John III Doukas (or Dukas) Vatatzes, Latinizedas Ducas Vatatzes (Greek: Ιωάννης Γ΄ Δούκας Βατάτζης, Iōannēs III Doukas Vatatzēs, c. 1193, Didymoteicho – 3 November 1254,Nymphaion), was Emperor of Nicaea from 1222 to 1254. He was succeeded by his son, known as Theodore II Laskaris. John III Doukas Vatatzes was a successful ruler who laid the groundwork for Nicaea's recovery of Constantinople. He was successful in maintaining generally peaceful relations with his most powerful neighbors, Bulgaria and the Sultanate of Rum, and his network of diplomatic relations extended to the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, while his armed forces included Frankish mercenaries. John III effected Nicaean expansion into Europe, where by the end of his reign he had annexed his former rival Thessalonica and had expanded at the expense of Bulgaria and Epirus. He also expanded Nicaean control over much of the Aegean and annexed the important island of Rhodes, while he supported initiatives to free Crete from Venetian occupation aiming toward its re-unification with the Byzantine empire of Nicaea. Moreover, John III is credited with carefully developing the internal prosperity and economy of his realm, encouraging justice and charity. In spite of his epilepsy, John III had provided active leadership in both peace and war. A half-century after his death, John III was canonized as a saint, under the name John the Merciful, and is commemorated annually on November 4 in the Orthodox calendar. Alice Gardiner remarked on the persistence of Theodore's cult among the Ionian Greeks as late as the early 20th century, and on the contrast she witnessed where "the clergy and people of Magnesia and the neighbourhood revere his memory every fourth of November. But those who ramble and play about his ruined palace seldom connect it even with his name." John III Doukas Vatatzes married first Irene Lascarina, the daughter of his predecessor Theodore I Laskaris in 1212. They had one son, the future Theodore II Doukas Laskaris. Irene fell from a horse and was so badly injured that she was unable to have any more children. Irene retired to a convent, taking the monastic name Eugenia, and died there in 1239. John III married as his second wife Constance II of Hohenstaufen, an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Frederick II by his mistress Bianca Lancia. They had no children. onstantine XI Dragases Palaiologos, Latinized as Palaeologus (Greek: Κωνσταντινος ΙΑ' Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος, Kōnstantinos XI Dragasēs Palaiologos; 8 February 1405 – 29 May 1453) was the last reigning Byzantine Emperor, reigning as a member of the Palaiologos dynasty from 1449 to his death in battle at the fall of Constantinople. Following his death, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the "Marble Emperor" who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Ottomans. His death marked the end of the Roman Empire, which had continued in the East for 977 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Before the beginning of the siege, Mehmed II made an offer to Constantine XI. In exchange for the surrender of Constantinople, the emperor's life would be spared and he would continue to rule in Mistra; to which, as preserved by G. Sphrantzes, Constantine replied: To surrender the city to you is beyond my authority or anyone else's who lives in it, for all of us, after taking the mutual decision, shall die out of free will without sparing our lives. He led the defence of the city and took an active part in the fighting alongside his troops in the land walls. At the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain the necessary unity between the Genoese, Venetian and the Greek troops. He died the day the city fell, 29 May 1453. His last recorded words were: "The city is fallen and I am still alive." Then he tore off his imperial ornaments so as to let nothing distinguish him from any other soldier and led his remaining soldiers into a last charge where he was killed.
Soldiers were sent to search amongst the dead for his body. The first body that was believed to be the emperor's, a body that had silk stockings with an eagle embroidered in it, was decapitated and marched around the ruined capital. However, it failed to gather any recognition from the citizens of Constantinople. There were no known surviving eyewitnesses to the death of the Emperor and none of his entourage survived to offer any credible account of his death. A legend tells that when the Ottomans entered the city, an angel rescued the emperor, turned him into marble and placed him in a cave under the earth near the Golden Gate, where he waits to be brought to life again to conquer the city back for Christians. While serving as ambassador to Russia in February 1834, Ahmed Pasha presented Tsar Nicholaswith a number of gifts, including a jewel-encrusted sword supposedly taken from Constantine XI's corpse. Constantine XI's legacy was used as a rallying cry for Greeks during their war for Independencewith the Ottoman Empire. Today the Emperor is considered a national hero in Greece. During the Balkan Wars and the Greco-Turkish War, under the influence of the Megali Idea, the name of the then-Greek king, Constantine, was used in Greece as a popular confirmation of the prophetic myth about the Marble King who would liberate Constantinople and recreate the lost Empire. Constantine Palaiologos' legacy is still a popular theme in Greek culture. The well known contemporary composers Apostolos Kaldaras
and Stamatis Spanoudakis have written elegies for the Marble King. Some Eastern Orthodox
and Greek-Catholics consider Constantine XI a saint (or a national martyr or ethnomartyr,
Greek: εθνομάρτυρας). However, he has not been officially canonized by either Church, partly due to controversy surrounding his personal religious beliefs and partly because death in battle is not normally considered a form of martyrdom by the Orthodox Church. An Orthodox martyr is one who voluntarily accepts death for his faith, typically in a situation where he has the option to give up Christianity and live, but chooses death instead. Emperor Constantine I, said to have been turned into a stone statue, although not resting within a mountain.Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, said to have been turned into marble and thus was known as "Marmaromenos", "the Marble King". He was said to be hidden somewhere underground until his glorious return as the Immortal Emperor.Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (also known as "Kaloyannis III'") of the Eastern Roman Empire, due to his kindness and ability, also known as "Marmaromenos" although this title might also be due to the post-mortem discovery of his intact body, the peculiar appearance of which was caused by a lifetime of medical treatment for epilepsy. (Greece, Cyprus). The Megali Idea (Greek: Μεγάλη Ιδέα Megáli Idéa, "Great Idea") is an
irredentist concept of Greek nationalism, that expressed the goal of establishing a Greek state that would encompass all ethnic Greek-inhabited areas, including the large Greek populations which, after the Greek War of Independence (1830) from the Ottoman Empire, were still under Ottoman occupation. The term appeared for the first time during the debates ofPrime Minister Ioannis Kolettis with King Otto that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution. This was a visionary nationalist aspiration that was to dominate foreign relations and, to a significant extent, determine domestic politics of the Greek state for much of the first century of independence. The expression was new in 1844 but the concept had roots in the Greek popular psyche, nurtured as it was by old hopes of liberation from Turkish rule and imperial (Byzantine) restoration. Πάλι με χρόνια με καιρούς, πάλι δικά μας θα 'ναι!(Once more, as years and time go by, once more they shall be ours). The Megali Idea implied the goal of reviving the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, by establishing a Greek state, which would be, as ancient geographer Strabo wrote, a Greek world encompassing mostly the former Byzantine lands from the Ionian Sea to the west, to Asia Minor and the Black Sea to the east and from Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus to the north, to Crete and Cyprus to the south. This new state would have Constantinople as its capital: it would be the "Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas" (Europe and Asia, the Ionian, Aegean, Marmara, Black and Libyan seas, respectively). The Megali Idea dominated foreign policy and domestic politics of Greece from the War of Independence in the 1820s through the Balkan wars in the beginning of the 20th century. It started to fade after the defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922, followed by the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Despite the end of the Megali Idea project in 1922, the Greek state expanded five times in its history, either through military conquest or diplomacy (often with British support). After the creation of Greece in 1830, the Ionian Islands (1864), Thessaly (1881),
Macedonia, Crete,southern Epirus and the Eastern Aegean Islands (1913), Western Thrace (1920) and theDodecanese (1947) were annexed and became Greek territory. hough the Byzantine Empire was Roman in origin and was called the "Roman Empire" by its inhabitants in antiquity, it becameHellenistic with time to the point where Greek replaced Latin as the official language in AD 610, owing to its location (in the Greek-speaking realm and sphere of influence) and the fact that, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire. Byzantium held out against the invasions of the centuries with a vitality that the Western Roman Empire lost, repelling the Visigoths, the Huns, the Saracens, the Seljucks, the Normans and finally the Ottoman Turks. Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium, fell to the Fourth Crusaders in the early years of the 13th century. The city was eventually liberated by the Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine successor, and the Empire was restored. However, the city fell to a different foe in 1453—the Ottoman Turks—and this fall of Constantinople marked the nadir of Byzantine civilization; the city was comprehensively sacked and looted; the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque. Following the conquest of Constantinople, the capture of the remainder of the Byzantine territories was easily accomplished by the Ottomans.
Πηγη: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_III_Doukas_Vatatzes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_XI_Palaiologos
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_in_the_mountain
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megali_Idea
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