Two prominent monks, Meletios and Ignatios, were punished: the first had his tongue cut out, the second was blinded. Despite the restoration under the Palaiologoi, Byzantium was never again a great power on the scale of the past. This further undermined the financial basis of the state, and placed further reliance on unreliable mercenaries, which only hasted the empire’s demise. This played a major role in the loss of Anatolia to the Turks at the end of that century. A new Latin Empire was established, led by Baldwin I, Latin Emperor. Cumulatively, these three emperors were able to partially restore the empire’s fortunes, but they never were able to fully undo the damage caused by the instability at the end of the 11th century, nor return the empire’s frontiers to those of 1071. [10], Economic concessions to the Italian Republics of Venice and Genoa weakened the empire’s control over its own finances, especially from the ascension of Michael VIII Palaiologos in the 13th century onward. However, the theme system was never replaced by a viable long-term alternative, and the result was an empire that depended more than ever before on the strengths of each individual emperor or dynasty. [1] In order to secure his authority during the civil war, Kantakouzenos hired Turkish mercenaries. In this piece, I will analyze the events that led to its ultimate downfall. By the 13th century, the imperial army numbered a mere 6,000 men. Add in civil unrest, natural disasters and powerful enemies such as the Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Bulgars, Normans, Slavs, and Ottoman Turks, and you can see why the Byzantine Empire eventually crumbled. As the old adage goes, all roads lead to Rome, and for the Byzantine Empire, that included the road to hell. The Latins were supplanted by Byzantine exiles, who inherited an economically depleted Empire. It was the last effort to recover the interior of Anatolia, and in strategic terms, Myriokephalon was almost as important as Manzikert. As one of the main institutional strengths of the Byzantine state, the demise of the theme system left the empire lacking in underlying structural strengths. At the same time, the empire lost its last territory in Italy to the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and faced repeated attacks on its territory in the Balkans. amzn_assoc_region = "US"; [18] Another attempt to clear the encroaching Turkmen from the Meaender valley in 1278 found limited success, but Antioch on the Maeander was irretrievably lost as were Tralles and Nyssa four years later. During the 12th century, much of Anatolia was recovered under the Komnenian Restoration, but the recovery was brought to a crashing halt at the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1176. Emperors like Justinian I tried to expand the empire but throughout its history, a host of problems arose and contributed to its downfall. Constantinople was now itself a Crusader state, known as the Latin Empire in historiography, but from the Greek perspective as Frankokratia or “rule of the Franks”. No single issue caused the end of the Byzantine Empire. This mounting animosity culminated in the Fourth Crusade. This led to a series of disastrous trade deals with the Italian states; drying up one of the empire’s final sources of revenue.