City · The Byzantine Empire (the Empire of the Romans) · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Athens

Athens is a provincial town gathered at the foot of the Acropolis.

Its metropolitan, Michael Choniates, paints it in his letters and verse as a poor, shrunken place stripped by tax collectors, praetors and pirates; the archaeology shows instead a town that had grown steadily through the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with soap and dye works, many new churches and visiting Venetian and other Aegean traders. Both are true in part: it is a modest place with a great name. The Parthenon is its cathedral, the church of the Mother of God, and the Acropolis is its citadel and the metropolitan's residence.

Who holds it

Name
Metropolitan Michael Choniates (since 1182) and the Athenian archontes (not named)
Title
Imperial town under the praetor of Hellas and the Peloponnese, led by its metropolitan and archontes
Confidence
high

Lord in 1200

The emperor, through the praetor of Hellas and the Peloponnese at Thebes and his tax officials. Inside the town the leading man is the metropolitan Michael Choniates (Akominatos), brother of the historian Niketas, metropolitan since 1182, who lives on the Acropolis; beside him stand the local landholding archontes, none named for 1200.

How things stand that morning

Imperial and quiet; burdened by taxes and by pirates on the Attic coast.

Charter

A chrysobull (date not pinned) forbade the praetor to enter Athens with an armed following; Michael Choniates also claimed to have lightened the town's taxes (Miller, from his letters). He addressed a memorandum (Hypomnestikon) to Alexios III on the abuses of provincial government (date not pinned).

Council

No sworn council: the archontes and the metropolitan speak for the town.

Communities

Greeks; Venetian traders under the imperial privileges (a Venetian colony at Athens is mentioned in the secondary literature). Benjamin of Tudela did not pass through Athens, so no Jewish figure is known.

Militia

The townsmen; in 1203-1204 they will hold the Acropolis under Michael Choniates against Leo Sgouros (later).

Walls and castle

The fortified Acropolis with the cathedral in the Parthenon and the metropolitan's palace; an outer wall at the foot of the rock (date disputed). The lower town spreads over the old agora, largely unwalled.

Trade and crafts

Soap and dye making; olive oil and the honey of Hymettus; a modest trade through Piraeus with Venetian and other Aegean merchants.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1203-1204 (later)Leo Sgouros attacks Athens; the Acropolis holds under Michael Choniates and Sgouros burns the lower town.Depends on: Sgouros's rise in 1201-1202. Stopped by: Imperial control of the Argolid and Corinth.
  2. 1204-1205 (later)Boniface of Montferrat's crusaders take Athens; Michael Choniates surrenders and retires to Keos.Depends on: The fall of Constantinople (April 1204). Stopped by: Any change to the course of the Fourth Crusade.

Places of note

  • Acropolis and the cathedral in the Parthenon: Citadel, cathedral and the metropolitan's residence
  • Monastery of Kaisariani: Monastery on Hymettus
  • Monastery of Daphni: Monastery on the road to Eleusis

Where the sources disagree

  • Michael Choniates describes Athens as impoverished and depopulated; Wikipedia's History of Athens (from the archaeology) has the town growing until the end of the twelfth century. Both are given; his rhetoric exaggerates (Miller).
  • Wikipedia's Hellas (theme) says Sgouros captured Athens in 1204; its Leo Sgouros article says the lower town fell but the Acropolis held out under Michael Choniates. Later events either way.

Evidence: Michael Choniates's letters (through Miller and Wikipedia) and the archaeology; no officer of the town is named for 1200.

Primary sources for Byzantium

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
  • History of Niketas Choniates, Niketas Choniates (about 1185 to 1217, in stages, with a final revision in exile at Nicaea after 1204). The central narrative for the Byzantine Empire under Alexios III Angelos: the Bulgarian and Vlach war under Kaloyan, the breakaway of Ivanko in the Rhodopes and his capture by treachery in 1200, Dobromir Chrysos at Prosek and Strumica and the emperor's campaign and settlement with him, the Cuman raids into Thrace, John Komnenos the Fat's one-day revolt at Constantinople on 31 July 1200, the loosening of imperial control in the provinces and the rise of Leo Sgouros, and the court's fiscal abuses. Read online
  • The Capture of Constantinople, Gunther of Pairis (about 1205 to 1210). Written at the Cistercian abbey of Pairis in Alsace from the account of its abbot Martin, who preached the crusade at Basel in 1200 (Gunther gives the sermon) and led a contingent from the Upper Rhine. Read online
  • The Conquest of Constantinople, Robert de Clari, knight of Picardy (about 1205 to 1216). A rank-and-file crusader's account that begins with the preaching of the crusade and the taking of the cross in 1199 to 1200 by the counts of Flanders, Blois and Champagne and by the Picard lords, among them Peter of Amiens, Robert's own lord, then the negotiations with Venice. Read online
  • The Palace Revolution of John Komnenos (31 July 1200), Nicholas Mesarites (1200 or soon after). An eyewitness narrative of the one-day coup of John Komnenos the Fat at Constantinople on 31 July 1200: the crowning of the usurper in Hagia Sophia, the mob's plunder of the Great Palace, the stand of the palace clergy and the guard at the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, where Mesarites was skeuophylax, and the recovery of the palace by Alexios III's men that night. Read online
  • History of the doges of Venice (about 1229, with a continuation). The earliest surviving Venetian narrative close to the events. Read online
  • The Conquest of Constantinople (Villehardouin), Geoffrey of Villehardouin (about 1207 to 1213). Opens with the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly and the tournament at Ecry (28 November 1199) where Theobald III of Champagne and Louis of Blois took the cross, then the taking of the cross by Baldwin of Flanders, Hugh of Saint-Pol, Geoffrey of Perche and others through early 1200, the assemblies at Soissons and Compiegne in 1200, and the six envoys sent to Venice in the winter of 1200 to 1201. Read online
  • The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online

7 more in the sources library for The Balkans and Byzantium.

Sources and studies

  1. Michael Choniates (Wikipedia)
  2. History of Athens (Wikipedia: 11th-12th century growth, soap and dye works)
  3. Hellas (theme) (Wikipedia)
  4. W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant (1908), ch. 1 'Greece at the time of the Frankish conquest' (archive.org full text; old but uses Michael Choniates's letters)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.