If you read Wikipedia, there was the Massacre of the "Latins" in Constantinople in 1182. That almost certainly made it easy to make it a revenge play for the Ve

If you read Wikipedia, there was the Massacre of the "Latins" in Constantinople in 1182. That almost certainly made it easy to make it a revenge play for the Venetians and associates. What I find most interesting is the Romans were unbeatable in battle, even the Byzantines. However, maintaining a large military presence was expensive and politically difficult to manage. So they used annual mercenaries from the north for the usual frontier squabbles, and the main army did the heavy lifting. It fell apart when there was a major conflict, and didn't help that the army held the city hostage demanding more money. So everyone was corrupt it would seem. Also there were the persistence of rumors of knights that may have kept most of the treasure for themselves and headed off to Cyprus. The Knights Templar were insanely wealthy given the times and cost of resources to mount expeditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins https://thetemplarknight.com/2021/12/13/cyprus-knights-templar/ https://thetemplarknight.com/2021/12/13/cyprus-knights-templ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins