Nicholas Orsini, who had married the widow of the rival he had poised, Thomas I Komnenos Doukas, had claimed to rule not only Epirus, but all of Greece; his rule was limited only to Akamania, or the southern part of Epirus.

He was overthrown by his brother John in 1323, who attempted to balance submission to Constantinople with cooperation with the Angevins of Naples, who also claim Greece as part of their domains.

John had been poisoned around 1335 by his wife Anna, who became regent for their son Nikephoros II.

The new Emperor, Andronikos III Palaiologos, arrives in northern Epirus in 1337 with an army partly composed of two thousand Turks contributed by his ally Umur of Aydın.

Andronikos first deals with unrest due to attacks by Albanians and then turns his interest to the Despotate.

Anna tries to negotiate and obtain the Despotate for her son when he comes of age, but Andronikos demands the complete surrender of the Despotate, to which she finally agrees.

Thus Epirus comes peacefully under imperial rule, with Theodore Synadenos as governor.

By so doing, Andronikos and Kantakouzenos are able to call on the services of almost limitless numbers of Turkish soldiers to fight for them against their other enemies: the Italians in the Aegean islands and the Serbs and the Bulgars in Macedonia and Thrace.

Northwestern Anatolia, once the heart of the empire, is lost to Greek rule after the Turkish warriors of Orhan, second emir of the powerful Ottoman principality, had captured Nicomedia in 1337, renaming it Izmit, …

… Chrysopolis.

The trade between Anatolia and the West had diminished in importance when Constantinople became the seat of Roman government in the fourth century and Smyrna had declined.

The Seljuk commander Tzachas had seized Smyrna in 1084 and used it as a base for naval raids, but the city was recovered by the general John Doukas.

The city was several times ravaged by the Turks, and had become quite ruinous when the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes rebuilt it about 1222.

Ibn Batuta had found Smyrna still in great part a ruin when the homonymous chieftain of the Beylik of Aydın had conquered it about 1330 and made his son Umur governor.

It has become the port of the emirate.

Piracy in the Aegean threatens the commercial welfare of the Venetians; with their support, Pope Clement VI in 1344 succeeds in reorganizing the maritime league whose operations had been prevented by the war between France and England.

Genoa, the Hospitallers, and King Hugh IV of Cyprus contribute contingents and on October 28, 1344, the crusaders seize Smyrna, ending that city’s piratical raids in the eastern Mediterranean and confiding it to the care of the Hospitallers.

Establishing themselves in the town but failing to conquer the citadel, the Hospitallers will hold Smyrna until 1402.

Orhan now moves against his major Turkmen neighbors to the south.

Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Orhan annexes Karasi in 1345 and gains control of the area between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapidagi (Cyzicus), reaching the Sea of Marmara.

He thus puts himself in a position to end the lucrative monopoly enjoyed by the city of Aydin, that of providing mercenary troops to competing imperial factions in Thrace and at Constantinople.

The expansion also enables the Ottomans to replace Aydin as the principal ally of the emperor John VI Kantakouzenos, from whom Orhan secures the right to ravage Thrace.

The consequent entry of Ottoman troops into Europe gives them a direct opportunity to see the possibilities for conquest offered by imperial Greek decadence.