Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Empire of Nicaea (1204-1261)

Beginnings of the Empire of Nicaea and the Lascarids 

Page 4

Meanwhile, the unnatural Greco-Bulgarian friendly understanding, which had brought about the victory of Hadrianople, promptly broke down, as soon as the Balkan Greek patriots saw in the sovereign of Nicaea a possible liberator from the Latin conquerors and a spokesman for their national expectations and hopes. In the Balkan peninsula there appeared clearly expressed anti-Bulgarian tendencies, against which the king of Bulgaria opened a merciless and destructive war. According to the statement of a contemporary source, Kalojan was avenging the evils which the Emperor Basil II had inflicted upon the Bulgars. The latter had been given the name of the "slayer of Bulgars" (Bulgaroctonus); Kalojan proudly styled himself the slayer of Romans (Romaioctonus, Romaioktonos). The Greeks surnamed him Dog-John (in Greek Skyloioannes); in his letter a Latin emperor calls him a great destroyer of Greece (magnus populator Graeciae).

Here manifested itself, stated a Bulgarian historian, the purely Bulgarian national tendency, which guided the imperialistic policy of the King Kalojan against the Greek element, this sworn enemy of Bulgarian national independence, even in the moment of the alliance with the Greek cities of Thrace against the Latin Empire.

The bloody campaign of John in Thrace and Macedonia ended fatally for him. At the siege of Thessalonica (1207) he died a violent death. A Greek legend inserted into the tales of the miracles of the martyr St. Demetrius, which exist in Greek and Slavonic versions, as well as in the old Russian chronographies, speaks of him as an enemy of the Orthodox church, stricken down by the saintly patron of the city. Thus the king of Bulgaria was unable to take advantage of circumstances which were very favorable to him after the victory of Hadrianople. In his person, Nikov said, there disappeared from the historical stage one of the greatest diplomatists Bulgaria had ever borne.

But on the other hand, the battle of Hadrianople, which had destroyed the strength of the Frankish dominion at Constantinople, saved the Empire of Nicaea from ruin and gave it hope for a new life. Theodore Lascaris, who had escaped the danger from his western neighbor, set to work actively to organize his state. First of all, when Theodore had succeeded in establishing himself firmly at Nicaea, the question was raised of proclaiming him emperor instead of despot. As the Greek patriarch of Constantinople, who after the Frankish invasion had withdrawn to Bulgaria, refused to come to Nicaea, a new patriarch, Michael Autoreanus, was elected there in 1208; he had his residence at Nicaea and crowned Theodore Emperor in the same year, 1208.

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/nicaea-lascarids.asp?pg=4