My pics of the Golden Gate at Yedikule in Istanbul, from a visit in 2022. Here, on 15 August 1261, Michael VIII entered the ancient Roman capital and was crowned in Hagia Sophia, marking the restoration of the Empire after 57 years of Latin/Western rule.
Michael was the head of the 'aristocratic' party within the empire of Nicaea, which became the most powerful of the Roman successor states after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. As such he clashed with Theodore II Laskaris, emperor of Nicaea, who tried to downgrade the old aristocratic families in favour of new men.
Talented as he was, Theodore showed signs of mental instability towards the end of his short life. Most unwisely, he started to inflict ever more cruel and random punishments on his nobles; this included having Michael's sister, Maria, arrested on charges of witchcraft, sewn up in a sack and beaten with sticks. She survived, but this was hardly going to endear Michael and his family to the emperor.
If Theodore had lived much longer (he died young in 1258) there might have been yet another civil war. As it was, Michael usurped the throne from Theodore's heir, John IV, butchered his supporters in a church and had the boy blinded on his eleventh birthday. Efficient chap.
(Again, note the whole "get 'em in a church, slaughter the lot" vibe. A tried and honourable strategy, used everywhere from Scotland to the Byzantine Empire).
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