In the context of increasing Venetian and Genoese power in the eastern Mediterranean, association with Hellenism took deeper root among the Byzantine elite, on account of a desire to distinguish themselves from the Latin West and to lay legitimate claims to Greek-speaking lands. From the 12th century onwards, Byzantine Roman writers started to disassociate themselves from the Empire's pre-Constantinian Latin past, regarding henceforth the transfer of the Roman capital to Constantinople by Constantine as their founding moment and reappraised the normative value of the pagan Hellenes, even though the latter were still viewed as a group distinct from the Byzantines. The first time the term "Hellene" was used to mean "Byzantine" in official correspondence was in a letter to Emperor Manuel I Komnenus (1118–1180). Beginning in the twelfth century and especially after 1204, certain Byzantine Greek intellectuals began to use the ancient Greek ethnonym "Héllēn" (Greek: ) in order to describe Byzantine civilisation. After the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204, a small circle of the elite of the Empire of Nicaea used the term "Hellene" as a term of self-identification. For example, in a letter to Pope Gregory IX, the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (r. 1221–1254) claimed to have received the gift of royalty from Constantine the Great, and put emphasis on his "Hellenic" descent, exalting the wisdom of the Greek people. He was presenting Hellenic culture as an integral part of the Byzantine polity in defiance of Latin claims. Emperor Theodore II Laskaris (r. 1254–1258), the only one during this period to systematically employ the term "Hellene" as a term of self-identification, tried to revive Hellenic tradition by fostering the study of philosophy, for in his opinion there was a danger that philosophy "might abandon the Greeks and seek refuge among the Latins". For historians of the court of Nikaia, however, such as George Akropolites and George Pachymeres, "Rhomaios" remained the only significant term of self-identification, despite traces of influence of the policy of the Emperors of Nikaia in their writings.