the two parties made peace, confirmed in a surviving treaty from 1314 and another from 1316. This did not put a complete end to the tensions between the Genoese and the Emperor of Trebizond. So, in 1319 he concluded a treaty with the Venetians, Genoa's main rivals, granting them the same privileges as the Genoese as long as they paid their dues. The Byzantinist Donald Nicol observed that Alexios, as well as his successors, "did better out of the foreigners than their colleagues in Constantinople, since the Italian merchants were not allowed to trade tax-free." Trouble for the Empire came also from the pirates of the Emirate of Sinope, whose targets were Christian traders, including the Genoese. The pirates even set fire to Trebizond itself (1319); to protect his people from these raiders, Alexios built sea walls for the city's harbour in 1324. He had already organized a police force to guard the city at night over a decade earlier. Like his father before him, Alexios II was also the target of the Pope's efforts to convert to Catholicism. The letter was sent by John XXII in 1329, but five months later; on May 3, 1330, the Emperor died of bubonic plague, after a reign of 33 years and the throne passed to his eldest son, Andronikos. Two works survive written on the topic of the Emperor's death: a funeral oration written by his protonotarios and protovestiarios, Constantine Loukites; and a later eulogy by Joseph, the Metropolitan of Trebizond (born John Lazaropoulos). Coinage It was during Alexios' reign that the aspers issued by the Emperors of Trebizond were notably modified in appearance and weight, perhaps the most notable change made to this coin which otherwise saw few changes between its first issue and the end of the Empire. Early in his reign not only was the silver content of the coins reduced by 15%, but the standing images of both the Emperor on the obverse and Saint Eugenios on the reverse were replaced with images of both on horseback. Jan Olof Rosenqvist provides evidence showing this horseback motif had become common on coins in the Black Sea area, beginning with the coinage of king Constantine Asen of Bulgaria a generation before. He admits that it is unclear whether "there is any connection with the ideals of chivalry prevailing in Western Europe at this time." The horseback motif appeared unchanged on