of a fair damsel of Eubœa, Agnes de Cicon, Lady of the classic island of
Ægina and of the great Eubœan castle of Karystos or Castel Rosso, still a
picturesque ruin. The duke gave him also thirteen castles on the mainland
and the famous island of Salamis—sufficient to bring him in a revenue of
50,000 _sols_.
Prosperous indeed must have been the state whose ruler could afford
such splendid generosity. Worthy too of such a sovereign was the castle
in which he dwelt—the work of the great Theban baron, Nicholas II de
St Omer, who had built it out of the vast wealth of his wife, Marie
of Antioch. The castle of St Omer, which was described as “the finest
baronial mansion in all Romania[83],” contained sufficient rooms for
an emperor and his court; and its walls were decorated with frescoes
illustrating the conquest of the Holy Land by the Franks, in which the
ancestors of its founder had borne a prominent part. Alas! one stumpy
tower, still bearing the name of Santameri, is all that now remains of
this noble residence of the Athenian dukes and the Theban barons.
French influence now spread from Thebes over the great plain of Thessaly
to the slopes of Olympos. The Duke of Neopatras died, leaving his nephew
of Athens guardian of his infant son and regent of his dominions,
threatened alike by the Greek Emperor, Andronikos II, and by the able and
ambitious Lady of Epeiros. At Lamia, the fortress which had been part of
his mother’s dowry, Guy received the homage of the Thessalian baronage,
and appointed as his viceroy Antoine le Flamenc, a Fleming who had become
lord of the Bœotian Karditza (where a Greek inscription on the church of
St George still commemorates him as its “most pious” founder), and who
is described as “the wisest man in all the duchy.” The Greek nobles of
Thessaly learnt the French language; coins with Latin inscriptions were
issued in the name of Guy’s young ward from the mint of Neopatras[84];
and the condition of Thessaly was accurately depicted in that curious
story the _Romance of Achilles_, in which the Greek hero marries a
French damsel and the introduction of French customs is allegorically
represented by cutting the child’s hair in Frankish fashion[85].