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Empire of Nicaea. Theodore Lascaris, 1204–1222.The most important of those who refused to accept the Latin rule was Theodore Lascaris. He had been the last of the Greek nobles to leave the city when the invaders captured it. He made his way to Nicaea, and was followed by many Greeks. Able, courageous, and patriotic, he was soon recognised by the notables as the fittest man to have rule among them, and, though without hereditary claim to the imperial throne, he aspired to be emperor and was accepted as best suited to receive that dignity. Two years after the capture of Constantinople, a new patriarch was elected, who consented to live at Nicaea and who amid as much ceremony as if the coronation had taken place in St. Sophia placed the crown on the head of Theodore in the church of the same name at Nicaea. The prudence and judgment of the new emperor did much to rally the best of his countrymen around him, and justified the choice made in electing him to the imperial throne. The Greek priests flocked to the city from all parts of Western Asia Minor as well as from Thrace.

Nevertheless, his task was beset with difficulties. He had enemies on all sides, pretenders of his own race, the Latin emperor and the sultan of the Seljukian Turks. The latter, whose capital was at Konia, had no idea of allowing any neighbour to become formidable. A Greek pretender held the country to the west of Nicaea. The Latin emperor and barons chose to regard Theodore as a rebel because he would not make submission. After unsuccessful attempts against him by Baldwin and his successor, Theodore was allowed in 1207 to remain in possession of Ismidt (the ancient Nicomedia) and Cyzicus for a period of two years. He employed the period in strengthening and extending his empire. At the end of it, Henry the brother of Baldwin, whom he succeeded as emperor, made an alliance with the sultan of the Seljukian Turks: that is to say, the Crusaders who had justified themselves to Innocent the Third for attacking a Christian city on the ground that the Greek emperors had allowed the Moslems to have a mosque