On May 29, 1453, the city of Constantinople disappeared. For over a millennium, it had been the capital of the east Roman polity and a center of Greek learning and the Orthodox faith. New Rome, or just “The City” as it was commonly called, was adorned with imperial monuments and classical art, unrivaled collections of Greek manuscripts, precious Christian relics, and the most majestic church in the world, Hagia Sophia. It was still a bustling center of international trade, with one of the largest and safest natural harbors in the world, the Golden Horn (see Color Plates 3 and 4). Thousands of visitors still traveled to it every year to study, venerate, trade, and gaze upon its wonders. By 1453, it was visibly in decline and ruled almost no territory, but its people proudly clung to their heritage and traditions. Those came to an end on that May day. A few thousand of its inhabitants were killed during the morning fighting, while the rest— Constantinople’s entire populace— were rounded up and marched outside the walls. Their homes and churches were plundered. Tradition granted victorious Muslim armies three days to plunder a city that fell to their arms, but Constantinople was a ghost town by nightfall. The victors’ celebrations echoed in its empty streets with the distant sound of feasting, dancing, and singing mixed with the wails and groaning that rose from the slave pens. It was a day of tragedy and triumph. A few days later, most of the captives were led away to their captors’ homes in distant lands. The City’s fate remained uncertain. Only a few garrisons left by the conqueror remained behind.
Many heartrending laments were written and sung over Constantinople in the aftermath of its fall. It was not just any city, after all, but a symbol for an entire people, the Romans of the east (or Romaioi), most of whom were already living under Turkish rule and some still under Latin rule. For almost two months, the City had defended itself fiercely against an army ten times larger and vastly better equipped and supplied than its own. Its foe brought massive cannons to demolish the ancient walls. After May 29, the ceaseless and deafening bombardment that the City had endured gave way to an eerie silence. For the first and only time in its history, Constantinople was emptied of people. The victors did not immediately move in to occupy it; instead, they dispersed back to their homes. It took the sultan Mehmed II years to decide what to do with the empty husk that he had conquered, and years more after that to repopulate it. May 29 is thus a fulcrum between the City’s life as New Rome and its subsequent career as Konstantiniyye, the capital of the Ottoman empire.
In the immediate aftermath, some survivors of the siege wrote accounts suggesting that Constantinople was fated to fall, that divine punishment could not long tolerate the many sins of its inhabitants. They cited the omens and prophesies that foretold the City’s doom in advance. Theologians quickly interpreted it as a punishment sent by God because the Orthodox had abandoned their faith to join in Union with the Catholic Church of Rome (so said the opponents of Union) or because they had failed to unite with Rome (so said the proponents of Union). It was easy to look back and conclude that the conquest was inevitable. Gennadios Scholarios, the first patriarch of Constantinople appointed by the sultan after the fall, did just that. Our country could not have lasted longer, he opined. Everyone was certain that it would fall as we beheld the growth of the enemy’s power and the City’s decline and senescence. It was nothing but vain hope to believe that the end could be postponed or that God would forgive us. Certain insightful people— no points for guessing who— had spoken about this before its last ruler, the basileus Konstantinos XI Palaiologos. The latter was only doing what he could to safeguard the freedom and salvation of his people, but his efforts were doomed.
While eschewing theological interpretations, most modern accounts of 1453 follow our sources and regard the City’s fall as inevitable. They view the defense as “ineffectual,” “futile,” and “doomed to fail” before the forces of the sultan. The present history of the siege pushes back against that narrative. Konstantinos XI did not choose to resist the sultan because he wanted to die fighting, nor did his people and their Latin allies support him, with almost no dissenters, thinking that they would likely be enslaved. They had good reason to believe that victory was possible. Contrary to what all modern accounts suggest, they almost won. They managed to counter all the sultan’s assaults and stratagems until the very last day. By the same token, their success makes the sultan’s last- minute victory all the more consequential. He was not pushing against an open door. His victory was far less assured than is often thought and a testament to his tenacity, determination, and strategy.
The nature of the resistance speaks volumes about the civilization that fell on that day. The narratives of decline that we associate with “Byzantium,” which is what we call the east Roman polity, predispose us to see it as an already defunct civilization. But its people believed it was worth fighting for. Their determination refutes our teleological perspective on the last phase of its history. We see it as a sad slide into powerlessness, poverty, misery, and defeat. From that standpoint, it is easy to view the Romans’ decision to fight to the bitter end, when they had been given the chance to surrender, as either delusional or heroically tragic. But neither of these narratives tells the entire story. The defenders knew what they were doing and were not looking to be martyred. They were proud, but realistic. Their defeat was heroic, but by no means inevitable. They made Mehmed work for the prize, and he rose to the occasion.
To be sure, Constantinople had lost its provinces. It had been enveloped by the growing Ottoman empire. Its ruler (basileus) had little money and few soldiers. The population of Constantinople had shrunk to less than a tenth of its past high mark. It was commonplace among its authors to lament the sorry condition of their state, society, and finances. And yet, as we will see, Roman Constantinople was by no means ready to exit the stage of history. It remained a vibrant, interconnected hub offering unparalleled cultural assets that drew visitors, pilgrims, and students from far afield. These late Romans prized their freedom and sovereignty and were proud of their culture. They knew that times were tough, that something had gone wrong. But their writings from this period, which are numerous and thoughtful, powerfully proclaimed that their cherished City was worth saving. They did not believe what modern historians told them in retrospect, that it was time to give up, accept terms of surrender, and go quietly into the night.
The fall of Constantinople was not inevitable in 1453. Yet that narrative was convenient to both Ottomans and western Europeans for whom the survival of east Rome was an ideological nuisance, a relic of the ancient world that stood in the way of the stories that new powers wanted to tell about themselves. Its fierce resistance at the end stands as a final protest against narratives that would render it irrelevant. The Romans asserted a right to survive and, by not surrendering, they refused to consent to their obsolescence. They chose to risk destruction over the ignominy of surrender and voluntary extinction. To be sure, they believed that the odds were in their favor— and in this they were probably correct— but they also knew the cost of defeat. Such assertions of will cannot be morally extinguished, even if they are physically overcome. Thus, 1453 continues to reverberate as a kind of open question, a contest of wills that history alone failed to settle. It unsettles the narrative that we like to tell of Roman decline and decrepitude. That narrative would have preferred an ignominious surrender. Instead, while Mehmed won the glory, Konstantinos gained the honor. His self-sacrifice redeemed the dismal tale of his dynasty. And his people, long scorned or overlooked, suddenly turned heads, earned last-minute respect, and inspired tragic reflections.
Excerpt from the book 1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople by Anthony Kaldellis copyright © 2026 Oxford University Press. Reproduced by permission.
