Principality of Theodoro

The Principality of Theodoro, also called Gothia, was a Greek state in the Crimean Mountains of southern Crimea, centred on the fortress city of Doros, now called Mangup. It emerged in the fourteenth century from the fragmenting Byzantine world of the Black Sea and was closely aligned with the Empire of Trebizond. Its rulers bore the title Lord of the city of Theodoro and the Maritime Region and governed a mixed population of Greeks, Crimean Goths, Alans and others. From the early fifteenth century the principality extended to the coast between Kalamita Bay and Alushta, where it competed with the Genoese colonies of Caffa and Cembalo. Prince Alexios I attacked Genoese territory in the 1420s and supported a revolt at Cembalo, while later princes balanced between Genoa, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottomans. In 1475 an Ottoman fleet under Gedik Ahmed Pasha took Caffa and then besieged Mangup. The city surrendered in December after a blockade, the prince was executed in Constantinople, and the last remnant of the Byzantine world passed to the Sublime Porte.