Theodore II Laskaris

## Theodore II LaskarisΘεόδωρος B' Λάσκαρις

Mosaic of Theodore II in the Hagia Sophia

**Theodore II Doukas Laskaris**(Greek: Θεόδωρος B' Δούκας Λάσκαρις, *Theodōros II Doukas Laskaris*, 18 August 1222 – 1 December 1278) was Byzantine emperor from 1245 to 1278. Known in his time as **Theodore the Lion** (*Theodōros Leonidas*) and later celebrated as **Saint Theodore of the Romans** in the Eastern Orthodox Church, his reign is regarded as marking a new epoch for the Roman state. As a consequence, historiography often considers him the first ruler of the long Byzantine 14th century, known as a time of deep political, social and cultural transformation and innovation, culminating in the Laskarid Renaissance.

The early years of his reign were dominated by great instability and uncertainty as three distinct but interconnected conflicts engulfed his empire: the war against the Latins knights of the Seventh Crusade, the civil war against several pretenders to the throne and great aristocrats vying for independence, and the destructive first Mongol invasion of the Byzantine Empire. The crusaders were repelled in Greece and Theodore II became sole Emperor of an unified empire through a combination of warfare and diplomacy. A second Mongol invasion was defeated at the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1253, consolidating his rule. The next years were spent stabilizing the Asian borders through alliances with the Kingdom of Armenia and Syria and the Emirate of Nicaea. In the 1260's Theodore II campaigned in Bulgaria and eventually succeeded in reconquering the region and enforcing Byzantine rule once and for all in the Eastern Balkans.

As emperor, Theodore II enacted a radical anti-aristocratic policy which promoted the urban middle classes at the expense of the traditional bureaucratic and landed military aristocracies. He faced strong opposition from the great aristocratic families, with whom he dealt ruthlessly, ultimately depleting the power they had been accumulating ininterrutibly since the 10th century. In spite of near incessant warfare, Theodore II was a prolific writer whose political philosophy was aimed at providing legitimacy and theoretical justification to his anti-aristocratic policies. His seven volume *Explanation of the World*is considered a political science classic and one of the field's inaugurating works. At Constantinople, Theodore II set up a court of scholars and intellectuals and favored the rise of New Men. Through his effort and that of his chief minister's, George Mouzalon, the long process of rationalization of the Byzantine bureacracy began.

## Early life

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## Reign

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## Family

By his wife Theodora Megali Komnena, who he married in 1254, Theodore II had the following children:

1. John IV Komnenos Laskaris, who succeeded his father as emperor.
2. Skantarios Komnenos Laskaris, who succeeded his older brother as emperor.
3. Eirene Komnena Laskarina, who became a nun.
4. Eudoxia Komnena Laskarina, who became empress and married Emperor Romanos VI Melissenos.
5. Sophia Komnena Laskarina, who became a nun.

By his Thessalian mistress Anna Loukaina, Theodore II had two illegitimate children:

1. Helena Laskarina, who married the general Michael Daimonoioannes.
2. George Laskaris, an eunuch, who rose to the prestigious office of *parakoimomenos* and was chief minister to Skantarios Laskaris and Romanos VI.

## Sources

A plethora of contemporary primary sources have survived through the ages and reached the able hands of current historians. Although many give well-earned attention to the epic poem and historical source that is the Laskariad, the canon of 14th century Roman literature and often regarded as the most prominent cultural factor for the Empire’s Eastern expansionism, we must take it with a grain of salt in its heavily glorious and mystical description of Theodore II, written almost a hundred years after his passing. Historiography on his renowned reign is often based on two contemporary authors and philosophers, George Akropolites and George Pachymeres. The Annals, signed by the former, is fascinating for the privileged position occupied by Akropolites in Theodore II’s regime, as his Grand Logothete and chief diplomat, as well as former teacher and tutor. In the Annals we find the most comprehensive guide to the Emperor’s policies and campaigns, set down by an author who had accompanied his patron from his exile in the Peloponnese until his last hours at Constantinople. Admittedly, although Akropolites makes it a point to state that a historian’s impartiality and objectivity ought to be essential for the truthful construction of knowledge, the once Grand Logothete often aggrandizes events surrounding himself and is perhaps too favorable on the aristocracy, with figures such as Andronikos II Palaiologos, Manuel Megas Komnenos and Romanos Melissenos featuring prominently under a positive light (Akropolites’ and Theodore II’s contradictory views on the aristocracy would remain one of the focal points of tension in their relationship, until the end). After Theodore II’s death, Akropolites was known to have added several books to his works, written quickly and in a less erudite syntax, offering stern criticism of the late Emperor’s reign. As a consequence, he fell out of favor with the new regime and his chronicle would soon be outshined by other writings. Nevertheless, the Annals have sporadically been rediscovered and extensively studied for their sheer wealth of information and portrayal, given Akropolites’ privileged and intimate knowledge of not only the Roman state, but his friend and former student Theodore II himself.

On the other hand, Pachymeres’ History portrays Emperor Theodore II and his statecraft more generously, and has thus been favored both by traditional and revisionist authors. Whereas Akropolites sought to approximate himself with the contemporary Roman elite to raise his social standing (going as far as pushing the marriage of his daughter Anna to King Aimery IV of Jerusalem), a behavior that is said to have affected his records, Pachymeres was content with himself, writing that true nobility was born out of character, and not blood (a view shared with Theodore II). Born at Constantinople in 1241, George Pachymeres joined the Church at an early age, and eventually became a clerk at the Imperial Chancery. Unlike Akropolites, Pachymeres followed Theodore II’s campaigns in Bulgaria, and offers a privileged view into the Emperor in his second decade of constant warfare, as well as the campaign’s most detailed account. Upon his triumphant return to Constantinople, the Emperor appointed his new protege as his personal secretary and Mystikos, an office reserved for the communication between the Emperor and the Church, especially the lower clergy. Furthermore, even as Akropolites distanced himself from the Emperor in the 1270’s and ceased to write altogether only a couple of years after Theodore II’s death, Pachymeres’ History remains the favored source for that decade and records events well into the reign of Theodore II’s successors, until his own death in 1313. Nonetheless, whereas Pachymeres’ chronicle starts only with the Lion Emperor, the Annals records the reigns of his two predecessors, Theodore I and John III, offering an invaluable source for the early Laskarid dynasty, and a continuation of Niketas Choniates’ chronicle about the Angelid Dynasty. Pachymeres’ opinion of Akropolites is well known (“most learned, but neglectful in matters of conscience,” he writes), and it must be said that whilst the Grand Logothete concentrated his efforts on a history of Constantinople, Pachymeres took his time to write of the Emperor’s subjects not only in Bulgaria, but especially in Anatolia.

What are, then, the historiographical uses of Akropolites and Pachymeres? Modern historians have found the Annals to be richer in its (highly controversial) account of the man Theodore II was before he became one of the best regarded Emperors in Roman history, especially in his early years in his struggle for the Emperorship, and against the Crusaders and Mongols (referred to as Latins and Scythians, in chronicles of the time). Later, Akropolites gives us an invaluable account of court life at Constantinople, often compared to Constantine VII’s own De Ceremoniis, a glimpse into the inner workings of the Roman state and of Roman diplomacy with other peoples, importantly featuring Henry of Sicily, the Popes in Rome, Bohemond II of Antioch and the Mamelukes (“Persians,” in his account). Meanwhile, beside the aforementioned accounts of the Bulgarian campaign and the Roman rule in Anatolia, Pachymeres’ History is more plentiful when it comes to Theodore II’s late reign, and a deeper and more complex description of the Byzantine and Roman societies and administration of the time. Most importantly, by comparing the two works, modern historians may take joy not only in their similarities, but especially in their differences, of which there are many. Ultimately, a comprehensive study of Theodore II’s reign must obligatorily include both the Annals and the History, Akropolites and Pachymeres, not only to try and circumvent the subjectivity intrinsic to their works, but especially to emerge oneself into 13th century Roman politics and discourse, of which there is no greater example than the differences between these two chronicles.

Naturally, although they are more well known and studied, Akropolites and Pachymeres are not the only great sources from the period. The chronicler Theodore Skoutariotes wrote a history of the world at about the same time, with his fellow divergences and convergences with the two greater authors. Theodora of Antioch, Queen of Armenia, Syria and Jerusalem, left an extensive account of herself, Andronikos II and her cousin Theodore II, as well as several other writings about Bohemond II’s quasi-imperial kingdom in the Levant. The monk Nikephoros Blemmydes, Theodore II’s former teacher and who also tutored his son, Skantarios Laskaris, at Ephesus, was paradoxically one of the Emperor’s bitterest political opponents and critics, for their strong disagreement about the nature of the imperial office. However, in spite of Blemmydes’ unkind words about the Emperor’s heavy-handed policies, his records pale in comparison to John of Serdica’s, alternatively known as Ivan of Serdica. Undoubtedly the harshest account of Theodore II’s reign belongs to that disgruntled Bulgarian priest, outraged at the Emperor’s dissolution of the autocephalous Patriarchate of Ohrid, and with links to the aristocratic Tarchaneiotes family of Adrianople. John of Serdica denounces Theodore II as a villainous, temperamental and brutal tyrant, both in his conquest of Bulgaria and in his policies regarding the old Roman (and Bulgarian) aristocracy. There, the Emperor is branded as the antichrist himself, an analogy the Emperor would certainly have found humorous, from what we may extrapolate. John of Serdica was accused of heresy by Patriarch Gregory II, commonly known as Gregory of Cyprus, and burned at the stake by Skantarios Laskaris in 1290. His writings remained obscure until quite recently, until they were rediscovered and shed new light over the conquest of Bulgaria and Theodore II’s wider policies from the viewpoint of a commoner Bulgarian priest. His account is especially enlightening when combined with Akropolites and Blemmydes, who offer similar criticism (the former of the Emperor in the 1240’s, and then after his death), but just as heavily politicized as every author from the period. Other, foreign, sources may prove just as interesting, although far less detailed. Chroniclers in the Latin West and in the Christian Levant did not hesitate to portray Emperor Theodore II, varying between degrees of hostility and admiration depending on the time the account was written. Eastern writes, from the Muslims in Cairo to the Mongols and beyond also offer rather unique descriptions of the Lion of Philomenion, enriching the historical debate and evidencing how much Theodore II Laskaris was significant not only for Rhomania, but also for the outer world, with word of his deeds and misdeeds reaching far-flung Ethiopia, India and even Cambulac.

Finally, modern historians have often permitted and even encouraged Theodore II Laskaris to speak for himself. One of the most prolific erudite Emperors of all time, he left numerous writings, among them oratories, panegyrics, secular and theological treatises and his three most important philosophical and political-philosophical compendiums: Six Discourses on the Natural Communion (written in the 1250’s, on nature, the force that binds us all), the infamous and innovative Explanation of the World, and ultimately the Ethical Epistomes on the Instability of Life, also known as the Moral Pieces, composed in his last year of life. All these works are fantastical adventures into Theodore II’s troubled mindset and revolutionary political philosophy, revealing a man who is torn between his ample worldly desires and pangs of Christian self-consciousness, and is existentially plagued by a world he deems imperfect and inconstant. Theodore II Laskaris’ contributions to Roman political thought, specifically the ideas and implications behind the seven-book Explanation of the World, are deserving of full attention elsewhere, and for now we will focus on the author behind the controversial work. Fortunately, a vast archive of correspondence has likewise survived to our time, exploring all aspects and years of Theodore II’s life and long reign. Over a thousand letters to his chief minister, George Mouzalon, have found their way to us (indeed, the first four volumes of the Explanation of the World are addressed to Mouzalon), as well as his extensive correspondence with Akropolites, Blemmydes, Karyanites, the governor of Albania Constantine Chabaron and Theodora of Antioch, among others. In accordance to modern historiography, we will also allow Theodore II Laskaris to be his own voice, only then to explore the Emperor who has enchanted millions since his lifetime, the purported founder of the Roman modern state, and delve into the man who he truly was.