The Empire of Trebizond

I first encountered Trebizond as an adolescent. I can't remember the name of the book but it took place in the 14th century when the city was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond.  An emperor in the story would sometimes disguise himself so he could visit his common people. I don't recall the rest but the exotic setting on the Black Sea stayed with me. Later, I learned that Jason and the Argonauts stole the Golden Fleece and, to Jason's regret, Medea from somewhere close by. Historically, the Greeks colonized the place as they did much of the Black Sea coast. Nearby, the Greek historian, Xenophon claimed that the excited ten thousand of his Anabasis first saw the sea after their long trek from Babylon. Eventually, the Romans incorporated Trebizond into their eastern empire. 

What set Trebizond apart for me was what happened here in the late middle ages. Just as Constantinople was about to fall to the fourth crusade, two brothers of the powerful Comneni family slipped out of the city and set up a separate empire here. It lasted for an improbable two hundred and fifty years. To distinguish themselves from the family that once ruled the Byzantine Empire, they called themselves the Grand Comneni. Thus Trebizond became a center of late Byzantine culture and learning. The descendants of the two brothers built churches, palaces, patronized scholars and established an independent and rich trading city. They were good survivors not conquerors and compromised, allied and often submitted to their more powerful neighbors. They were especially good at marrying off one of their endless supply of famously beautiful princesses to dangerous Khans and Sultans. Thus, as a tributary state of the Mongols, Trebizond became wealthy as a main stop on the Silk Road. Eventually, weary of Trebizond's byzantine diplomacy, the Ottomans ended the Empire in 1461.

Evidence of the Trapezian Emperors is still here but one has to search for it. The current literature put out by the Tourist office of what is now called Trabzon mentions the Grand Comnena only in passing as it goes on to concentrate on the later Ottoman period. The current Trebizond Soccer teams gets a much larger section than the centuries of the Empire of Trebizond. This is understandable because modern Trebizond is very much a Turkish city and reminders of the Greek past elicits awkward responses. One is reminded of how political and ideological the interpretation of history is in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, my trusty Blue Guide, the only travel guide to have for a history hound, insisted that substantial evidence of the Empire of Trebizond can still be found. I had the day so I set off. The impressive walls modeled on Constantinople are still obvious and extensive. The Cathedral where emperors were crowned was also a quick find. Its architecture betrayed its Byzantine origins although the frescos inside were whitewashed over when it became a mosque.

More difficult to find was the palace. However I followed the instructions in the guidebook and wound my way up the hill until I came across a large complicated and overgrown ruin with dilapidated modern houses built into it. My guidebook insisted that if one followed the path that went through back gardens one could get inside. Again, my trusty Blue Guide was correct and out I came into a weedy and crumbling wall. Above, one could make out sumptuous windows

which perhaps offered a view to  "emperors sitting on their golden thrones, and the Byzantine courtiers and clergymen talking to one another, intriguing, arranging murders, discussing the Trinity, in which they took such an immense interest, talking of the barbarians who were threatening the Empire and later, after Constantinople had fallen, and Trebizond was the Empire, debating how to hold it, how much tribute should be paid to the Turks, how best to form an anti-Turk union, whose eyes to put out, what envoys should be sent to Rome..." to quote from the well-known passage in Rose Macaulay's novel, The Towers of Trebizond. A little intimidated by barking dogs to say nothing of the three foot wide passage along the wall with a twenty foot drop in one direction and a hundred foot drop in the other I nevertheless made my way around the extant walls making out the palace's shape. 

After climbing down from the palace, on a side street, I found another remnant, a tiny 11th century chapel dedicated to St. Anne. It was locked but in reasonable shape and Byzantine crosses decorated the frieze above the door. The best evidence of the lost empire I found in the Hagia Sophia on the edge of town. Originally built as part of a monastery, the structure was converted into a mosque after the city fell to the Turks. At this time, the 14th century frescos were painted over and thus preserved during the building's years as a hospital and store. In the mid twentieth century the now ruinous Hagia Sophia was restored and turned into a museum. Turkish preservationists with the help of the University of Edinburgh exposed the frescos. These well-preserved biblical images in naturalistic late Byzantine style offer the viewer a vestige of the Trapezian's mental world in form and color.

Weary of my search and drenched in sweat from the hot and humid coastal climate of late summer Black Sea, I made my way back to the hotel. There, I took out of my suitcase a copy of George Finlay's A History of Greece, volume 4.  Few modern sources exist for the Empire of Trebizond and this book, although published in 1877, is the only affordable one available at Amazon. Finlay has been given credit for challenging the negative few of the Byzantine Empire perpetuated by historians like Edward Gibbon. For Trebizond, however, he follows Gibbons lead and concludes that 

 ...We inquire in vain for any benefit that it conferred on the human race. It seems a mere eddy in the 

torrent of events that connects the past with the future...The greatest social defect that pervaded the 

population was the intense selfishness which is evident in every page of its history...The 

condition of society which produced the vicious education so disgraceful in its effects, must have 

arrived from a total want of those parochial and local institutions that bind the different classes of men 

together by ties ofduty and benevolence as well as of interest (425-6).

Yet, nothing in this characterization explains how it survived for two hundred and fifty years. When I return home I will need to look into recent general works on Byzantium with the hope that they give Trebizond some attention  Little understood, maligned and thus still available for romanticism, Trebizond's story remains fascinating and baffling.