Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

John VIII (1425-1448) and the Turkish menace

Page 5

One of the Despots of Morea, Constantine, John VIII's brother, who was to be the last emperor of Byzantium, took advantage of some difficulties of the Turks in the Balkan peninsula to march north with his troops across the Isthmus of Corinth into middle and northern Greece, where the Turks were already making their conquests.

After his victory over the Christians at Varna, Sultan Murad II considered the invasion of Constantine into northern Greece as an insult to him; he marched south, broke through the fortified wall on the Isthmus of Corinth, terribly devastated the Peloponnesus, and carried away into captivity a great number of Greeks. The horrified Despot Constantine was glad to make peace on the sultan's terms; he remained Despot of Morea and pledged himself to pay a tribute to the sultan.

Under Constantine Palaeologus the famous traveler, archeologist, and merchant of that time, Cyriacus of Ancona, visited Mistra, where he was graciously received by the despot (Constantinum cognomento Dragas) and his dignitaries. At his court Cyriacus met Gemistus Plethon, the most learned man of his age, and Nicholas Chalcocondyles, son of his Athenian friend George, a young man very well versed in Latin and Greek. Nicholas Chalcocondyles can have been none other than the future historian Laonikos Chalcocondyles, for the name Laonikos is merely Nicolaos, Nicholas, slightly changed. During his first stay at Mistra, under the Despot Theodore Palaeologus, in 1437, Cyriacus had visited ancient monuments at Sparta and copied Greek inscriptions

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