About this ebook
John IV Laskaris was the legitimate ruler of Byzantium — born to the purple, crowned and anointed, heir to the dynasty that had preserved Roman sovereignty after the catastrophe of 1204. His crime? A better claim to the throne than the general who had seized it.
This is the story of the boy emperor who ruled for three years without power, was destroyed on the holiest day of the Christian calendar, and spent forty-four years in darkness while the man who blinded him built a dynasty on the ruins of his legitimacy.
What you'll discover:
The fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade
The fifty-seven-year exile that forged the Empire of Nicaea
Michael VIII's rise from suspected traitor to emperor
The miraculous 1261 reconquest of Constantinople
And the Christmas blinding that shocked even a civilization accustomed to imperial violence
The restoration of Constantinople came at a price. That price was a boy's eyes.
