The fall of Tralles, ad 1284

In the spring of the year ad 1280, the young future emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus led an army south from Constantinople into Asia Minor. Twenty years of Palaeologan rule had not been kind to the old Byzantine heartlands. After the recovery of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus had kept his attention firmly trained on the European west. The Anatolian borderlands, the fertile coastal valleys of the Hermos, Cayster and Maeander, had largely been abandoned to their fate at the hands of the nascent Turkish warrior beyliks. Only at the very end of his life, between 1280 and 1282, did Michael make any concerted attempt to restore Byzantine authority in western Asia Minor, and by then, as would rapidly become apparent, it was far too late.

Arriving in the valley of the river Maeander, and travelling eastwards along the north bank of the river, Andronicus passed the ruins of the ancient city of Tralles. Struck by the charms of the place, and the natural defensibility of the plateau on which the city stood, Andronicus decided to restore the ruined town as a place of refuge for the local Greek rural population (Fig. 1.1). The new city was to carry his own name: Andronicopolis or Palaeologopolis. Work proceeded at speed, and the city was soon ringed with strong fortifications. Worn down by the constant assaults of the Turks, and all too ready to believe that the arrival of the young emperor-in-waiting marked a new dawn for the embattled Greeks of Asia Minor, as many as 36,000 men, women and children came to settle in the new city. The hopes of the new settlers were raised still higher by the discovery of a marble stele buried in the ruins of the ancient town, discovered by Andronicus’ workmen, on which was inscribed an ancient oracle in hexameter verse.

1. The beauty of this city of Tralles shall be dimmed in time,

2. And in the last days, those few that remain

3. Shall live in fear of a leaderless barbarian tribe;

4. But the city will never fall.

5. A nobleman, whose name is Victory, shall restore her.

6. He shall live for seventy-two years in splendour,

7. And at the age of twenty-one, he will glorify this city of Attalus.

8. To him, the cities of the west will bow their heads,

9. And the proud, like children, shall bend their knee to him.