Dr. Maria Xanthou FHEA

"What jealous and relentless avenging demons have made a riotous assault upon you in wild revel?" Niketas Choniates, eyewitness of the Fall of Constantinople by the Crusaders and Venetians, left us a compelling narration of the events before, during and after the devastating attack. Shocked from the events he doubts about his devotion to write the story of them: “…how then can I devote the very best thing and the most beautiful invention of the Hellenes - history - to the recounting of barbarian deeds against Hellenes? πῶς ἂν ἔγωγε εἴην τὸ βέλτιστον χρῆμα, τὴν ἱστορίαν, καὶ κάλλιστον εὕρημα τῶν Ἑλλήνων βαρβαρικαῖς καθ’ Ἑλλήνων πράξεσι χαριζόμενος” But his “Chronike Diegesis” became one of the masterpieces of byzantine Greek historiography, a piece of which below laments the fate of the Polis: “O City, City, eye of all cities, universal boast, supramundane wonder, wet nurse of churches, leader of the faith, guide of Orthodoxy, beloved topic of orations, the abode of every good thing! O City, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury! O City, consumed by a fire far more drastic than the fire which of old fell upon the Pentapolis!" "What shall I testify to thee? What shall I compare to thee? The cup of thy destruction is magnified," says Jeremias, who was given to tears as he lamented over ancient Sion. What malevolent powers have desired to have you and taken you to be sifted? What jealous and relentless avenging demons have made a riotous assault upon you in wild revel? If these implacable and crazed suitors neither fashioned a bridal chamber for thee, nor lit a nuptial torch for thee, did they not, however, ignite the coals of destruction? O prolific City, once garbed in royal silk and purple and now filthy and squalid and heir to many evils, having need of true children! O City, formerly enthroned on high, striding far and wide, magnificent in comeliness and more becoming in stature ; now thy luxurious garments and elegant royal veils are rent and torn; thy flashing eye has grown dark, and thou art like unto an aged furnace woman all covered with soot, and thy formerly glistening and delightful countenance is now furrowed by loose wrinkles. I shall forego describing those who set words to the music of the lyre and sang of thy calamities and, drunk with wine, turned thy tragedy into a comedy, making a profession out of the farcical recitation of thine afflictions: blows struck with the fist and the foot, bruises, moreover, and black eyes inflicted upon thee every hour of the day; for by God's will thou hast provoked to jealousy the foolish nations, or rather, those people who are not truly nations but obscure and scattered tribes, and if thou didst not give birth to the majority of them, thou didst, however, raise them up and provide them with the fat of wheat…” Drawing of the Fall of Constantinople by the "Franks", from Bodley Laud Misc. 587 La Conquête de Constantinople (check the 4Bs...)