The Latin kingdom of Constantinople, established by the Fourth Crusade, endured but fifty-seven years (1204–61). A good Moslem, visiting the city in Manuel’s heyday, prayed: “May God in His generosity and grace deign to make Constantinople the capital of Islam!” 3 And Venice, daughter of Byzantium, invited the chivalry of Europe to join her in raping the Queen of the Bosporus. Christian and Moslem alike aspired to capture this treasury of a millenníum’s wealth.
Meanwhile the capture of Palestine by the Crusaders had opened Syrian ports to Latin commerce, and Constantinople lost to the rising cities of Italy a third of its maritime trade. Vague semicommunistic movements of revolt agitated the proletarian flux, 2 but have been forgotten in the careless repetitiousness of time.
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The peasants grew poorer, and surrendered to serfdom the manual workers of the cities lived in noisome slums, whose dark filth harbored uncounted crimes. This splendor of the capital, and the many wars that the aging empire waged to ward off death, required heavy taxation, which the enjoyers of luxuries passed on to the producers of necessaries. Manuel built for himself a new palace, the Blachernae, on the seashore at the end of the Golden Horn Odom of Deuil thought it “the fairest building in the world its pillars and walls were half covered with gold, and encrusted with jewels that shone even in the obscurity of the night.” 1 Constantinople in the twelfth century rehearsed the Italian Renaissance. Under his indulgent patronage literature and scholarship flourished again the ladies of the court encouraged authors, and themselves condescended to write poetry and Zonaras now compiled his immense Epitome of History. Stoic in the field, he was an epicurean in his palace, luxurious in food and dress, and happy in the incestuous love of his niece. His son Manuel I (1143–80) was an incarnate Mars, dedicated to war and delighting in it, ever in the van of his troops, welcoming single combat, and winning every battle but the last. John Comnenus (1118–43) astonished Europe by a reign of private virtue, administrative competence, and victorious campaigns against pagan, Moslem, and Christian foes for a time it seemed that he would restore the Empire to its former scope and glory but a scratch from a poisoned arrow in his own quiver ended his life and his dream. She conspired to assassinate him, was detected and forgiven, retired to a convent, and chronicled her father’s career in a prose Alexiad.
Betrothed to the son of the Emperor Michael VII, she felt herself marked for empire by her birth, her beauty, and her brains, and she could never forgive her brother John for being born and succeeding to the throne. His eldest daughter, Anna Comnena, was a paragon of learning, a compendium of philosophy, a poet of parts, a politician of subtlety, an historian of accomplished mendacity. Their new alliance will be sealed with the union of King Jaegar's son Eren to the Scouting legions strongest soldier, Lance Corporal Levi.ALEXIUS I COMNENUS, after guiding the Eastern Empire success fully through Turkish and Norman wars and the First Crusade, ended his long reign (1081–1118) amid a characteristically Byzantine intrigue. When Scouting Legions main trading partner, Wall Maria, is experiencing economic strain from constant attacks by the neighboring kingdom Titan, the leaders of the two nations come to an agreement: Scouting Legion will provide military protection in exchange for land and financial aid for the still growing nation.
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