Fall of Trebizond (1461): The Last Byzantine Successor State

The fall of Trebizond came in August 1461, when David Megas Komnenos, the last emperor of Trebizond, surrendered his capital to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. The Empire of Trebizond, a Greek state on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia, had existed since 1204 and outlived Constantinople by eight years. Its surrender ended the last Byzantine imperial line.

Background: an empire born in 1204

The Empire of Trebizond was founded in April 1204, just before the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople in the sack of Constantinople. Two brothers, Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos I, seized Trebizond with help from Queen Tamar of Georgia, their relative.

Their descendants ruled for more than 250 years and called themselves Grand Komnenos (Megas Komnenos). Unlike the Empire of Nicaea, which recovered Constantinople in 1261, Trebizond remained a regional power on the Black Sea. From the late thirteenth century its rulers were styled emperors of “all the East, of the Iberians and of Perateia”.

Trebizond survived by diplomacy, paying tribute in turn to the Seljuk Turks, the Mongols and later Turkmen powers, and by marrying its princesses to neighbouring rulers. Its wealth came from trade: goods from Persia and Central Asia reached the Black Sea at Trebizond, and Genoese and Venetian merchants kept trading stations in the city. The church of Hagia Sophia, built in the mid-thirteenth century, and its wall paintings survive as reminders of this prosperity.

The road to 1461

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Trebizond’s position became precarious. Emperor John IV paid tribute to the Ottomans and sought allies. He married his daughter Theodora, known as Despina Khatun, to Uzun Hasan, ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu, a powerful Turkmen confederation in eastern Anatolia and Iran.

John’s brother David became emperor around 1459. He tried to build a coalition against the Ottomans, appealing to Western Europe and relying on Uzun Hasan. These plans gave Mehmed II a reason to act.

The campaign of 1461

In 1461 Mehmed II led a combined land and sea campaign along the northern coast of Anatolia. His forces took the Genoese port of Amasra and the city of Sinop, whose ruler, Ismail Bey, surrendered. The sultan then marched east and, through negotiations led on the Aq Qoyunlu side by Uzun Hasan’s mother, Sara Khatun, persuaded Uzun Hasan to stay out of the war.

Isolated, Trebizond was besieged by the Ottoman fleet and then by the army, which crossed difficult mountain country to reach the city. Negotiations were led by the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha Angelović. David’s adviser George Amiroutzes, a cousin of the vizier, is often said to have encouraged surrender. After a siege of about a month, David agreed to surrender in return for safe conduct for his family and an estate. The traditional date is 15 August 1461.

Aftermath

David and his family were taken to the Ottoman Balkans. Many inhabitants of Trebizond were moved to Constantinople to help repopulate the capital, and some young men were taken into Ottoman service. In 1463 David was accused of conspiring with Uzun Hasan, after a letter from his niece Theodora was intercepted. On 1 November 1463 he was executed in Constantinople with several of his sons and a nephew.

Not all of the population left. A substantial Greek Orthodox community remained in Trebizond and the surrounding Pontic region for centuries, keeping its own dialect and churches. It survived until the early twentieth century, when the Greeks of the region were displaced during the First World War and the Greek–Turkish population exchange of 1923.

Trebizond became the centre of an Ottoman province. Selim I, the future sultan, served as governor there, and his son, the later Suleiman the Magnificent, was born in the city in 1494. Hagia Sophia was later converted into a mosque.

Timeline

• 1204, April: Alexios and David Komnenos found the Empire of Trebizond.
• c. 1250–1260: The church of Hagia Sophia is built.
• 1453, 29 May: Constantinople falls to Mehmed II.
• c. 1459: David Megas Komnenos becomes emperor.
• 1461, summer: Mehmed II takes Amasra and Sinop and neutralises Uzun Hasan.
• 1461, August: Trebizond surrenders after a siege of about a month.
• 1463, 1 November: David and his sons are executed.

Myths and facts

Myth: Trebizond was a remote fairy-tale kingdom. Its name became a byword for distant splendour in European literature; in Don Quixote, Cervantes’s hero imagines winning the empire of Trebizond. In reality it was a well-connected trading state deeply involved in regional politics.

Fact: Trebizond was the last Byzantine imperial state, but not the last Greek-ruled territory: the Principality of Theodoro in Crimea held out until 1475.

Why it matters

The fall of Trebizond completed the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine world, eight years after Constantinople. It brought the whole southern coast of the Black Sea under Ottoman control and ended a Greek state that had kept Byzantine traditions alive in Anatolia for more than two and a half centuries.