Byzantium's Initial Encounter with the Chinggisids: An Introduction to the Byzantino-Mongolica

Abstract

"Byzantium's Initial Encounter with the Chinggisids : An Introduction to the Byzantino-Mongolic." The revival of Byzantine civilization in Anatolian exile after the brutal sack (halosis) of Constantinople by the Venetian-led Fourth Crusade in 1204 coincided with the approach of the Mongol storm toward western Eurasia during the reign of the Anatolian-Byzantine basileus John III Ducas Vatatzes, 1222-1254. Heir of a proud millenarian tradition of Byzantine diplomacy, John III skillfully synchronized his military initiatives to restore the Byzantine world (oecumene) in both Asia Minor and the Balkans so that those initiatives coincided with the periodic ebbing of Mongol pressure in Western Eurasia. Meanwhile, Vatatzes adroitly took advantage of his neighbors' preoccupation with Mongol advances against their frontiers, effectively utilizing his advantageous interior strategic position-shielded by buffers in both the Balkans and Asia Minor from direct nomadic assault-to expand his imperial domain (basileion) at the expense of his regional rivals. As the Mongol storm drew ever closer, John III and his successor Theodore II Lascaris, 1254-1258, undertook conciliatory diplomacy with the Chinggisid princes and marshals (noyans) to exploit Byzantium’s geopolitical advantages and deflect Mongol imperialism elsewhere, laying the foundation for later Palaeologan initiatives that successfully continued Byzantium’s collaboration with the Mongols well into the fourteenth century and prolonged the life of their waning basileion.