As the title says i would like to know if you think that Konstantinos XI was a hero because of his defense of Costantinople in 1453 or a ruler as many other in the world....
Konstantinos Dragases( This nickname because of the surname of his mother, the Empress Helen Dragas) born in 1409 and was the son of Manuel II Paleologus, the byzantine emperor. When his father died in 1425 his major brother Jhon VIII Palelogus succeded to the throne; in the same time Jhon nominated Konstantinos as Despote of Morea and his brother went there in 1427; from that byzantine region Konstantinos with a very small army of Peloponnesian soldiers and albanian mercenaries had been able to unify the peloponnese and to conquer the duchy of Athen and Thebes, but in 1446 the former duch of Athen(an Accajuoli family member) asked military aid to Murad II, (Ottoman Sultan) to reconquer his lands; Konstantinos, when he heard about this military expedition by the turks, retreated into the peloponnese and built a wall on the Corinth strait, the Hexamilion; this wall should have protected the despotate from the ottoman army but when ottomans reached it the albanian mercenaries of Konstantinos run off and so the ottomans devastated the Morea.
In 1448 Jhon VIII died, but before his death he nominated his brother Konstantinos as his successor and so in 1449 Konstantinos was crowned byzantine emperor in Mistra(the Morea Capital).
When he went to Costantinople he sadly found an abandoned city with 50 000 inhabitants( in 1100 A.D. there were 900 000-1 000 000 inhabitants); he immediately tried to treat with the new ottoman ruler Mehmet II Fatih but this one beheaded the byzantine diplomats(1452 A.D.).
After few months Mehmet started the Construction of Rumeli Hisari, a fortress on teh european part of teh bosphorus, in front of the other fortress, Anadolu Hisari; Konstantinos understood that Mehmet wanted to capture his city so he started to repair the Teodosian walls and raised a city militia of less then 7 000 men and 300 genouese warriors raised by the genouese captain Giustiniani Longo, an expert of sieges.
During the month of April 1453 A.D. Mehmet Fatih reached the walls of COstantinople with an army of 130-140 000 soldiers and started to siege the city; the siged lasted a month and then, on 29th May 1453 the sultan ordered the final assault on the city. he firstly sent the Bashi-bazouk, irregolar infantry raised to tire the defenders, after this first assult he sent the Anatolian regiment, well trained soldiers who conquered half Anatolia; these soldiers were hard to defeat but the defenders had been able to kill a lot of them and thye thought to have win this battle but the sultan sent his last men the Janissaries, the best ottoman troops who wounded Giustianiani and destroied the byzantine line.
The Emperor knew that Costantinople would have fallen and so he decided to rush into the major breach and after have killed 20-30 janissaries, died.
No one ever found his body and his dead is till a mistery.
after this brief history(sorry for my bad english ) i would like to know if you think Konstantinos XI Dragases was a Hero or not.