself repulsed the onslaught behind the fallen walls near the gates of St. Romanus (Duk: 39). But the Turks entered the city in another place - through Kerkoporta - a small gate in the wall, which was left open after one of the sorties (Dashkov: "Konstantin Dragash"). Finally climbing the wall, they scattered the defenders and, leaving the outer fortifications, broke into the city through the gates of the inner wall (Sphrandisi: 3; 5). After that, the army surrounding the emperor turned to flight. Constantine was abandoned by everyone. One of the Turks struck him in the face with a sword and wounded him, and another delivered a fatal blow from behind. The Turks did not recognize the emperor and, having killed him, left him lying like a simple warrior (Duka: 39). Already after the last defenders had laid down their arms by evening, the body of the emperor was found under a pile of corpses along the royal boots. The Sultan ordered that Constantine's head be put on the hippodrome, and the body be buried with royal honors (Sphrandisi: 3; 9). This was the last emperor of the Romans. With his death, the empire ceased to exist.

All the monarchs of the world. Ancient Greece. Ancient Rome. Byzantium. Konstantin Ryzhov. Moscow, 2001

Still the twelfth

The last autocrat of Byzantium, Constantine XII (born February 8, 1405), the son of Manuel II and the Serbian princess Elena Dragash, ascended the throne of the ancient empire in January 1449. Constantine was already ruling the country - during the departure of John VIII to the Ferrara-Florence Cathedral, and before that he won a certain respect among the Greeks as a brave despot of the Morea. He did not shine with education, preferring military exercises to books, he was quick-tempered, but he had common sense and a gift for convincing listeners. In addition, Konstantin Dragash was characterized by such rare qualities for rulers as honesty and nobility of soul.

When John VIII died, Despot Constantine was in Mistra. The restless Dmitry Palaiologos tried to get ahead of his brother and reached Constantinople by sea, hoping that he would get the throne. The government managed to reject the claims of Dmitry, who had a reputation as an adventurer. On January 6, 1449, in Mistra, Constantine XII Palaiologos Dragash was proclaimed emperor, and in early March he arrived in the capital.

God did not keep the Roman Empire well - in fact, the last Byzantine basileus inherited the capital with its environs, several islands in the Aegean Sea and Morea, bled white by the war with the Turks, from where the sultan took away many prisoners in 1446. Travelers who visited Constantinople were surprised at the desertedness of the great city. The population of the capital since antiquity has decreased by 10 - 12 times and amounted to 35 - 50 thousand people. Many quarters were uninhabited, most of the palaces lay in ruins since the civil war of 1341-1347. The majestic Grand Imperial Palace was no exception, for the restoration of which the Palaiologians did not have enough money - the basileus lived in Blachernae.

But Byzantium, and especially its capital, favorably located and well protected, still attracted the Ottoman conquerors. And not only them - in the West, the descendants of the rulers of the Latin state continued to claim their rights to its throne.

The internal situation of the empire was very difficult. Trade was controlled by the Italians, the Greeks - from the day laborer to the monarch - were tormented by poverty 1) . The confrontation between the Latinophile and Turkophile parties escalated. The first stood for the union and the salvation of the country at the cost of subjugating the pope, the second (mostly merchants suffering from Catholics) declared that only the Turks could restore order in the state and throw greedy Catholics out of it. And there were still people who still considered Constantinople with the gardens surrounding it a world empire. Adjacent to such views was the most numerous grouping - the Orthodox, which, unlike the first two, had no clear program of action except for slogans.

Standing on the threshold of a centuries-old national tragedy, the Greek people were divided political struggle. The attempts of Constantine XII to force the Orthodox Church to recognize the union, without which Western help was impossible, ran into stubborn resistance from hierarchs and ordinary citizens. A supporter of the union of Patriarch Gregory III, Mamma was recognized only by an insignificant part of the clergy, and a council held in the autumn of 1450 with the participation of the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem deposed Mamma from the patriarchate and the latter fled to Italy. Due to the Uniatism (that is, non-Orthodoxy, according to the majority of the Romans) of Constantine XII himself, his official church consecration did not take place. The last emperor of Byzantium ruled and died without being crowned king. To top it off, quarrels reached internecine wars younger brothers basileus, despots Thomas and Dmitry.

While Murad II ruled in Adrianople, Byzantium enjoyed a reprieve. But in February 1451, the Sultan died, and the Ottoman throne was occupied by his twenty-year-old illegitimate son Mehmed II Fatih - the "conqueror", an extremely amazing personality. He spoke, in addition to Turkish, four languages, including Latin and Greek, knew philosophy and astronomy. At the same time, Mehmed was pathologically cruel, cunning, deceitful and treacherous. It was he who ordered the beheading of a man, so that the Italian painter Bellini, who worked at his court, could see how different the grimace was. facial muscles severed head from those depicted in the paintings. It was he who ordered the bellies of fourteen servants to be cut open, wanting to find the thief of the melon from the Sultan's garden. Bisexual, he had two harems - from women and beautiful boys. And if the goal of Konstantin Dragash was to save Byzantium, then Fatih, dreaming of military exploits in the name of the Prophet and the laurels of Timur, vowed to destroy it. Secretive, like all the sovereigns of the East, the Sultan kept his plans secret and recruited troops, trying to lull the Greeks' vigilance with false assurances of friendship and patronage.

Prince Urhan then lived in Constantinople, one of the relatives of the Sultan and a possible contender for the Ottoman throne, whom Mehmed for some reason was in no hurry to execute, but sent away from the court, to the Christians. The emperor announced the need to increase the payment for the maintenance of Urkhan, Fatih considered the demand insulting and a reason to break the peace agreements with Byzantium. No one doubted that the Sultan simply used, as in Aesop's famous fable about the wolf and the lamb, the first pretext that came across.

From April to August 1452, Ottoman engineers with amazing speed erected on the European coast of the Bosporus, in one of the narrowest places, the powerful fortress of Rumeli-Hissar. On the other side, the strait was already guarded by the Anatoli-Hissar citadel built under Bayezid I. Now the batteries of the Turks held the entire Bosporus at gunpoint, and not a single ship without the knowledge of the Sultan could pass to Constantinople from the Black Sea, while the Hellespont was guarded by the Muslim fleet. The emperor, protesting against the construction of a fortress on Greek territory, sent an embassy to Mehmed, but in vain. “I can do whatever I want,” Fatih replied to the Greeks with obvious contempt. - Both banks of the Bosphorus belong to me, that eastern one - because the Ottomans live on it, and this western one - because you do not know how to defend it. Tell your sovereign that if he once again takes it into his head to send me with similar question, I order the ambassador to be skinned alive.

The first to feel the power of the Rumeli-Hissar guns was the Italian squadron, which did not want to obey the order to lower the sails. Part of the ships broke through, but the largest galley of the Venetians, having received several stone cores, sank, all the surviving sailors, led by the captain, were executed.

The Sultan could interrupt the supply of the capital of the Greeks with food at any moment. At the end of August, he personally inspected its majestic fortifications and began to equip the army for the campaign scheduled for the following spring.

In Constantinople, they were preparing to repulse the invaders. The city stocked up on bread, firewood and weapons, walls and towers were hastily repaired.

In the autumn of 1452, Vasilevs began negotiations with Pope Nicholas V. A papal envoy, the dexterous Cardinal Isidore of Russia, came to the emperor, but without soldiers, only with his small guard. The West was in no hurry to really help Byzantium, once again not wanting to spend money. The idea of ​​the possible fall of Constantinople seemed absurd in Rome, Paris, London or Venice, so everyone got used to its inviolability. Help, of course, was prepared to be sent, but a little later. In fact, she was not ready even when the city was taken. The despots of the Seas did not allocate troops to their brother either. Only the desperate Genoese Giovanni Giustiniani Long brought seven hundred volunteers in two galleys, and Constantine XII promised him the island of Lemnos if the capital could be defended.

On December 12, 1452, Cardinal Isidore celebrated Mass in St. Sophia according to the Uniate rite. The inhabitants noisily expressed their dissatisfaction: "We do not need the help of the Latins, nor unity with them." Luca Notara, the head of the Turkophiles of the megaduk, threw a prophetic phrase in those days: “It is better to see a Turkish turban in the city than a Latin tiara!”

In Thrace, preparations were in full swing for the assault on the Greek capital. In a workshop near Adrianople, a Hungarian named Urban, who at one time did not agree to remain in the service of the poor Dragash, made cannons for the Sultan. At the beginning of 1453, the largest was ready, capable of firing 1200 pounds of stone cannonballs (about 400 kg) 2) ! For the movements of this monster, two hundred people and sixty pairs of oxen were required.

By mid-March, a huge (according to various historians, from eighty to three hundred thousand people) Turkish army was ready. A squadron of several hundred military and auxiliary ships was only waiting for the order to go to sea. Mesemvria, Anchialus and Visa were easily subjugated by the Sultan, from the Thracian cities under the rule of Palaiologos Silim-vria and Epivates remained. Secretary and friend of the emperor George Sfranzi, who later left vivid memories about the siege of Constantinople, made, at the direction of the sovereign, a census of all the men of the city capable of bearing arms. The results of the calculations - 4973 Greeks and about two thousand foreigners 3) - turned out to be so depressing that Constantine ordered them to be kept secret.

On the roadstead of the capital, minus a few who fled on the eve of the Turkish siege, twenty-six ships remained: five each from Venetian and Genoese, three from Crete, one each from Ancona, Catalonia and Provence, and ten imperial. Their teams vowed not to leave Constantine Castle in trouble and stand to the end. All able-bodied inhabitants enthusiastically put in order ditches littered with various rubbish and patched up ancient walls. And only the population of Galata kept a neutrality bordering on betrayal. However, by the end of the siege, the Galatians were already openly helping Mehmed.

At the end of March 1453, the first patrols of the Sultan's cavalry appeared on the surrounding hills, and soon parts of the Turkish light infantry. The Ottomans believed that the Greeks would hide in their homes in fear of them, but they miscalculated. On the morning of April 2, the Christians, led by their brave emperor, launched a sortie, killed several dozen enemies and, rejoicing, returned to the city. The mood of the besieged rose, and when on Thursday, April 5, the main Turkish forces that filled the suburbs approached the walls of the city, the thoughts of the defenders were not gloomy.

The hopes of the besieged were justified. First, all the soldiers of Dragash, both Greek and Latin, were excellently armed and more or less trained to fight. Secondly, the city had powerful double walls with cannons (albeit old ones) and throwing machines. Christians also had stocks of "Greek fire" at their disposal. The capital was supplied in advance with everything necessary - from bread to crossbow arrows, sails and saltpeter. Thirdly, the majority of the population burned with the determination to die rather than surrender. And finally, fourthly, the emperor counted on the troops promised by the pope and the Venetians. The Sultan offered Constantine XII to leave Constantinople in exchange for an inheritance in Morea, for the inviolability of which the Muslim ruler swore an oath, but the basileus rejected Mehmed's plan.

On April 7, Turkish cannons began to speak - a long bombardment of Constantinople began. Mehmed II deployed an army along the entire line of walls - from Pigi to the Golden Horn. In the center, in the most vulnerable area against the gates of St. Roman, on the hills, the headquarters of the Sultan was defeated, surrounded by ten thousand Janissaries. Fourteen batteries operated against the fortifications of Theodosius and Heraclius walls, and near Mehmed's headquarters, Urban installed super-artillery - a kind of monster and two other guns, a little smaller.

At first, the shelling did not give the desired effect. Urban's bombard - Fatih's hope - could fire only three or four times a day, and the gunners of this, and other guns, were bad. Most of the cores did not reach the walls, it was dangerous to move the batteries to the city because of possible undermining and sorties of Christians, and the Turks were afraid to increase the charge - they could not withstand the trunks. The Ottomans only managed to take by storm two small castles on the outskirts - Therapia and Studios. A few dozen prisoners left from their garrisons, the Sultan ordered to impale. The Greeks, on the other hand, made frequent attacks on the gaping Turkish detachments, and these sorties, often carried out with the participation of the basileus himself, brought considerable anxiety to the Ottomans.

However, the sorties soon ceased - the soldiers were sorely lacking even to repel frequent seizures along the entire line of fortifications. “The Turks are all over the place without resting, not giving the slightest respect to the Grats, but let them work hard, I’m getting ready for an attack ...” - wrote the Russian chronicler Nestor Iskander, in those days - a soldier of the Turkish auxiliary troops.

On April 18, Mehmed made the first attempt at an organized assault. The Turks going on the attack, expecting an easy victory, swaggered and bawled songs “and the cannons rolled up and many squeaked, the hail was started, also shoot from handguns 4) and from the bows of those numbered; citizens from countless shooting can’t stand on the walls, but wait for an attack to the west, and shoot from cannons and squeakers ... and kill many Turks. The Ottomans fled, leaving hundreds of corpses to rot in the ditch and perivolos. Other attacks ended in the same way, the defenders threw the attackers into the ditch with enviable constancy. “It was amazing,” Sphranzi recalled, “that, having no military experience, they [the Greeks] won victories, because, meeting with the enemy, they did what was beyond human strength.” And indeed, one should be surprised. The siege of Constantinople was the largest event of the 15th century, it knew no equal in terms of the scale of the use of the latest methods of warfare associated with gunpowder artillery, the superiority of the Turkish forces was ten or more times, and on the city walls built back in the 5th century, under the command of Constantine XII and his courtiers fought mostly not even professional warriors, but townspeople dressed in armor - merchants and their servants, artisans, monks and even scientists. The few soldiers of Paleolog after the battle fell down from fatigue, and the Sea Walls stood without protection, since there were not enough people for them at all.

On April 20, among the waves of Propontis, four ships with crosses on the masts, three Genoese and Greek, appeared, loaded with food and with several hundred volunteers on board. 5) . The Ottomans lined up one and a half hundred ships in front of them, and an unequal battle dragged on for almost a whole day. A shower of arrows and stones fell upon the Christians, meter by meter, making their way to the entrance to the Golden Horn, blocked off by a steel chain on wooden floats. However, the ability to conduct a naval battle among the Romans and Italians turned out to be incommensurably higher, and technically their galleys were far superior to the Turkish ones. One after another, the Ottoman ships, receiving damage, fell off the battle line, some were raging with might and main fires. Mehmed II, watching from the shore for the clumsy actions of his captains, became furious. Not remembering himself, he sent his horse into the sea and woke up only when the water came up to the saddle. In the evening, all four Christian ships, having chosen the moment, slipped into the bay, and the chain was wound up again. To the jubilation of the inhabitants of the city, in whose eyes the brilliant victory there was no limit. The Byzantines and Genoese lost only a few people, the Muslims disproportionately more, and the Sultan's Admiral was saved from imminent execution only by severe wounds received in battle.

A day later, having built a land portage, the Turks dragged eighty of their ships to the Golden Horn at night, which the defenders saw with horror at dawn on April 22. The Genoese of Galata, past the walls and towers of which the Muslims moved ships, did not even attempt to prevent them. When, a week later, the brave captain Trevisano tried at night with a few volunteers to burn the fleet of the Turks, the Galatians, who became aware of this plan, betrayed him to the Sultan. The Ottomans brought their cannons in advance and shot the daredevils point-blank at night. The Trevisano galley sank near the shore, the Turks executed the captured sailors in the morning in front of the emperor. In response, the enraged Dragash ordered that two and a half hundred Muslim prisoners be beheaded and put their heads on the walls.

In the Golden Horn, Mehmed II ordered the construction of floating batteries. However, shooting from the water, like the land, was bad. The cores flew past the targets, the guns were torn off and thrown into the bay upon recoil. But in early May, Hungarian ambassadors arrived in Fatih's camp. One of them, versed in artillery, was bribed by the Turks and taught their gunners the art of correct aiming. The Greeks are having a hard time. Stone balls destroyed the masonry of walls and towers, and blocks fired from three large-caliber guns collapsed the walls in whole sections. At night, soldiers and townspeople filled up the gaps with stones, earth and logs. In the morning, the wall turned out to be serviceable, and the enemy, who went on the attack almost every day, was again met by arrows, bullets, stones and jets of "Greek fire". The most terrible consequences of the Turkish shooting were human losses. They seemed insignificant in comparison with the damage suffered by the besiegers, but there were too few defenders...

Despite the difficult situation, Dragash was not going to surrender the city. The barbarians still covered the perivolos and the moat with their bodies. The soldiers of the emperor, clad in strong armor, fearlessly withstood arrows and bullets. On May 7, a bloody assault was repulsed at Mesothichion, on May 12 - at Blachernae. “Padahu corpses of both countries, like sheaves, with fence 6) and their blood flows like rivers along the walls; from the cry and grunting of both Lutsky and from the weeping and sobbing of the Gratsky, and from the sound of the clack and from the clatter of weapons and brilliance, the whole city seems to turn from the base; and the ditches of a human corpse were filled to the top, as if walking through them like a Turk, as if by degrees, and fight: for them, a bridge and a ladder to the city were dead ... and if not the Lord stopped that day [the city would perish. - S.D.], because all the citizens are already exhausted ”(Iskander,).

On May 18, the Greeks blew up and burned a huge mobile siege tower - the heleopolis, built by Turkish specialists in accordance with all the rules of military science. Five days later, on May 23, the Christians discovered and blew up a tunnel under the city walls. Dozens of diggers and engineers of the Sultan found death underground. The fury of Mehmed II was replaced by despondency. For a month and a half, his gigantic army had been at the Byzantine capital, and there was no end in sight. As it turned out later, the Sultan had no idea about the true number of his opponents. Wanting to intimidate the emperor, Fatih sent a message to him and the townspeople, offering a choice of surrender or a saber, and death to the basileus or conversion to Islam. Some offered to accept these conditions. Oddly enough, among the supporters of surrender were even such irreconcilable opponents as the megaduka Notara and Cardinal Isidore.

The clergy, dissatisfied with Isidore and the confiscation of the clergy's funds for the needs of the siege, grumbled, clashes between the Venetians and the Genoese became more frequent, and the emperor had to work hard to keep the allies from bloodshed. The military council rejected the Sultan's ultimatum. On the fortifications of the dying capital, a minority thought about surrender. Not only men fought bravely, but also their wives and children, capable of holding a spear or crossbow.

On May 23, the ship returned to the city, previously sent by Palaiologos in search of the long-awaited Venetian-Papal fleet. The captain informed the basileus that he was not in the Aegean Sea, and was unlikely to be. The West has betrayed its brothers in faith. While from the towers of the bloodless Constantinople, the sentinels vainly looked out for the sails of Christian galleys in the haze of the Sea of ​​​​Marmara, the Venetians bickered with the pope, quarreling over every ducat spent on preparing the expedition.

On May 26, the Turks, to the roar of trumpets, the roar of drums and the fiery howls of dervishes, went to the walls with the whole army. For three hours a fierce battle raged. Forgetting about the strife, the Greeks, Genoese, Venetians, Catalans, French, and even the Turks fought side by side - the servants of Prince Urhan, who offered his services to the emperor. “... nasty ... their preacher, calling out his nasty prayer, abye raising the whole army galloping to the hail, and rolling the cannons and squeaking, and the tours, and the ladder, and the wooden castles, and other intrigues of the walls, they won’t be numbers, also moving ships across the sea ... start to beat the hail from everywhere, and decorate the bridges on the rveh, and as if it had already been knocked down from the walls of all the citizens, soon the cities of wood and the towers were high and the stairway was thick, I needed to climb the walls by force, not dasha they are the Greeks, but sechaahusya with them firmly ... and the cutting was gloomy, behind their arrows [the Turks. - S.D.] darken the light ”(Iskander,). Hundreds of dead bodies piled up along the perimeter of the land walls, and the screams of Muslims dying from wounds and fatal burns were heard in the air. Mehmed II spent the rest of the night in thought. On the morning of the next day, the Sultan traveled around the troops and promised them to give the city for robbery for three days. The soldiers greeted the message with enthusiastic shouts. At night, the Ottoman camp was quiet - preparations were underway.

At dawn on May 28, 1453, the Roman autocrat Constantine XII Palaiologos assembled the last council of war. Speaking before the commanders, the emperor begged them not to disgrace the banner of Constantine the Great, not to give shrines and defenseless women and children into the cruel hands of the Ishmaelites. Having finished his speech, Palaiologos slowly walked around the line of wounded, exhausted knights and quietly asked everyone for forgiveness - if he offended them in any way. Many cried. In the evening, a solemn prayer service was held in the church of St. Sophia. For the first time in the long weeks of the siege, all the priests, both Catholic and Orthodox, performed the service, yesterday's disputants and opponents prayed together. According to Stephen Runciman, the author of an excellent monograph on the capture of Constantinople, only then, on the threshold of the terrible, did a real reconciliation of the two churches take place. The emperor and, following his example, many other warriors took communion and put on their best clothes, preparing for death.

From the church, Constantine XII went to the Blachernae Palace and said goodbye to his loved ones. In every house, the men parted from their wives and children, and almost all of them were not destined to see each other again. Friends and strangers embraced in the streets, not hoping to meet the dawn...

After sunset, the defenders stood on the fortifications of the outer wall. Fires lit up in the Turkish camp, music and shouts rushed from there - the Ottomans were having dinner, raising their spirits with songs. The city fell into silence. In the dim night light, Constantine surveyed the plain from the extreme tower of the wall at Blachernae...

At one o'clock in the morning, filling the area with wild cries, with fascines and ladders on their shoulders, detachments of bashi-bazouks armed with anything - irregular infantry - rushed forward. The task of this least valuable part of the Sultan's army (the bashi-bazouks were recruited from all sorts of rabble, criminals, vagrants, among them there were many renegade Christians) was to wear down the besiegers, and Mehmed II without hesitation sent half-dressed robbers against Dragash's heavily armed men-at-arms. The bashi-bazouk attack, which lasted two hours, choked with blood. Arrows and stones rushed from the towers, finding their target in the light of the moon and stars, the Turks were chopped with swords and stabbed with spears, they fell in dozens from multi-meter stairs. The streams of "Greek fire" falling down with a loud roar flooded the perivolos with flame, finishing off the wounded and crippled. Heavy arquebus shots crackled from both sides. An alarming rumble of bells floated over the doomed city - the alarm of St. Sophia struck ...

The surviving bashi-bazouks slid away from the walls. After several volleys of batteries, a second wave of attackers appeared on the slopes of the hills. Now, detachments of Anatolian Turks were advancing on the attack, gleaming with their shells. The Greeks and Catholics, not having time to rest, again took up arms.

The battle was in full swing along the entire wall, but Mehmed organized the most stubborn onslaught between the gates of St. Roman and Polyander. The emperor and his retinue covered the weakest area - Mesothichion (where the Lykos stream flowed into the city), Giustiniani's mercenaries fought to his right, the Genoese and a detachment of the emperor's relative, the mathematician Theophilus Paleologus, who converted to Catholicism, fought to the left. A fierce battle was also going on in Blachernae, where the Venetians held out.

An hour before dawn, the core collapsed large plot walls near the gates of St. Roman. About three hundred Turks broke through to Paratichion, but the basileus with his Greeks drove them out. In the light of the rising sun, the arrows and bullets flying from above began to strike more accurately, the soldiers of the Sultan fled back, but the steel sticks of the officers again and again drove them to the walls. After four hours of battle, when the Greeks and their allies were exhausted from fatigue and wounds, the best Turkish units, the Janissaries, moved to the gates of St. Roman. Mehmed II personally brought their column to the moat.

This third attack became the most violent. Within an hour, the Janissaries suffered heavy losses, it seemed that this time the assault would also end in failure. Fatih, realizing that after that the only way out there will only be a lifting of the siege, again he drove and drove his people forward, under bullets, stones and arrows. And then, wounded, Long Giustiniani fell. The condottiere ordered to carry himself to the galley.

Finding themselves without a leader, the Italians began to abandon their posts and leave for the city. Huge growth of the Janissaries Hasan climbed the wall, fighting off the Greeks, his comrades arrived in time to gain a foothold at the top.

Even before the assault, for one of the sorties, the defenders used Kerkoporta - a small gate in the wall. It remained unlocked, and a detachment of fifty Janissaries entered through it. Climbing the wall from the rear, the Turks ran along it, throwing down the exhausted Christians. On the tower of St. Roman, a green banner was clogged. With cries of "Our city!" the Ottomans rushed forward. The Italians were the first to waver and run. The emperor ordered the others to retreat behind the inner wall as well. But many of its gates were locked, traffic jams arose in the panic that began, people fell into pits, from which they took earth to seal the breaches. Nobody defended the inner wall, after the last Greeks the Turks burst into the city ...

Constantine XII, Theophilus Palaiologos and two other knights fought at the gates of St. Roman (according to another version - at the Golden). When a crowd of janissaries fell right on them, the basileus shouted to his relative: “Come on, let's fight these barbarians!” Theophilus replied that he wanted to die rather than retreat, and, brandishing his sword, rushed towards the enemies. A scuffle formed around the mathematician, and Dragash had an opportunity to escape. But last ruler Byzantium preferred to share the fate of his empire. Following Theophilus, he stepped into the thick of the battle, and no one else saw him alive ...

Skirmishes broke out in the streets, in which the Ottomans cracked down on the surviving defenders of the city. At the same time, robbery began, accompanied by all the horrors that the brutal soldiery carried.

Hundreds of children, women and old people fled to St. Sophia, believing that in a terrible hour God would not leave them. “Oh, unfortunate Romans! - recalled George Sfranzi. “Oh, pitiful ones: the temple, which yesterday and the day before yesterday you called the den and the altar of heretics, and inside which not a single person of you entered, so as not to be defiled, because inside it kissing the Church Union celebrated the priesthood, - now, due to the manifested wrath of God, you are looking for saving deliverance in it ... ”People, praying, were waiting for the appearance of a guardian angel with a fiery sword. The Janissaries broke down the doors with axes and burst inside with ropes in their hands, each grabbing their captives “for there was no one there who objected and did not betray himself, like a sheep. Who will tell what happened there? Who will tell about the cries and cries of children, about the cries and tears of mothers, about the sobs of fathers - who will tell? The Turk is looking for a more pleasant one; Here one found a beautiful nun, but the other, stronger, was already knitting her, pulling her out ... Then they knitted a slave with a mistress, a master with a slave, an archimandrite with a doorkeeper, tender youths with virgins. The maidens whom the sun did not see, the maidens whom the parent scarcely saw, dragged along as robbers; and if they pushed them away with force, they were beaten. For the robber wanted to take them to their place as soon as possible and, leaving them in safety for preservation, return and seize both the second victim and the third ... ". In the Golden Horn, people mad with horror, crushing and pushing each other into the water, tried to escape on the surviving ships. The Turks, occupied with robbery, did not interfere with the flight, and the ships were able to sail away, leaving those who did not have enough space on the piers.

By evening, Mehmed II entered the blood-drenched city. The Sultan ordered the officers to monitor the safety of the buildings that became his property. From St. Sophia, the Sultan, struck by her greatness, himself drove out the fanatics who smashed her. Fatih visited the empty Blachernae Palace. Looking at the bloodstains in his chambers, he sang a Persian verse:

The spider performs the service of a guard in the chambers of the king,

Owl addictive war song in the palace of Afrasiab...

Byzantium fell on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. In the evening, Constantine Palaiologos was identified in a huge pile of corpses by small golden double-headed eagles on purple boots. The Sultan ordered the king's head to be cut off and put on the hippodrome, and the body to be buried with imperial honors. This grave (or what was taken for it) at least until the beginning of the 20th century. was kept at Vefa Square in Istanbul by the treasury. The last Palaeologus - Prince Giovanni Laskaris Palaiologos - died in 1874 in Turin. The city, founded by Constantine I, son of Helen, was forever enslaved by the barbarians under Constantine XII, son of Helen. In this, Rome II repeated the fate of Rome I.

Notes

1) Despite the poverty of the state as a whole, individual Greeks had a vast fortune.

2) The cannon (more precisely, the bombard) of Urban was superior in caliber to the famous Tsar Cannon. Its length was 40 spans, the diameter of the barrel in the breech - 4, vents - 9, wall thickness - 1 span (span - 17 - 20 cm, Roman pound - 327.45 g).

3) . According to another report by Sphranzi, 4773 Greeks and 200 "foreign men".

4) A handgun is a short-barreled weapon, a prototype of a pistol; sometimes it was called a hand squeaker.

5) As in the case of the number of defenders, the number of ships is also determined differently: in a number of works they talk about five or four Genoese and one Greek ships.

6) Zaborola - wooden shields mounted on the crest of the walls.

Used materials of the book: Dashkov S.B. Emperors of Byzantium. M., 1997, p. 26-30.

Read further:

Patriarchs of Constantinople(biographical guide).

Literature:

Drialt J. E., Le basileus Constantin XII, héros et martyr, P., 1936;

Guilland R., Études Byzantines, P., 1959, p. 135-75.

At the beginning of 395, the last emperor of the united Roman Empire, Caesar Flavius ​​Theodosius Augustus, left Rome for Constantinople. “Arriving in Mediolan, he fell ill and sent for his son, Honorius, whom, when he saw, he felt better. Then he watched a horse race, but after that he became worse and, not having the strength to visit the spectacle in the evening, ordered his son to replace him and the next night he rested in the Lord, seventy years old, leaving behind two sons as kings - the eldest, Arcadius, in the East, and Honoria - in the West "- this is how the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes tells about the death of Theodosius I the Great. From now on, the Roman Empire was actually forever divided into two parts - Western and Eastern. The Western Empire, weakened and fading, lasted another eighty-one years, languishing under the blows of neighboring barbarian tribes. In 476, the barbarian Odoacer, the leader of the German mercenaries, who at the end of the 5th century constituted the main fighting force of the West, demanded from the emperor Romulus (or rather, from his father, the military leader Orestes, who actually ruled the state) a third of Italy for the settlement of his soldiers. The emperor refused to satisfy this demand; in response, the mercenaries rebelled, proclaiming Odoacer the “king” (i.e., prince) of Italy. Orestes died, and on August 23, Romulus was deposed.
Imperial power, which had long been a mere fiction in the West, did not appeal to Odoacer, and he did not accept it. The last Western Roman emperor, the teenager Romulus, died at the end of the seventies in Naples, at the former villa of Lucullus, where he was in the position of a prisoner. Odoacer sent the crown and purple mantle - signs of imperial dignity - to Constantinople to Emperor Zeno, formally submitting to him in order to avoid conflicts with the East. “Just as the Sun is one in the sky, so there must be one emperor on Earth,” was inscribed in the message to the monarch of Constantinople. Zinon had no choice but to legitimize the completed coup, and he granted Odoacer the title of patrician.
History laughed at "Rome first" - the city founded by Romulus the Great was finally crushed by barbarism during the reign of the second and last Romulus, who received the contemptuous nickname Augustulus from his contemporaries - for insignificance. "Rome II" - the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, lasted for almost another thousand years, in many ways really taking over the baton of ancient Rome and creating its own, original statehood and culture at the junction of West and East, surprisingly combining the features of arrogant Greco-Roman rationalism and barbaric eastern despotism... So, Byzantium is the name of the state that developed on the eastern lands of the great Roman Empire in the 4th - 5th centuries. and lasted until the middle of the 15th century. You should know that the term "Byzantium" (as well as the "Eastern Roman" and "Western Roman" empires) is conditional and was introduced into use by Western historians of later times. Officially, the Roman Empire has always remained united, the citizens of Byzantium have always considered themselves the successors of the Romans, they called their country the Empire of the Romans (“Romans” in Greek), and the capital - New Rome. According to the classical definition, Byzantium is "an organic synthesis of three components - ancient-Hellenistic traditions, Roman state theory and Christianity".
The economic and cultural separation of the east of the Roman Empire from the west began in the 3rd-4th centuries. and finally ended only in the 5th century, in connection with which it is impossible to name the exact “date of birth” of Byzantium. Traditionally, its history dates back to the time of Emperor Constantine I and the foundation of the second capital of the empire on the left bank of the Bosphorus. Sometimes the “reference point” is assumed to be different, for example:
- the beginning of the separate administration of the empire under Diocletian (the end
III c.);
- the empire of the times of Constantius II and the transformation of Constantinople into a full-fledged capital (mid-4th century);
- division of the empire in 395;
- the decline and death of the Western Empire (mid-V century - 476);
- the reign of Emperor Justinian I (mid-VI century);
- the era after the wars of Heraclius I with the Persians and Arabs (mid-7th century).
In 284 AD, the throne of the Roman Empire was seized by the Illyrian Diocles, who took the throne name of Diocletian (284 - 305). He managed to curb the crisis that had tormented the vast state since the middle of the 3rd century, and in fact saved the empire from complete collapse by reforming the main spheres of the country's life.
However, Diocletian's measures did not lead to a final improvement. By the time Constantine, later nicknamed the Great, came to the throne in 306, the power of the Romans entered another period of decline. The system of the Diocletian tetrarchy (when the state was ruled by two senior emperors with the titles of Augusts and two junior ones - Caesars) did not justify itself. The rulers did not get along with each other, the huge empire once again became the scene of devastating civil wars. By the beginning of the twenties of the 4th century, Constantine managed to defeat his rivals and remain an autocratic ruler. The financial, economic and administrative measures of Constantine made it possible to stabilize the position of the state, at least until the end of the 4th century.
That Rome, the era of the dominant, was not like the Rome of the first Augusts or the great Antonines, and the change in the economic factors of ancient society played an important role in this.
By the end of the II century. AD, the victorious wars of Rome with the surrounding powers were basically over. The scale of the conquests was sharply reduced, and at the same time, the influx of slaves, which constituted the main productive force of society, began to dry up. Together with the low efficiency of slave labor, this led to the gradual involvement in the production process of an increasing number of the poorest free citizens, especially in the east of the empire, where small landownership and handicraft production were traditional. In addition, the custom of endowing slaves with property (peculia) and renting out cultivated land and objects of labor has become increasingly widespread. Gradually, the social status of such slaves began to approach the status of free peasant tenants (colons) and artisans. At the beginning of the III century. Roman society was divided into two classes - "worthy", honestiores, and "humble", humiliores. By the 4th century the first included the descendants of senators, horsemen, curials, and the second, along with the plebeians, columns, freedmen, and then increasingly slaves. Gradually, the columns and their descendants were forbidden to leave their lands (in the 5th century they were even no longer recruited into the army), in a similar way, belonging to craft colleges and city curia was recognized as hereditary.
In the ideological sphere, the main event of those years was the adoption of Christianity by the empire. On April 30, 311, August Galerius issued an edict in Nicomedia, allowing the population to profess the "errors of Christianity." Two years later, in August, Constantine I and Licinius published a similar edict in Mediolanum, and in 325 Constantine I, not yet baptized, presides over the Nicene Council of Christian Bishops. Soon, a new edict of Constantine on religious tolerance allowed the confession of “delusions of paganism”. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt by Julian II the Apostate to revive paganism, it became clear that it had exhausted itself. In 381 Christianity was proclaimed state religion empire. This was the end of ancient culture.
Everything big and big role in the life of the country (mainly in the west), barbarian Germans begin to play. Already from the middle of the IV century. most of the armies of the West and a significant one of the East were recruited not from Roman free citizens, but from barbarian federates who were subordinate to the Roman authorities for the time being. In 377, an uprising broke out among the Visigothic federates of Misia. In August 378, in the battle of Adrianople, the Eastern Roman army suffered a crushing defeat from the Visigoths, Emperor Valens II died in the battle.
The commander Theodosius became the Augustus of the East. The title of August was granted to him by the emperor of the West, Gratian. After some time, Gratian fell under the swords of the rebellious soldiers, and Theodosius the Great, taking Gratian's young brother, Valentinian II, as co-rulers, remained in fact the autocrat. Theodosius managed to pacify the Visigoths, repel the raids of other barbarians and win heavy civil wars with the usurpers. However, after the death of Theodosius, a split occurred in the state. The point is not at all in the division of power between Arcadius and Honorius - this was customary - but in the fact that since then the West and East, having long been aware of their economic and cultural difference began to move rapidly away from each other. Their relations began to resemble (with the formal preservation of unity) the relations of warring states. This is how Byzantium began.
According to the will of Theodosius the Great, the most developed territories went to Byzantium after 395: the Balkans, the possessions of Rome in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Southern Crimea, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and part North Africa. From the beginning of the 5th century Illyricum and Dalmatia finally fell under the rule of its emperors. The empire was multi-ethnic, but the core of its population was Greek, and Greek was its main (and from the end of the 6th century also the state) language. Having defended its possessions from the invasion of the barbarians in the 5th century, Byzantium survived and existed, constantly changing, for more than a thousand years, remaining a unique phenomenon of the Eurasian civilization.
In this book, the main part of the story begins with the emperor Arcadius (the reader can learn about the emperors of the East to Arcadius and the West from Honorius to Romulus Augustulus from).
By the end of the 5th century all the lands of the Western Roman Empire became part of the barbarian kingdoms, most of which, however, recognized the nominal dominion of the emperors in Constantinople. Byzantium was able to cope with both external barbarians and those in its service. Having escaped the barbarian conquest, the East preserved itself and its culture. The decline that befell the West did not become the fate of Byzantium. Crafts and trade continued to flourish, and Agriculture. By the middle of the VI century. Byzantium was able to make an attempt to take revenge on the barbarian world. During the reign of Emperor Justinian the Great, the Romans conquered their former possessions in Italy, Africa and partly in Spain. But heavy wars tore the strength of the empire. At the end of the century, many of these lands were again lost. AT western regions Byzantium (in Illyricum and Thrace) Slavic tribes began to settle, in Italy - the Lombards. The economy of the country fell into decay, riots became more frequent. In 602, the usurper Fok came to power. After eight years of his reign, the empire was on the verge of collapse. The Romans were unable to retain power in the most economically valuable areas - Syria, Palestine and Egypt, which were torn away by the Persians. Heraclius (610), who overthrew the hated Phocas, managed to improve the situation, but not for long. On exhausted by external and internal wars the Arabs in the south and east, the Slavs and Avars in the west collapsed the power. At the cost of incredible efforts, the empire retained its independence, although its borders were greatly reduced. Thus ended the first period of the history of Byzantium - the period of formation. Her further history is a continuous chronicle of survival. An outpost of Christianity, Byzantium met all the conquerors who rushed to Europe from the east. “... If we take into account the fact that the empire lay just in the path of all popular movements and was the first to take the blows of the mighty eastern barbarians, then one will have to be surprised at how much it repelled invasions, how well it knew how to use the forces of enemies [according to the principle "divide and rule". - S. D.] and how it lasted for a whole millennium. That culture was great and it concealed a lot of power in itself, if it gave rise to such a gigantic force of resistance!” .
From the middle of the 7th century, in terms of the administrative structure, Byzantium began to deviate from the principles of the Roman Diocletian system, based on the division of military, civil and judiciary. This was connected with the beginning of the formation of the theme system. Over time, the entire territory of the empire was divided into new administrative divisions- fems. At the head of each theme was a strategist, who carried out civil administration and commanded the theme army. The basis of the army was the stratiote peasants, who received land from the state on the condition of military service. At the same time, the main feature of Byzantium, which always distinguished it from the countries of Christian Europe, was preserved - centralized government and strong imperial power. The question of the genesis of the thematic system is complicated, most likely, the first innovations date back to the reign of Emperor Heraclius I, and the final form took place in the middle and end of the 8th century, under the emperors of the Syrian (Isaurian) dynasty.
A certain decline in culture dates back to this time, connected, firstly, with the incessant heavy wars, and secondly, with the iconoclasm movement (see Leo III and Constantine V). However, already under the last emperors of the Amorian dynasty (820 - 867), Theophilus and Michael III, a period of general socio-economic and cultural improvement began.
Under the emperors of the Macedonian dynasty (867 - 1028), Byzantium reaches its second heyday.
From the beginning of the X century. the first signs of the disintegration of the theme system are outlined. More and more stratiots are ruined, their lands fall into the hands of large landowners - dinats. The repressive measures taken by the emperors against the dinats in the 10th - early 11th centuries did not bring the expected results. In the middle of the XI century. the empire again fell into a period of severe crisis. The state was shaken by rebellions, the throne of the empire passed from usurper to usurper, its territory was reduced. In 1071, in the battle of Manzikert (in Armenia), the Romans suffered a severe defeat from the Seljuk Turks; at the same time, the Normans captured the remains of the Italian possessions of Constantinople. Only after coming to power new dynasty Komnenos (1081 - 1185) came a relative stabilization.
By the end of the twelfth century, the reform potential of the Comneni had dried up. The empire tried to hold on to the position of world power, but now - for the first time! -Western countries are beginning to clearly surpass it in terms of development. The age-old empire becomes unable to compete with feudalism western style. In 1204, Constantinople was taken by storm by the Catholic knights - members of the IV Crusade. However, Byzantium did not die. Having recovered from the blow, she managed to revive in the lands of Asia Minor that had survived from the Latin conquest. In 1261, Constantinople and Thrace were returned under the rule of the empire by Michael VIII Palaiologos, the founder of its last dynasty. But the history of Byzantium of the Palaiologos is the history of the agony of the country. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, weakened by civil wars, Byzantium is perishing. May 29, 14S3 troops Turkish Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople. Five to ten years later, the remnants of its lands were under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. Byzantium is gone.
Byzantium differed significantly from the contemporary states of Christian Western Europe. For example, the common term for the Western European Middle Ages "feudalism" can be applied to Byzantium only with great reservations, and even then - only to the later one. The similarity of the institution of vassal-feudal relations, based on private ownership of land and dependence on the master of the peasants who cultivated it, clearly appears in the empire only from the time of the Komnenos. Romaic society of an earlier period, the heyday (VIII - X centuries), is more like, say, Ptolemaic Egypt, where the state occupied a dominant position in the economy. In this regard, Byzantium of that time was characterized by a vertical mobility of society unprecedented in the West. The “nobility” of a Roman was determined not by origin, but by more personal qualities. Of course, there was a hereditary aristocracy, but belonging to it did not entirely determine future career. The son of a baker could become a logothete or governor of a province, and a descendant of high dignitaries could end his days as a eunuch or a simple scribe - and this did not surprise anyone.
Starting with the Komnenos, the influence of the aristocracy is increasing, but the hierarchical structure of the countries of the West based on the estate “right of blood” did not take root in Byzantium - at least in its entirety (see, for example,).
Culturally, the empire was even more distinctive. Being Christian country, Byzantium never forgot the ancient Hellenistic traditions. An extensive bureaucratic apparatus required a mass of literate people, which led to an unprecedented scope for secular education. In those years when the West was in ignorance, the Romans read the ancient classics of literature, argued about the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Since 425, there was a university in Constantinople, first-class hospitals for that time worked. Architecture and mathematics, natural sciences and philosophy - all this was preserved thanks to high level material production, traditions and respectful attitude to learning. Merchants of the empire sailed to India and Ceylon, reached the Malay Peninsula and China. Greek doctors not only commented on Hippocrates and Galen, but also successfully introduced something new into the ancient heritage.
The church played a significant role in the culture of the empire. But unlike Catholicism, the Orthodox Church has never been militant, and the spread of Orthodoxy among the Slavs of Eastern Europe and in Russia led to the emergence of daughter cultures of these countries and the formation of special relations between states - a kind of "commonwealth" (see).
The situation changed at the end of the 12th century. Since that time, the level of the West, as mentioned above, began to surpass the Byzantine level, primarily in terms of material. And in terms of the spiritual, the alternative “civilization of Byzantium - the barbarism of the West” gradually disappeared: the “Latin” world acquired its own developed culture. In fairness, I note that this does not apply to all representatives of the Western world - the unscrupulous, rude and ignorant European knights who appeared in the East served as an illustration of this; that is why, contacting mainly with the crusaders, the enlightened Romans for a long time (XII - XV centuries) denied the West the right to be considered a civilized world. True, comparing “levels of development of culture” has always been a generally difficult task, and most importantly, unpromising, although people (as a rule, from the standpoint of their own ethno-, confessional-, etc.-centrism) * did, do and do not stop. Personally, I do not see a reliable and impartial criterion for the concept of "cultural level". Example: if we evaluate the quality of Byzantine coins of the 6th-8th centuries from the point of view of an artist, then there is an abyss between these works of art, merged with craftsmanship, and shapeless pieces of metal with images like “dot, dot, two hooks” - the coins of the Laskaris and Palaiologos, there is a decline. However, it is impossible to speak on this basis about the absence of artists in late Byzantium - they simply became different and created something else (suffice it to mention the frescoes of the Chora monastery). Among the Central American Indians of the XV - XVI centuries. there were no tamed horses and wheeled carts, and the sacrifice of people was practiced - but who dares to call barbaric societies that died under the fire of Cortes' arquebusiers? Now - hardly, but in the XV - XVI centuries. few disputed the right of the Spaniards to destroy the "wild" Aztecs. On the other hand, each of us has our own measure, and we are unlikely to doubt which of the ancestors is considered more cultured - a Cro-Magnon with a club or Aristotle. The main thing, perhaps, is something else - originality. And from this point of view, Byzantium never lost its culture. Neither under Justinian, nor under the Angels, nor under the Palaiologos, although these are different eras. True, if the culture of the Romans in the VI century. could follow the dusty legionaries of Belisarius, then in a thousand years this path was gone.
But even in the fifteenth century Byzantium continued to exert its spiritual influence on the world, and not only the Orthodox - the European Renaissance owes its appearance not least to the ideas that came with Greek East. And such "non-violent" penetration is a hundred times more valuable. And who knows (it’s impossible to confirm or refute this assumption anyway), perhaps we admire the ideas of Kant or Descartes only “thanks” to the soldiers of Baldwin of Flanders and Mehmed II, for who can count the geniuses who were not born in Constantinople twice defeated, and who knows How many books perished under the indifferent boots of the paladins of Christ and Allah! Byzantine emperors
In republican Rome, "emperor" is a title given by soldiers to a general for outstanding service. The first rulers of Rome - Gaius Julius Caesar and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian August had it, but their official title was "Princeps of the Senate" - the first in the Senate (hence the name of the era of the first emperors - principate). Later, the title of emperor was given to and replaced each princeps.
The princeps was not a king. The Romans of the first centuries of our era were alien to the idea of ​​slavish obedience to the ruler (in practice, of course, it happened differently - under such rulers as Caligula, Nero or Commodus). To have a king (rex in Latin and vabileus in Greek) they considered the lot of the barbarians. Over time, the ideals of the Republic faded into oblivion. Aurelian (270 - 275) finally included the word dominus - master in his official title. The era of dominance, which replaced the principate, has come. But it was only in Byzantium that the idea of ​​imperial power acquired its most mature form. Just as God is the highest of the whole world, so the emperor heads the earthly kingdom. The power of the emperor, who stood at the top of the earthly empire, organized in the likeness of the “heavenly” hierarchy, is sacred and protected by God.
But the tsar (the title of Vasileus of the Romans was officially adopted in 629 by Heraclius I, although the people began to call their rulers that way much earlier), who did not observe the “laws of divine and human”, was considered a tyrant, and this could justify attempts to overthrow him. In moments of crisis, such changes of power became commonplace, and any citizen of the state could become emperor (the principle of hereditary power took shape only in Byzantium recent centuries), because on the throne could be both worthy and unworthy person. On the latter occasion, Nikita Choniates, a historian who survived the defeat of his homeland by the crusaders, lamented: “There were people who yesterday or, in a word, recently gnawed acorns and also chewed Pontic pork in their mouths [dolphin meat, the food of the poor. - S. D.], and now they quite openly expressed their views and claims to royal dignity, fixing their shameless eyes on him, and used as matchmakers, or better [say] pimps, corrupt and servile to the womb of public screamers ... Oh famous Roman power, the object of envious surprise and reverent veneration of all peoples - who did not take possession of you by force? Who hasn't dishonored you brazenly? What wildly violent lovers have you not had? Whom did you not embrace, with whom did you not share a bed, to whom did you not give yourself up and whom did you not then crown, decorate with a diadem and then put on red sandals? .
Whoever occupied the throne, the etiquette of the Byzantine court knew no equal in solemnity and complexity. The residence of the emperor and his family was, as a rule, the Great Imperial Palace - a complex of buildings in the center of Constantinople. During the time of the last Komnenos, the Grand Palace fell into disrepair, and the basileus moved to Blachernae.
Any exit of the sovereign was strictly regulated by the rules. Each ceremony with the participation of the emperor was scheduled to the smallest detail. And of course, the accession to the throne of the new king was arranged with great solemnity.
The rite of proclamation itself has not remained unchanged over the centuries. In early Byzantium, the coronation was secular in nature, officially the emperor of the Romans was elected by the synod, but the army played a decisive role. The coronation ceremony was performed surrounded by selected units, the candidate for emperor was raised on a large shield and shown to the soldiers. At the same time, the neck chain of an officer-campiductor (torques) was placed on the head of the proclaimed. Shouts were heard: "So-and-so, you win (tu vincas)!" The new emperor gave the soldiers a donative - a cash gift.
From 457, the Patriarch of Constantinople began to take part in the coronation (see Leo I). Later, the participation of the church in the coronation became more active. The ceremony of raising the shield faded into the background (according to G. Ostrogorsky, it disappeared altogether from the 8th century). The ritual of the proclamation became more complicated and began to begin in the chambers of the Grand Palace. After several disguises and greetings from the courtiers and members of the synclite, the candidate entered the mitatorium, an annex to the church of St. Sophia, where he dressed in ceremonial clothes: divitisy (a kind of tunic) and tsitsaky (a type of cloak - chlamys). Then he entered the temple, went to the saline, prayed and stepped onto the pulpit. The patriarch read a prayer over a purple mantle and put it on the emperor. Then a crown was taken out of the altar, and the patriarch laid it on the head of the newly made basil. After that, the praises of the "dims" - representatives of the people - began. The emperor descended from the pulpit, returned to the mitatorium, and there accepted the worship of the members of the synclite.
Since the 12th century, the custom of raising a candidate to the shield was revived again, and chrismation was added to the rite of placing on the throne. But the meaning of the first rite has changed. The candidate was no longer raised on the shield by soldiers, but by the patriarch and the highest secular dignitaries. Then the emperor went to St. Sophia and participated in the divine service. After the prayer, the patriarch anointed the head of the basileus with myrrh in the form of a cross and proclaimed: “Holy!”; this exclamation was repeated three times by the priests and representatives of the people. Then the deacon brought in the crown, the patriarch put it on the emperor, and shouts of “Worthy!” were heard. A master with samples of marble approached the reigning emperor and offered him to choose the material for the coffin - as a reminder that the ruler of the God-protected Roman Empire was also mortal.
The proclamation of the "junior" co-emperor (bumvabileus) was arranged somewhat differently. Then the crown and mantle were laid by the senior emperor - accepting, however, them from the hands of the patriarch.
The important role of the church in the coronation ritual was not accidental, but dictated special relationship secular and spiritual power of the Roman Empire.
Even in the days of pagan Rome, the emperor had the title of high priest - pontifex maximus. This tradition was also preserved in Orthodox Byzantium. Basileusses were revered as defensors or ekdiki (protectors, trustees) of the church, bore the title of afios - “saint”, could participate in the service, and, along with the clergy, had the right to enter the altar. They decided questions of faith in councils; By the will of the emperor, the patriarch of Constantinople was elected from the candidates (usually three) proposed by the bishops.
In terms of the political ideal of relations between the king of the Romans and the Orthodox Church, which was mainly formed by the middle of the 6th century. and lasted until the fall of the empire, was a symphony - "consent". The symphony was to recognize the equality and cooperation of secular and spiritual authorities. “If a bishop submits obedience to the orders of the emperor, then not as a bishop, whose power, as a bishop, would result from the imperial power, but as a subject, as a member of the state, obliged to obey the ruling power placed over him by God; likewise, when the emperor also obeys the decrees of the priests, it is not because he bears the title of a priest and his imperial power derives from their power, but because they are priests of God, ministers of the faith revealed by God, therefore - as a member of the church, seeking, like other people, their salvation in spiritual realm God's". In the preface to one of his short stories, Emperor Justinian I wrote: “The Most High goodness informed mankind of two greatest gift- priesthood and kingdom; that [the first] takes care of pleasing God, and this [the second] - about other human subjects. Both, flowing from the same source, constitute the adornment of human life. Therefore, there is no most important concern for sovereigns, as the well-being of the priesthood, which, for its part, serves them as a prayer for them to God. When the church is well-organized on all sides, and public administration moves firmly and directs the life of peoples towards the true good by means of laws, then there arises a good and beneficial union of church and state, so longed for by mankind.
Byzantium did not know such a fierce struggle of sovereigns and the church for power, which reigned in the Catholic West for almost the entire Middle Ages. However, if the emperor violated the requirements of the symphony and thereby gave "a reason to accuse himself of non-Orthodoxy, this could serve as an ideological banner for his opponents," for the kingdom and the church are in the closest union, and ... it is impossible to separate them from each other. Christians who were heretics raged against the Church and introduced corrupting dogmas alien to the apostolic and patristic teachings” (Patriarch Anthony IV, ).
The proclamation of the symphony as the official doctrine did not at all mean the indispensable implementation of this ideal in practice. There were emperors who completely subordinated the church to themselves (Justinian the Great, Basil II), and there were such patriarchs who considered themselves entitled to lead the emperors (Nicholas the Mystic, Michael Cirularius).
Over time, the splendor of the empire faded, but the authority of its church among the Orthodox remained unquestioned, and the emperors of Byzantium, albeit nominally, were considered their overlords. At the end of the XIV century. Patriarch Anthony IV wrote to the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich: “Although, by God’s permission, the infidels have constrained the power of the tsar and the borders of the empire, yet to this day the tsar is appointed by the church according to the same rank and with the same prayers [as before], and to this day, he will be anointed with the great world and appointed king and autocrat of all the Romans, that is, Christians. Constantinople
The capital of the empire for almost all the time of its existence, with the exception of the period from 1204 to 1261, was Constantinople - one of largest cities antiquity and early medieval. For the majority of Byzantines (and foreigners as well), the empire is, first of all, Constantinople, the city was its symbol, the same shrine as the imperial power or the Orthodox Church. The city has an ancient history, but under a different name - Byzantium.
In 658 BC residents Greek Megara, following the dictates of the Delphic oracle, founded on west bank the Bosporus to its colony - Byzantium. The city, built at the crossroads of trade routes from West to East, quickly became rich and gained fame and glory.
In 515 BC Persian king Darius captured Byzantium and made it his fortress. After the Battle of Plataea (September 26, 479 BC), when the Greeks defeated the Persian commander Mardonius, the Persians abandoned the city forever.
Byzantium took an active part in Greek politics. The Byzantines were allies of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War, due to which the city was subjected to repeated sieges by the Spartans.
Existing in the neighborhood with the powerful powers of antiquity, Byzantium still managed to maintain relative autonomy, skillfully playing on the foreign policy interests of the surrounding states. When the eastern Mediterranean began to attract the attention of growing Rome, the city unconditionally took its side and supported - first the Republic, and then the Empire - in the wars with Philip V of Macedon, the Seleucids, the kings of Pergamum, Parthia and Pontus. Nominally, the city lost its freedom under Vespasian, who included Byzantium in the possessions of Rome, but even here he retained many privileges.
Under the rule of the princeps, Byzantium (the main city of the Roman province of Europe) experienced a period of prosperity. But at the end of the second century this came to an end: the support of Pescennia Niger, a candidate for the throne of the empire (the level of this support can be used to judge the welfare of the policy - he put up 500 triremes for Pescennia!), cost the city too much. Septimius Severus, who won the internecine strife, took Byzantium after a three-year siege and, taking revenge on the inhabitants, destroyed its walls. The city could not recover from such a blow, fell into decay and eked out a miserable existence for more than a hundred years. However, another Civil War brought Byzantium much more than he lost in the first: Emperor Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, during long battles with the army of August Licinius drew attention to the surprisingly advantageous location of Byzantium from an economic and strategic point of view and decided to build a second Rome here - the new capital of the state .
Constantine began to realize this idea almost immediately after the victory over Licinius. Construction began in 324, and, according to legend, Constantine the Great personally drew on the ground with a spear the border of the city walls - pomeriums. 11 May 330 New Rome consecrated by Christian bishops and pagan priests. New town, where Constantine resettled many inhabitants of other regions of the empire, quickly acquired an unprecedented splendor. Constantinople, "the city of Constantine" (the name "New Rome" was used less often), became the center of the eastern provinces. The son of Constantine I, Constantius II, ordered that the senate of these provinces be assembled here and that a second consul be elected.
During the era of the Byzantine Empire, the city was world famous. It is no coincidence that from the date of the fall of Constantinople, many historians count the end of the Middle Ages.
The city did not lose its importance under the Ottomans. Istanbol or Istanbul (from the distorted Greek "is tin bolin" - to the city, to the city) for several centuries significantly influenced the entire system of European diplomacy.
Today Istanbul is a major industrial and cultural center of Turkey.
Mistake. Theodosius I was born in 347. Augustulus - "August". "August". The estate of the "worthy" was further divided, in turn, into three classes - illustrators (they had the right to sit in the upper curia of the senate), clarissims and performances. The last fragment of the Western Empire remained part of Gaul (between the Loire and the Meuse) under the rule of the Roman governor Siagrius. In 486, Clovis, the leader of the Maritime Franks, defeated Siatria at Soissons. The governor fled to Toulouse, to the Visigoths, but they soon handed him over to Clovis. In 487 Syagrius was executed. At the beginning of the VI century. in the territory of the former Roman Britain, an uprising of the local population broke out, successfully led by a descendant of the Romans, Anastasius Aurelian. The history of his struggle and reign after many centuries was transformed into a cycle of legends about King Arthur. The attitude to this was ambiguous among the Romans themselves. “I believe,” he wrote back in the 5th century. Blue-this, - that nothing has ever done the Roman Empire such harm as that theatrical splendor surrounding the figure of the emperor, which is secretly prepared by the clergy and exposes us in a barbaric guise. According to G. Ostrogorsky. It is sometimes believed that the rite of chrismation appeared in Byzantium much earlier. When the last emperor, Constantine XII Palaiologos, was proclaimed, the last silver door of the Grand Palace was used to make the shield. And it was not for nothing that in May 1453, in response to the proposal of Sultan Mehmed II to surrender the already doomed capital, the last vasileus Konstantin Dragash replied: “The emperor is ready to live with the sultan in peace and leave him the captured cities and lands; the city will pay any tribute required by the Sultan, as far as it is in its power; only the city itself cannot be handed over by the emperor - it is better to die. Roman writers also called their capital Byzantium, Royal, simply Polis (city) and even New Jerusalem.

S. B. Dashkov. Emperors of Byzantium.