To the Victor go the spoils of battle
Constantinople, early June 1453
With the Ottoman defeat of the Constantinople just five days old, the new ruler of the former Eastern Roman Empire, twenty-one year old Sultan Mehmed II orders the sons of noble Greek families to be brought before him so that he can chose the most beautiful as pleasure slaves for his male harem.
One noble, Greek youth, named Jacob, caught Mehmed's eye and he became one of the sultan's favourite slaves and was added to his seraglio.
This picture captures the shame and humiliation the young Greek feels as he awaits the arrival of the eunuchs who'll escort him to the sultan's bedchamber for the first of many such assignations over the next seven years before Jacob escapes and flees to Venice in 1460.
Jacob has been suitably prepared to serve his new master. The harem eunuchs worked assiduously to strip him of all body hair, leaving him smooth to the sultan's touch. Then, he'd been cleaned both externally and internally before his body was massaged with scented oils.
Jacob now waits in despair at the sultan's pleasure.
Picture sourced from the internet; the text is mine
Excellent
ReplyDeleteI always like very much when Jean-Christophe combines his outstanding creativity and imagination, as a writer, with his uncommon historical culture.
ReplyDeleteI need to say that this very beautiful and exciting post is inspired by a real historical episode …… which fact, at least for me, increases very much its erotic and sadistic appeal and excitement.
The Byzantine historian and nobleman Georgios Sphrantzes, who had been one of the highest courtiers of the three latest Emperors of Byzantium and who was an eyewitness and protagonist of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, in his historical work “THE CHRONICLES” narrates the sad episode of his own adolescent son Yoannis Sphrantzes.
As his father narrates, the teenage youth was not only captured and enslaved but even worse …… because of his “exceptional beauty”, mourns his broken-hearted father …… he was chosen to be a page-slave of the young Sultan Mehmed II and destined (together with other cute Greek boys and beautiful Greek girls) to become a “male concubine” of Mehmed in his male-harem (the so called “Third Harem” as Turks called it).
And –as again Georgios Sphrantzes narrates with the greatest dstress- he was even one of the first Greek slave-lads who were raped by the young Sultan in the days after the conquest of the City and he later became one of the “favorite male-concubines” of his Royal Turkish Master.
So the young Jacob, the protagonist of this beautiful post, has really existed and his name was Yoannis Sphrantzes.
Here Chris was kind with his character and imagined that Jacob – after seven years of slavery and of humiliating and shameful “service” as a male-concubine in the Sultan’s Harem-is able to escape and flee to Venice.
Unfortunately in the historical reality, Yoannis Sphrantzes was never able to escape from the male-harem of Mehmed and he died still quite young as a slave and as a “despicable” male-concubine.
Karel
Here is a great depiction from Master Karelius and Chris of a young enslaved man. THe picture is great and i am very partial to low hanger from behind. It seems the slave is ripe for collaring and branding...
ReplyDeleteenak@gmx.fr