HISTORYFOREIGN RULE250
The fi rst Christian
martyrs, the so-
called Agii Deka (Ten
Saints) are killed in
the Cretan village
of the same name,
as Roman offi cials
begin major Christian
persecutions.324
The AD 250 invasion
of Greece by the Goths
signals the decline of
Pax Romana and in
324 the capital of the
Roman empire is moved
to Byzantium (later
re n a m e d C o n s t a n t i-
nople). Christianity
gains traction.394
C h r i s t i a n i t y i s
declared the offi cial
religion. All pagan
worship of Greek
and Roman gods is
outlawed. Christian
theology supplants
classical philosophy.395
The Roman Empire
splits and Crete is ruled
by Byzantium. Crete be-
comes a self-governing
province; Gortyna
is its administrative
and reli gious centre.
Piracy decreases,
trade fl ourishes; many
churches are built.mission of the Crusades was to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims,
but in reality they were driven as much by greed as by religious zeal. The
fi rst three Crusades passed by without aff ecting the area, but the leaders
of the Fourth Crusade (in the early part of the 13th century) decided that
Constantinople presented richer pickings than Jerusalem and struck a
deal with Venice, who had helped prop up the Crusades.
Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and much of the Byzantine Empire
was partitioned into fi efdoms ruled by self-styled ‘Latin’ (mostly Frank-
ish or western-Germanic) princes. The Venetians, meanwhile, had also
secured a foothold in Greece. Over the next few centuries they acquired
all the key Greek ports, including Methoni, Koroni and Monemvasia in
the Peloponnese (then known as the Morea), and the island of Crete, and
became the wealthiest and most powerful traders in the Mediterranean.
Despite this sorry state of aff airs, Byzantium was not yet dead. In 1259
the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologos recaptured the Pelo-
ponnese and made the city of Mystras his headquarters. Many eminent
Byzantine artists, architects, intellectuals and philosophers converged
on the city for a fi nal burst of Byzantine creativity. Michael VIII man-
aged to reclaim Constantinople in 1261, but by this time Byzantium was
a shadow of its former self.
Ottoman Rule
Constantinople was soon facing a much greater threat from the east. The
Seljuk Turks, a tribe from central Asia, had fi rst appeared on the eastern
fringes of theempire in the middle of the 11th century. The Ottomans
(the followers of Osman, who ruled from 1289 to 1326) supplanted the
Seljuks as the dominant Turkish tribe. The Muslim Ottomans began to
expand rapidly the areas under their control and by the mid-15th century
were harassing the Byzantine Empire on all sides.
On 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell under Turkish Ottoman rule (re-
ferred to by Greeks asturkokratia). Once more Greece became a bat-
tleground, this time fought over by the Turks and Venetians. Eventually,
with the exception of the Ionian Islands (where the Venetians retained
control), Greece became part of the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman power reached its zenith under Sultan Süleyman the Mag-
nifi cent, who ruled between 1520 and 1566. His successor, Selim the Sot,
added Cyprus to their dominions in 1570, but his death in 1574 marked
an end to serious territorial expansion. Although they captured Crete in
1669 after a 25-year campaign, the ineff ectual sultans that followed in
the late 16th and 17th centuries saw the empire go into steady decline.
Venice expelled the Turks from the Peloponnese in a three-year cam-
paign (1685–87) that saw Venetian troops advance as far as Athens.
Greece is home
to the oldest
mosque in
Europe. The
Bayezit’s Mosque
at Didymotiho
was built by
Ottoman Sultan
Bayazit I in the
late 14th century.