1461, Trebizond and Andronicus 1st Comnenus, the terror of corrupt officials

The Empire of Trebizond,

                       [the last major Romano-Greek outpost,

with the namesake capital on the south Black Sea Coast, 

which for the Greeks all over the World,

                                           [is still to this day a great boast, 

 in the year 1461 it fell to the Ottoman Empire, 

         [although the besieged fought bravely and gave it their  utmost.

This glorious Christian empire was lost forever, 
and the romantic Europeans in the West 

                                                [never, but never,

will dream again of the place with the prettiest girls, 

with the beautiful angelic faces and neatly cut curls ,

and will no longer hear stories calling them Black Sea Pearls. 

                                             
For all that Cervantes wrote, and also I once heard talking about,

                                                            [the great (writer too) Orson Welles.

The rulers of Trebizond called themselves,
                         [Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans "Great Comnenus"
They were descendants of the emperor of Constantinople  

                                                                                    [Andronicus
who was the biggest seducer of women,
                          [during the Middle Ages, in the East and West. 

His love affairs were a topic of discussion,

                          [in the Byzantine court, secretly or professed.

I will mention just a few scandalous erotic romances,
                                                                         [failing tens rest.

The romance with the fourteen year old Evdokia 
              [his niece, whose marriage was mystery as to how it got blessed.

The illicit love affair with Theodora Conmena,
                                                [wife of the king of Jerusalem,
Unknown if it was love, passion, complacency or opportunism?   

The romances with the daughters of the King of Georgia, 
                           [and with Agnes of Louis the Seventh of France. 

Generally, in all Courts, women dreamed,
                     [a compliment from him, or maybe a dance ...

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''IT COULD BE OTHERWISE  in verse''  
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//

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*Andronicus 1st Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1183-85), the most questionable personality of Byzantine History. He had a turbulent life and career and remained one of the the most interesting figures in Byzantine history. His love affairs were a topic of discussion in the Byzantine court, while his valiance and courage on the field of the battle were evidence of a man powerful and able enough to assume supreme authority.

The charms of his niece, Eudoxia, attracted him and she became his mistress. In 1152, accompanied by Eudoxia, he set out for an important command in Cilicia. Failing in his principal enterprise, an attack upon Mopsuestia, he returned but was again appointed to the command of a province. This second post he seems also to have left after a short interval, for he appeared again in Constantinople and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the brothers of Eudoxia.

He was a cruel and notorious ruler, but the same time he was a reformer who tried to remove the social and economic inequalities.
He took strict measures to protect the peasants against the great landowners, chose competent servants for the administrative services, enforced honesty on the tax collectors, gave satisfactory salaries in order to avoid bribery and was the terror of corrupt officials. He used to say "There is no power enough to stop the emperor's will". Despite the nobility of his objectives, the means he used in order to impose his policy were anything but that. Especially in his struggle against aristocracy, he turned the governing of the state into terrorism.


* Some books by Orson Welles Everybody's Shakespeare.
scripts of The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night
The Lives of Harry Lime.
Moby Dick—Rehearsed.
(scripts of Welles abridgments of Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Five Kings)
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to be continued

 ELEGHOS... at history