Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 320, The Last Hurrah.

Previously, on the history of Byzantium,

Constantinople was sacked by the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 AD. The lands of the Roman Empire were divided between the Latin conquerors and

various Roman aristocrats. The Bulgarians and Serbians also nibbled at the frontiers.

The Roman state founded at Nicaea would emerge as the strongest of the successor kingdoms,

and they would annex a significant swath of territory before retaking Constantinople in 1261.

The emperor who achieved that feat, Michael VIIIth Palio Logos, was faced with a dilemma.

His new capital was a great asset, but it was also a target.

The crusading movement made various attempts to regain the city, and Michael spent a great deal of money to stop them.

Paliolojos also found that imperial authority was not what it had once been.

In the century since the death of Manuel Cominus, many people had tasted independence

from Roman tax collectors, and they had enjoyed that feeling.

Michael's son, Andronicus II, inherited a complex situation, and things only got worse from there.

The Mongol attacks on the Middle East set off a chain reaction, which led to the collapse of Roman Anatolia.

Byzantium had lost its largest,

richest, most loyal region. Andronicus II was eventually forced into retirement by his grandson Andronicus III, who now inherited a smaller, more vulnerable Roman Empire.

But, as he would show, one which was not beaten yet.

Andronicus III, Paliolochus, was born in 1297, around the time that things in Anatolia were turning really sour.

He was the eldest son of Michael the 9th, a rare figure in Byzantine history,

an emperor who was crowned and has a number next to his name, but never reigned.

Michael was not an inspiring figure.

He led the European army with little success and essentially retired from public life shortly before his death in 1320. By then, the 23-year-old Andronicus was causing

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