Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second.—Siege, Assault,
And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks.—Death
Of Constantine Palæologus.—Servitude Of The Greeks.—
Extinction Of The Roman Empire In The East.—Consternation
Of Europe.—Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.
The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first attention to the person and character of the great destroyer. Mahomet the Second 1 was the son of the second Amurath; and though his mother has been decorated with the titles of Christian and princess, she is more probably confounded with the numerous concubines who peopled from every climate the harem of the sultan. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his aspiring genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own; and in his looser hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robber and impostor. Yet the sultan persevered in a decent reverence for the doctrine and discipline of the Koran: 2 his private indiscretion must have been sacred from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the credulity of strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind which is hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the paths of knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed that he spoke or understood five languages, 3 the Arabic, the Persian, the Chaldæan or Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The Persian might indeed contribute to his amusement, and the Arabic to his edification; and such studies are familiar to the Oriental youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and Turks, a conqueror might wish to converse with the people over which he was ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry 4 or prose 5 might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit could recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth dialect of his Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the world were familiar to his memory: the lives of the heroes of the East, perhaps of the West, 6 excited his emulation: his skill in astrology is excused by the folly of the times, and supposes some rudiments of mathematical science; and a profane taste for the arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and reward of the painters of Italy. 7 But the influence of religion and learning were employed without effect on his savage and licentious nature. I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a stolen melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed from her body, to convince the Janizaries that their master was not the votary of love. 701 His sobriety is attested by the silence of the Turkish annals, which accuse three, and three only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of drunkenness. 8 But it cannot be denied that his passions were at once furious and inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent of blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the noblest of the captive youth were often dishonored by his unnatural lust. In the Albanian war he studied the lessons, and soon surpassed the example, of his father; and the conquest of two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred cities, a vain and flattering account, is ascribed to his invincible sword. He was doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general; Constantinople has sealed his glory; but if we compare the means, the obstacles, and the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to sustain a parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the Ottoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet their progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and his arms were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian knights and by the Persian king.
1 (return)
[ For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to trust
either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate picture appears to
be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose resentment had cooled in
age and solitude; see likewise Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and
the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 552,) the Elogia of Paulus
Jovius, (l. iii. p. 164—166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii.
p. 273—279.)]
2 (return)
[ Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he founded,
attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely disputed with the
Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 22.)]
3 (return)
[ Quinque linguas præter suam noverat, Græcam, Latinam,
Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza has dropped the
Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every Mussulman. *
Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95, edit. Bonn.—M.]
4 (return)
[ Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
the liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror of
Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by the envoys
of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected of a design of
retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often sounded the trumpet of
holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in the Mémoires de l'Académie
des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724, &c.)]
5 (return)
[ Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his xii.
books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By
his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it had been addressed
with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]
6 (return)
[ According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the lives and
actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and Theodosius. I have read
somewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were translated by his orders into the
Turkish language. If the sultan himself understood Greek, it must have
been for the benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of
freedom as well as of valor. *
Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of Mahomet's knowledge
of languages. Knolles adds, that he delighted in reading the history of
Alexander the Great, and of Julius Cæsar. The former, no doubt, was the
Persian legend, which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and was
popular throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander." The
founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von Hammer, is
altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great patron of Turkish
literature: the romantic poems of Persia were translated, or imitated,
under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii. p. 268.—M.]
7 (return)
[ The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a purse
of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story of a
slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the action of the
muscles.]
701 (return)
[ This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is rejected by
M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German historian's general
estimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its more marked features with
Gibbon's.—M.]
8 (return)
[ These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II., and
Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can produce a more
regular succession; and in the last age, our European travellers were
the witnesses and companions of their revels.]
In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and twice descended from the throne: his tender age was incapable of opposing his father's restoration, but never could he forgive the viziers who had recommended that salutary measure. His nuptials were celebrated with the daughter of a Turkman emir; and, after a festival of two months, he departed from Adrianople with his bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia. Before the end of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from the divan, which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous spirit of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience: he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance of a mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and cadhis, the soldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the new sultan. They affected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at the age of twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by the death, the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. 9 901 The ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the language of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor was revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealed the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of the Strymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred thousand aspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was detained at his request in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might tremble at the severity with which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp of his father's household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those of ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was either dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. 902 In the first summer of his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces; but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of the Caramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest obstacle from the execution of his great design. 10
9 (return)
[ Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of Callistus
Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him with an estate
in Austria, where he ended his life; and Cuspinian, who in his youth
conversed with the aged prince at Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom,
(de Cæsaribus, p. 672, 673.)]
901 (return)
[ Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object of his
especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501.—M.]
902 (return)
[ The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift on the
accession of a new sovereign, p. 504.—M.]
10 (return)
[ See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 199,)
and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]
The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists, have pronounced that no promise can bind the faithful against the interest and duty of their religion; and that the sultan may abrogate his own treaties and those of his predecessors. The justice and magnanimity of Amurath had scorned this immoral privilege; but his son, though the proudest of men, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he incessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks, by their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal rupture. 11 Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their ambassadors pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the increase, of their annual stipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and the vizier, a secret friend of the Christians, was constrained to deliver the sense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said Calil, "we know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger! The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young conqueror, whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if you escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which yet delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to affright us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive Orchan, crown him sultan of Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against us the nations of the West; and be assured, that you will only provoke and precipitate your ruin." But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed by the stern language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress the grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No sooner had he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate to suppress their pension, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: in this measure he betrayed a hostile mind; and the second order announced, and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow pass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side, he resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons were commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton, about five miles from the Greek metropolis. 12 Persuasion is the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the emperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution of his design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but that this double fortification, which would command the strait, could only tend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistence of the city. "I form the enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan, "against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls. Have you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when you formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath was compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strength was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the Gabours 13 insulted our disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the present Ottoman is far different from his predecessors; that his resolutions surpass their wishes; and that he performs more than they could resolve. Return in safety—but the next who delivers a similar message may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, 14 had determined to unsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous, and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and the destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the neighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.
11 (return)
[ Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I shall
observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius, I have
not been able to obtain any Turkish account of this conquest; such an
account as we possess of the siege of Rhodes by Soliman II., (Mémoires
de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 723—769.) I must
therefore depend on the Greeks, whose prejudices, in some degree, are
subdued by their distress. Our standard texts ar those of Ducas,
(c. 34—42,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 7—20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p.
201—214,) and Leonardus Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatæ.
Norimberghæ, 1544, in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these narratives is
the earliest in date, since it was composed in the Isle of Chios, the
16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days after the loss of the city,
and in the first confusion of ideas and passions. Some hints may
be added from an epistle of Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum
Turcicarum, ad calcem Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope
Nicholas V., and a tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed in
the year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Græcia, l. i. p. 74—98, Basil,
1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though critically,
reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1—27.) The hearsay relations of
Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall take leave to disregard. *
Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the siege of
Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne an honorable
testimony to the truth, and by his close imitation to the graphic spirit
and boldness, of Gibbon.—M.]
12 (return)
[ The situation of the fortress, and the topography of the
Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l.
ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,) and Tournefort, (Voyage dans
le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 443, 444;) but I must regret the map
or plan which Tournefort sent to the French minister of the marine. The
reader may turn back to chap. xvii. of this History.]
13 (return)
[ The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
infidels, is expressed Kabour by Ducas, and Giaour by Leunclavius and
the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Græc tom.
i. p. 530) from Kabouron, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a
retrograde motion from the faith. But alas! Gabour is no more
than Gheber, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkish
language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]
14 (return)
[ Phranza does justice to his master's sense and courage.
Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma movere
constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profani
proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vanâ pasci. Ducas was not a
privy-counsellor.]
Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On the twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. 15 The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress 16 was built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore: a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardor: his three viziers claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers; the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest labor was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progress of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had been consecrated to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed without scruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was fixed; but their first order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the camp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by the natives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass the night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment was commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled; but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened to the visits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the gates were shut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace, released on the third day his Turkish captives; 17 and expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people." The sultan's answer was hostile and decisive: his fortifications were completed; and before his departure for Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and four hundred Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation that should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel, refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk with a single bullet. 171 The master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat; but they were dragged in chains to the Porte: the chief was impaled; his companions were beheaded; and the historian Ducas 18 beheld, at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred till the ensuing spring; but an Ottoman army marched into the Morea to divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this æra of calamity, one of these princes, the despot Thomas, was blessed or afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last heir," says the plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Roman empire." 19
15 (return)
[ Instead of this clear and consistent account, the Turkish
Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, and
Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless we
are swayed by an anti-Christian prejudice) are far less valuable than
the Greek historians.]
16 (return)
[ In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles, whose
description has been verified on the spot by his editor Leunclavius.]
17 (return)
[ Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so conscious of
his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their heads in the city
unless they could return before sunset.]
171 (return)
[ This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the Hungarian.
See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510.—M.]
18 (return)
[ Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had sailed in
his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a martyr.]
19 (return)
[ Auctum est Palæologorum genus, et Imperii successor,
parvæque Romanorum scintillæ hæres natus, Andreas, &c., (Phranza, l.
iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired by his feelings.]
The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless winter: the former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their hopes; both by the preparations of defence and attack; and the two emperors, who had the most to lose or to gain, were the most deeply affected by the national sentiment. In Mahomet, that sentiment was inflamed by the ardor of his youth and temper: he amused his leisure with building at Adrianople 20 the lofty palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the world;) but his serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest of the city of Cæsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had possessed the confidence, and advised the restoration, of Amurath. On the accession of the son, the vizier was confirmed in his office and the appearances of favor; but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge him in the abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name of Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; 21 and his avarice entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was detected and punished after the conclusion of the war. On receiving the royal mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last time, his wife and children; filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his duty and gratitude. 22 "It is not my wish," said Mahomet, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them on thy head. In my turn, I ask a present far more valuable and important;—Constantinople." As soon as the vizier had recovered from his surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant, and the capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives and fortunes."—"Lala," 23 (or preceptor,) continued the sultan, "do you see this pillow? All the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and the other; I have risen from my bed, again have I lain down; yet sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of the Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God, and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of Constantinople." To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he often wandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it was fatal to discover the sultan, when he wished to escape from the vulgar eye. His hours were spent in delineating the plan of the hostile city; in debating with his generals and engineers, on what spot he should erect his batteries; on which side he should assault the walls; where he should spring his mines; to what place he should apply his scaling-ladders: and the exercises of the day repeated and proved the lucubrations of the night.
20 (return)
[ Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful of his
conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of Constantinople. A city
or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by the Imperial fortune of their
sovereign.]
21 (return)
[ SuntrojoV, by the president Cousin, is translated père
nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in his
haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael Boillaud (ad Ducam, c.
35) acknowledges and rectifies his own error.]
22 (return)
[ The Oriental custom of never appearing without gifts
before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and seems
analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient and universal.
See the examples of such Persian gifts, Ælian, Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31,
32, 33.]
23 (return)
[ The Lala of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the Tata
of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural language of
children; and it may be observed, that all such primitive words which
denote their parents, are the simple repetition of one syllable,
composed of a labial or a dental consonant and an open vowel, (Des
Brosses, Méchanisme des Langues, tom. i. p. 231—247.)]
Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A founder of cannon, a Dane 231 or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannon capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of superior power: the position and management of that engine must be left to your engineers." On this assurance, a foundry was established at Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous, and almost incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighed above six hundred pounds. 24 241 A vacant place before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but to prevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred furlongs: the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a mile; and on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive engine, a frame or carriage of thirty wagons was linked together and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen: two hundred men on both sides were stationed, to poise and support the rolling weight; two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth the way and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively philosopher 25 derides on this occasion the credulity of the Greeks, and observes, with much reason, that we should always distrust the exaggerations of a vanquished people. He calculates, that a ball, even o two hundred pounds, would require a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder; and that the stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not a fifteenth part of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment. A stranger as I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the modern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even the consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it seem improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and ambitious efforts, should have transgressed the standard of moderation. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles; and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of eleven hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundred and thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the opposite hill. 26
231 (return)
[ Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or Dacian. Lax
ti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510.—M.]
24 (return)
[ The Attic talent weighed about sixty minæ, or avoirdupois
pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c.;) but among the
modern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of one
hundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.)
Leonardus Chiensis measured the ball or stone of the second cannon
Lapidem, qui palmis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro.]
241 (return)
[ 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer states
that he had himself seen the great cannon of the Dardanelles, in which
a tailor who had run away from his creditors, had concealed himself
several days Von Hammer had measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p.
666.—M.]
25 (return)
[ See Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, c. xci. p. 294, 295.) He
was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet frequently aspires to
the name and style of an astronomer, a chemist, &c.]
26 (return)
[ The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85—89,) who fortified
the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a lively, and even
comic, strain his own prowess, and the consternation of the Turks.
But that adventurous traveller does not possess the art of gaining our
confidence.]
While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek emperor implored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and heaven. But the invisible powers were deaf to his supplications; and Christendom beheld with indifference the fall of Constantinople, while she derived at least some promise of supply from the jealous and temporal policy of the sultan of Egypt. Some states were too weak, and others too remote; by some the danger was considered as imaginary by others as inevitable: the Western princes were involved in their endless and domestic quarrels; and the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or obstinacy of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the arms and treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their approaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment of his prophecy. 261 Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity o their distress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were faint and unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the squadrons of Genoa and Venice could sail from their harbors. 27 Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek islands affected a cold neutrality: the Genoese colony of Galata negotiated a private treaty; and the sultan indulged them in the delusive hope, that by his clemency they might survive the ruin of the empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles basely withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the rich denied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret treasures which might have raised in their defence whole armies of mercenaries. 28 The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon, surrendered on the first summons; Selybria alone deserved the honors of a siege or blockade; and the bold inhabitants, while they were invested by land, launched their boats, pillaged the opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives in the public market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all was silent and prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; and from thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates of St. Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of April formed the memorable siege of Constantinople.
261 (return)
[ See the curious Christian and Mahometan predictions of the
fall of Constantinople, Von Hammer, p. 518.—M.]
27 (return)
[ Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest Antoninus;
but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and ashamed, we find the
more courtly expression of Platina, in animo fuisse pontifici juvare
Græcos, and the positive assertion of Æneas Sylvius, structam classem
&c. (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 3.)]
28 (return)
[ Antonin. in Proem.—Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud
Spondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily seized
this characteristic circumstance:—
The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns.
The accumulated wealth of hoarding ages;
That wealth which, granted to their weeping prince,
Had ranged embattled nations at their gates.
]
The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left from the Propontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front were stationed before the sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was covered by a deep intrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed the suburb of Galata, and watched the doubtful faith of the Genoese. The inquisitive Philelphus, who resided in Greece about thirty years before the siege, is confident, that all the Turkish forces of any name or value could not exceed the number of sixty thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids the pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful of Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of the Capiculi, 29 the troops of the Porte who marched with the prince, and were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws, in their respective governments, maintained or levied a provincial militia; many lands were held by a military tenure; many volunteers were attracted by the hope of spoil and the sound of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry and fearless fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the terrors, and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians. The whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified by Ducas, Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or four hundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more accurate judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and fifty-eight thousand does not exceed the measure of experience and probability. 30 The navy of the besiegers was less formidable: the Propontis was overspread with three hundred and twenty sail; but of these no more than eighteen could be rated as galleys of war; and the far greater part must be degraded to the condition of store-ships and transports, which poured into the camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her last decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the accounts, not of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted of mechanics, of priests, of women, and of men devoid of that spirit which even women have sometimes exerted for the common safety. I can suppose, I could almost excuse, the reluctance of subjects to serve on a distant frontier, at the will of a tyrant; but the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature. By the emperor's command, a particular inquiry had been made through the streets and houses, how many of the citizens, or even of the monks, were able and willing to bear arms for their country. The lists were intrusted to Phranza; 31 and, after a diligent addition, he informed his master, with grief and surprise, that the national defence was reduced to four thousand nine hundred and seventy Romans. Between Constantine and his faithful minister this comfortless secret was preserved; and a sufficient proportion of shields, cross-bows, and muskets, were distributed from the arsenal to the city bands. They derived some accession from a body of two thousand strangers, under the command of John Justiniani, a noble Genoese; a liberal donative was advanced to these auxiliaries; and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, was promised to the valor and victory of their chief. A strong chain was drawn across the mouth of the harbor: it was supported by some Greek and Italian vessels of war and merchandise; and the ships of every Christian nation, that successively arrived from Candia and the Black Sea, were detained for the public service. Against the powers of the Ottoman empire, a city of the extent of thirteen, perhaps of sixteen, miles was defended by a scanty garrison of seven or eight thousand soldiers. Europe and Asia were open to the besiegers; but the strength and provisions of the Greeks must sustain a daily decrease; nor could they indulge the expectation of any foreign succor or supply.
29 (return)
[ The palatine troops are styled Capiculi, the
provincials, Seratculi; and most of the names and institutions of the
Turkish militia existed before the Canon Nameh of Soliman II, from
which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed his military
state of the Ottoman empire.]
30 (return)
[ The observation of Philelphus is approved by Cuspinian in
the year 1508, (de Cæsaribus, in Epilog. de Militiâ Turcicâ, p. 697.)
Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of the Turks are much less
numerous than they appear. In the army that besieged Constantinople
Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more than 15,000 Janizaries.]
31 (return)
[ Ego, eidem (Imp.) tabellas extribui non absque dolore et
mstitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus numerus, (Phranza, l.
iii. c. 8.) With some indulgence for national prejudices, we cannot
desire a more authentic witness, not only of public facts, but of
private counsels.]
The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the resolution of death or conquest. The primitive Christians might have embraced each other, and awaited in patience and charity the stroke of martyrdom. But the Greeks of Constantinople were animated only by the spirit of religion, and that spirit was productive only of animosity and discord. Before his death, the emperor John Palæologus had renounced the unpopular measure of a union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived, till the distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial of flattery and dissimulation. 32 With the demand of temporal aid, his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of spiritual obedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the urgent cares of the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the presence of a Roman legate. The Vatican had been too often deluded; yet the signs of repentance could not decently be overlooked; a legate was more easily granted than an army; and about six months before the final destruction, the cardinal Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinue of priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and father; respectfully listened to his public and private sermons; and with the most obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed the act of union, as it had been ratified in the council of Florence. On the twelfth of December, the two nations, in the church of St. Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice and prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs were solemnly commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar of Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into exile by a rebellious people.
32 (return)
[ In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not only
partial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642, and the
history of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36, 37) with such
truth and spirit, was not printed till the year 1649.]
But the dress and language of the Latin priest who officiated at the altar were an object of scandal; and it was observed with horror, that he consecrated a cake or wafer of unleavened bread, and poured cold water into the cup of the sacrament. A national historian acknowledges with a blush, that none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, were sincere in this occasional conformity. 33 Their hasty and unconditional submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the best, or the worst, of their excuses was the confession of their own perjury. When they were pressed by the reproaches of their honest brethren, "Have patience," they whispered, "have patience till God shall have delivered the city from the great dragon who seeks to devour us. You shall then perceive whether we are truly reconciled with the Azymites." But patience is not the attribute of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be adapted to the freedom and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome of St. Sophia the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed in crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, 34 to consult the oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as it should seem, in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had exposed on the door of his cell a speaking tablet; and they successively withdrew, after reading those tremendous words: "O miserable Romans, why will ye abandon the truth? and why, instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trust in the Italians? In losing your faith you will lose your city. Have mercy on me, O Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am innocent of the crime. O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and repent. At the same moment that you renounce the religion of your fathers, by embracing impiety, you submit to a foreign servitude." According to the advice of Gennadius, the religious virgins, as pure as angels, and as proud as dæmons, rejected the act of union, and abjured all communion with the present and future associates of the Latins; and their example was applauded and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people. From the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the taverns; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied their glasses in honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought her to defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly saved from Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication of zeal and wine, they valiantly exclaimed, "What occasion have we for succor, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship of the Azymites!" During the winter that preceded the Turkish conquest, the nation was distracted by this epidemical frenzy; and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of breathing charity and love, served only to fortify the obstinacy and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized and alarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance was imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest who had given an express or tacit consent to the union. His service at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and simple spectators of the ceremony: they forfeited, by the impure spectacle, the virtue of the sacerdotal character; nor was it lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the church of St. Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than it was deserted as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergy and people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer and thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke, was heard to declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople the turban of Mahomet, than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat. 35 A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was familiar and fatal to the Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the affection and support of his subjects; and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree, or the visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.
33 (return)
[ Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges that
the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he affirms with
pleasure, that those who refused to perform their devotions in St.
Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent, (l. iii. c. 20.)]
34 (return)
[ His primitive and secular name was George Scholarius,
which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when he became a monk or
a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the same union, which he so
furiously attacked at Constantinople, has tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib.
de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 760—786) to divide
him into two men; but Renaudot (p. 343—383) has restored the identity
of his person and the duplicity of his character.]
35 (return)
[ Fakiolion, kaluptra, may be fairly translated a cardinal's
hat. The difference of the Greek and Latin habits imbittered the
schism.]
Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis by nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected by a double wall, and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, 36 the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days of the siege the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered, that, in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks: and, after these bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band of volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire, of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the same time either five, or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion. 37 The same destructive secret had been revealed to the Moslems; by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great cannon of Mahomet has been separately noticed; an important and visible object in the history of the times: but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: 38 the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times in one day. 39 The heated metal unfortunately burst; several workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist 391 was admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident, by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the cannon.
36 (return)
[ We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the smallest
measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of 547 French
toises, and of 104 2/5 to a degree. The six miles of Phranza do not
exceed four English miles, (D'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 61, 123,
&c.)]
37 (return)
[ At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra hostes
machinamenta, quæ tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat nitri modica exigua;
tela modica; bombardæ, si aderant incommoditate loci primum hostes
offendere, maceriebus alveisque tectos, non poterant. Nam si quæ magnæ
erant, ne murus concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage of
Leonardus Chiensis is curious and important.]
38 (return)
[ According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great cannon
burst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was prevented by the
artist's skill. It is evident that they do not speak of the same gun. *
Note: They speak, one of a Byzantine, one of a Turkish, gun. Von
Hammer note, p. 669.]
39 (return)
[ Near a hundred years after the siege of Constantinople,
the French and English fleets in the Channel were proud of firing 300
shot in an engagement of two hours, (Mémoires de Martin du Bellay, l.
x., in the Collection Générale, tom. xxi. p. 239.)]
391 (return)
[ The founder of the gun. Von Hammer, p. 526.]
The first random shots were productive of more sound than effect; and it was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were taught to level their aim against the two opposite sides of the salient angles of a bastion. However imperfect, the weight and repetition of the fire made some impression on the walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches to the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road to the assault. 40 Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the impetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were pushed headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under the accumulated mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the besiegers; to clear away the rubbish was the safety of the besieged; and after a long and bloody conflict, the web that had been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but the soil was rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and undermined by the Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and blowing whole towers and cities into the air. 41 A circumstance that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts; the bullet and the battering-ram 411 were directed against the same walls: nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the largest size was advanced on rollers this portable magazine of ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold covering of bulls' hides: incessant volleys were securely discharged from the loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They ascended by a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as the level of that platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by pulleys to form a bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart. By these various arts of annoyance, some as new as they were pernicious to the Greeks, the tower of St. Romanus was at length overturned: after a severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but they trusted that with the return of light they should renew the attack with fresh vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this interval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of the emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and urged the labors which involved the safety of the church and city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived, with astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced to ashes: the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have compelled him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have been accomplished by the infidels.
40 (return)
[ I have selected some curious facts, without striving to
emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the abbé de Vertot, in
his prolix descriptions of the sieges of Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that
agreeable historian had a turn for romance; and as he wrote to please
the order he had adopted the same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.]
41 (return)
[ The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in 1480
in a MS. of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 324.)
They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the honor and
improvement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre, who used them with
success in the wars of Italy, (Hist. de la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p.
93—97.)]
411 (return)
[ The battering-ram according to Von Hammer, (p. 670,) was
not used.—M.]
The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy; but in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensable supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five 42 great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor of Chios, had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. 43 One of these ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, and vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and mariners for the service of the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze, and, on the second day, a strong gale from the south, carried them through the Hellespont and the Propontis: but the city was already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the event of this momentous succor. At the first view that event could not appear doubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure or account: and, in a calm, their numbers and valor must inevitably have prevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the height of their prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; 44 and a series of defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of their modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some force, the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely constructed and awkwardly managed, crowded with troops, and destitute of cannon; and since courage arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength, the bravest of the Janizaries might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron, five stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their artillery swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of boarding, presumed to approach them; and the winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. In this conflict, the Imperial vessel, which had been almost overpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and closer attack, were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his voice and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even the gestures of his body, 45 seemed to imitate the actions of the combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His loud reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a third attack, more fatal and bloody than the two former; and I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza, who affirms, from their own mouth, that they lost above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power must have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, found some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing that accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi Ogli was a renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes: his military character was tainted with the unpopular vice of avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or people, misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. 451 His rank and services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royal presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod: 46 his death had been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who was satisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and exile. The introduction of this supply revived the hopes of the Greeks, and accused the supineness of their Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried themselves in a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of the Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to her friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the sole and feeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople: the more distant powers were insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or at least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the fears, and to direct the operations, of the sultan. 47
42 (return)
[ It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in the
number of these illustrious vessels; the five of Ducas, the fourof
Phranza and Leonardus, and the two of Chalcondyles, must be extended
to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size. Voltaire, in giving one
of these ships to Frederic III., confounds the emperors of the East and
West.]
43 (return)
[ In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of
language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in Chios with
a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a north, wind.]
44 (return)
[ The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish navy
may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 372—378,)
Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229—242, and Tott), (Mémoires, tom. iii;)
the last of whom is always solicitous to amuse and amaze his reader.]
45 (return)
[ I must confess that I have before my eyes the living
picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the passions and
gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in the great harbor of
Syracuse.]
451 (return)
[ According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his eye with
a stone Compare Von Hammer.—M.]
46 (return)
[ According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of Ducas,
(c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible weight of 500
libræ, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500 drachms, or five pounds,
is sufficient to exercise the arm of Mahomet, and bruise the back of his
admiral.]
47 (return)
[ Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the affairs
of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal belief that
Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish conquests. See Phranza
(l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.]
It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so obstinate and surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of Mahomet. He began to meditate a retreat; and the siege would have been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the second vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Calil Bashaw, who still maintained a secret correspondence with the Byzantine court. The reduction of the city appeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the harbor as well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more than twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops; and, instead of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a naval sally, and a second encounter in the open sea. In this perplexity, the genius of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvellous cast, of transporting by land his lighter vessels and military stores from the Bosphorus into the higher part of the harbor. The distance is about ten 471 miles; the ground is uneven, and was overspread with thickets; and, as the road must be opened behind the suburb of Galata, their free passage or total destruction must depend on the option of the Genoese. But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor of being the last devoured; and the deficiency of art was supplied by the strength of obedient myriads. A level way was covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks; and to render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawn forwards by the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were stationed at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sails were unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song and acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbor, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance of this operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence which it inspired: but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before the eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. 48 A similar stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; 49 the Ottoman galleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and the distance, the obstacles and the means, the boasted miracle 50 has perhaps been equalled by the industry of our own times. 51 As soon as Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor with a fleet and army, he constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather mole, of fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length: it was formed of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked with iron, and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery he planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys, with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors. The indolence of the Christians has been accused for not destroying these unfinished works; 511 but their fire, by a superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor were they wanting in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor could the emperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel retaliation, of exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred and sixty Mussulman captives. After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack: the fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon: many breaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers had been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of their respective service; and Justiniani and the great duke, whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused each other of treachery and cowardice.
471 (return)
[ Six miles. Von Hammer.—M.]?
48 (return)
[ The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is confirmed by
Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I could wish to contract
the distance of ten * miles, and to prolong the term of one night.
Note: Six miles. Von Hammer.—M.]
49 (return)
[ Phranza relates two examples of a similar transportation
over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the one fabulous, of
Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other true, of Nicetas, a
Greek general in the xth century. To these he might have added a bold
enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce his vessels into the harbor of
Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p. 749, edit. Gronov. *
Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such transportations, p. 533.
Dion Cassius distinctly relates the occurrence treated as fabulous by
Gibbon.—M.]
50 (return)
[ A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in a
similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly be the
adviser and agent of Mahomet.]
51 (return)
[ I particularly allude to our own embarkations on the
lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the labor, so
fruitless in the event.]
511 (return)
[ They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by the
Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536.—M.]
During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and capitulation had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies had passed between the camp and the city. 52 The Greek emperor was humbled by adversity; and would have yielded to any terms compatible with religion and royalty. The Turkish sultan was desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still more desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures: and he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the Gabours the choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of the East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the people a free toleration, or a safe departure: but after some fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either a throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople. A sense of honor, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palæologus to resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed by the sultan in the preparations of the assault; and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology, which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatal hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his final orders; assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and dispersed his heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty, and the motives, of the perilous enterprise. Fear is the first principle of a despotic government; and his menaces were expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives and deserters, had they the wings of a bird, 53 should not escape from his inexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws and Janizaries were the offspring of Christian parents: but the glories of the Turkish name were perpetuated by successive adoption; and in the gradual change of individuals, the spirit of a legion, a regiment, or an oda, is kept alive by imitation and discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslems were exhorted to purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with seven ablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing day. A crowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was promised to the victorious troops: "The city and the buildings," said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valor the captives and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich and be happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my gratitude shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his own hopes." Such various and potent motives diffused among the Turks a general ardor, regardless of life and impatient for action: the camp reechoed with the Moslem shouts of "God is God: there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;" 54 and the sea and land, from Galata to the seven towers, were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. 541
52 (return)
[ Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and
circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious nor
salutary, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the thought of a
surrender.]
53 (return)
[ These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no more
than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene, Mahomet's passion
soars above sense and reason:—
Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings.
Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds,
And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot—
Then should my fury drag him down to tortures.
Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the operation of the winds must be confined to the lower region of the air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads are purely Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, S. 686. Eudocia in Ioniâ, p. 399. Apollodor. l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not. 682,) and had no affinity with the astronomy of the East, (Hyde ad Ulugbeg, Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert. tom. i. p. 40, 42. Goguet, Origine des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73—78. Gebelin, Hist. du Calendrier, p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The golden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I much fear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiads with the great bear or wagon, the zodiac with a northern constellation:—
''Ark-on q' hn kai amaxan epiklhsin kaleouein. Il. S. 487.]
54 (return)
[ Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations, not for
the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious zeal of Voltaire
is excessive, and even ridiculous.]
541 (return)
[ The picture is heightened by the addition of the wailing
cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior of the city. Von
Hammer p. 539.—M.]
Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud and impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in solemn procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their entreaties: they accused the obstinacy of the emperor for refusing a timely surrender; anticipated the horrors of their fate; and sighed for the repose and security of Turkish servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the general assault. The last speech of Palæologus was the funeral oration of the Roman empire: 55 he promised, he conjured, and he vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured; 56 and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars. 561
55 (return)
[ I am afraid that this discourse was composed by Phranza
himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the convent, that I
almost doubt whether it was pronounced by Constantine. Leonardus assigns
him another speech, in which he addresses himself more respectfully to
the Latin auxiliaries.]
56 (return)
[ This abasement, which devotion has sometimes extorted
from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel doctrine of the
forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to forgive 490 times, than once
to ask pardon of an inferior.]
561 (return)
[ Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall of
Constantinople, translated by M. Boré, in the Journal Asiatique for
March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition of Le Beau, (tom.
xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem: "I, Abraham, loaded with
sins, have composed this elegy with the most lively sorrow; for I have
seen Constantinople in the days of its glory."—M.]
In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed; out in this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorable twenty-ninth of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian æra. The preceding night had been strenuously employed: the troops, the cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows and their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might suppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of attack. 57 The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led to the charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but, after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and improved their advantage; and the voice of the emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten thousand of his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish; and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of three centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which there could be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.
57 (return)
[ Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the
marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks, both horse
and foot.]
The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed Palæologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is necessary; and whither will you retire?"—"I will retire," said the trembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;" and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of a military life; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. 58 His example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places must be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his cimeter in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the giant was precipitated from the rampart: he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible: the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, 59 who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of Palæologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" 60 and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. 61 The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on the side of the harbor. 62 In the first heat of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. 63
58 (return)
[ In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani, Phranza
expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For some private
reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect by Ducas; but the
words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong and recent indignation,
gloriæ salutis suique oblitus. In the whole series of their Eastern
policy, his countrymen, the Genoese, were always suspected, and often
guilty. * Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian account
of the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's wound in the
left foot is represented as more serious. With charitable ambiguity the
chronicler adds that his soldiers carried him away with them in their
vessel.—M.]
59 (return)
[ Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;
Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in the
gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy, escapes from
the precise image of his death; but we may, without flattery, apply
these noble lines of Dryden:—
As to Sebastian, let them search the field;
And where they find a mountain of the slain,
Send one to climb, and looking down beneath,
There they will find him at his manly length,
With his face up to heaven, in that red monument
Which his good sword had digged.]
60 (return)
[ Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of his
salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of suicide.]
61 (return)
[ Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the Turks,
had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and secure a
captive so acceptable to the sultan.]
62 (return)
[ Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth of the
harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.]
63 (return)
[ Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that Constantinople
was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the ancient calamities of
Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth century are happy to melt down the
uncouth appellation of Turks into the more classical name of Teucri.]
The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such was the extent of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters might prolong, some moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin. 64 But in the general consternation, in the feelings of selfish or social anxiety, in the tumult and thunder of the assault, a sleepless night and morning 641 must have elapsed; nor can I believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janizaries from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the assurance of the public calamity, the houses and convents were instantly deserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets, like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of the capital, they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the space of an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries, were filled with the multitudes of fathers and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and religious virgins: the doors were barred on the inside, and they sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their confidence was founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor; that one day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St. Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that an angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and would deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor man seated at the foot of the column. "Take this sword," would he say, "and avenge the people of the Lord." At these animating words, the Turks would instantly fly, and the victorious Romans would drive them from the West, and from all Anatolia as far as the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion that Ducas, with some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord and obstinacy of the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared," exclaims the historian, "had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment, you would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God." 65
64 (return)
[ When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the celebration of
a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless were the inhabitants,
that much time elapsed before the distant quarters knew that they were
captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,) and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has
quoted from the prophet Jeremiah a passage of similar import.]
641 (return)
[ This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to heighten the
effect of his description, speaks of the "sweet morning sleep resting on
the eyes of youths and maidens," p. 288. Edit. Bekker.—M.]
65 (return)
[ This lively description is extracted from Ducas, (c. 39,)
who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the prince of Lesbos
to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued in 1463, (Phranza,
l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been full of the fugitives of
Constantinople, who delighted to repeat, perhaps to adorn, the tale of
their misery.]
While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors were broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth, attracted their choice; and the right of property was decided among themselves by a prior seizure, by personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and young men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces had been invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this common captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's groans, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and we should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks, of these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through the streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more prey, their trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows. At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered, protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transported from the city to the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the caprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may notice some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first chamberlain and principal secretary, was involved with his family in the common lot. After suffering four months the hardships of slavery, he recovered his freedom: in the ensuing winter he ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed his wife from the mir bashi, or master of the horse; but his two children, in the flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred death to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover. 66 A deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and liberality with which he released a Grecian matron and her two daughters, on receiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who had chosen a wife in that noble family. 67 The pride or cruelty of Mahomet would have been most sensibly gratified by the capture of a Roman legate; but the dexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded the search, and he escaped from Galata in a plebeian habit. 68 The chain and entrance of the outward harbor was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war. They had signalized their valor in the siege: they embraced the moment of retreat, while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of the city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a suppliant and lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation were scanty: the Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen; and, notwithstanding the fairest promises of the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses, and embarked with their most precious effects.
66 (return)
[ See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions are
positive: Ameras suâ manû jugulavit.... volebat enim eo turpiter et
nefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only learn from
report the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in the dark recesses
of the seraglio.]
67 (return)
[ See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and Lancelot, (Mém.
de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.) I should be curious to
learn how he could praise the public enemy, whom he so often reviles as
the most corrupt and inhuman of tyrants.]
68 (return)
[ The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he craftily
placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which was cut off and
exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was bought and delivered as
a captive of no value. The great Belgic Chronicle adorns his escape with
new adventures, which he suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No.
15) in his own letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward of
suffering for Christ. * Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von Hammer, p.
175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of Cardinal Isidore,
in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 653.—M.]
In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same effects must be produced by the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged without control, small, alas! is the difference between civilized and savage man. Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are not accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but according to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the conqueror was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom, of his captives of both sexes. 69 The wealth of Constantinople had been granted by the sultan to his victorious troops; and the rapine of an hour is more productive than the industry of years. But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil, the respective shares were not determined by merit; and the rewards of valor were stolen away by the followers of the camp, who had declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative of their depredations could not afford either amusement or instruction: the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire, has been valued at four millions of ducats; 70 and of this sum a small part was the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Florentines, and the merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners, the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation: but the riches of the Greeks were displayed in the idle ostentation of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply buried in treasures of ingots and old coin, lest it should be demanded at their hands for the defence of their country. The profanation and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the second firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory of God, 71 was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments, were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind. After the divine images had been stripped of all that could be valuable to a profane eye, the canvas, or the wood, was torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under foot, or applied, in the stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The example of sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors of Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be inflicted by the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry. Perhaps, instead of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will observe, that in the decline of the arts the workmanship could not be more valuable than the work, and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily be renewed by the craft of the priests and the credulity of the people. He will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; 72 ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. We may reflect with pleasure that an inestimable portion of our classic treasures was safely deposited in Italy; and that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the havoc of time and barbarism.
69 (return)
[ Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on the
rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and the Turks,
(de Legat. Turcicâ, epist. iii. p. 161.)]
70 (return)
[ This sum is specified in a marginal note of Leunclavius,
(Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the distribution to Venice,
Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20, and 15,000 ducats, I suspect
that a figure has been dropped. Even with the restitution, the foreign
property would scarcely exceed one fourth.]
71 (return)
[ See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of Phranza,
(l. iii. c. 17.)]
72 (return)
[ See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th, 1453, from
Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Græcis, p. 192, from a MS.
in the Cotton library.)]
From the first hour 73 of the memorable twenty-ninth of May, disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the same day; when the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror 74 gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange, though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, or atmeidan, his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents; and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under jaw of one of these monsters, 75 which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city. 751 At the principal door of St. Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and entered the dome; and such was his jealous regard for that monument of his glory, that on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the marble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command the metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque: the rich and portable instruments of superstition had been removed; the crosses were thrown down; and the walls, which were covered with images and mosaics, were washed and purified, and restored to a state of naked simplicity. On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the muezin, or crier, ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the ezan, or public invitation in the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached; and Mahomet and Second performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated before the last of the Cæsars. 76 From St. Sophia he proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: "The spider has wove his web in the Imperial palace; and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab." 77
73 (return)
[ The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and hours from
midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems to understand the
natural hours from sunrise.]
74 (return)
[ See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of
Leunclavius, p. 448.]
75 (return)
[ I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention this
curious relic of Grecian antiquity.]
751 (return)
[ Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is treated
by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a fiction
of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken by some
attendants of the Polish ambassador.—M.]
76 (return)
[ We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish
account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by Phranza
and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what opposite lights the
same object appears to a Mussulman and a Christian eye.]
77 (return)
[ This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original,
derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that Scipio
repeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of Homer. The
same generous feeling carried the mind of the conqueror to the past or
the future.]
Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem complete, till he was informed of the fate of Constantine; whether he had escaped, or been made prisoner, or had fallen in the battle. Two Janizaries claimed the honor and reward of his death: the body, under a heap of slain, was discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks acknowledged, with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after exposing the bloody trophy, 78 Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors of a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great duke, 79 and first minister of the empire, was the most important prisoner. When he offered his person and his treasures at the foot of the throne, "And why," said the indignant sultan, "did you not employ these treasures in the defence of your prince and country?"—"They were yours," answered the slave; "God had reserved them for your hands."—"If he reserved them for me," replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them so long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged the obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement from the Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was at length dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection. Mahomet condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess oppressed with sickness and grief; and his consolation for her misfortunes was in the most tender strain of humanity and filial reverence. A similar clemency was extended to the principal officers of state, of whom several were ransomed at his expense; and during some days he declared himself the friend and father of the vanquished people. But the scene was soon changed; and before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the blood of his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated by the Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to the tyrant's lust. 791 Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded word of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor: such treason may be glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited his life; nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whom he can no longer trust. On the eighteenth of June the victorious sultan returned to Adrianople; and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the Christian princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the Eastern empire.
78 (return)
[ I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No.
13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the head of the Greek
emperor: he would surely content himself with a trophy less inhuman.]
79 (return)
[ Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke; nor
could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort a
feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pity
the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to him for the
hint of the Greek conspiracy.]
791 (return)
[ Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on good
authority, p. 559.—M.]
Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince or a people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situation which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire; and the genius of the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune. Boursa and Adrianople, the ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk into provincial towns; and Mahomet the Second established his own residence, and that of his successors, on the same commanding spot which had been chosen by Constantine. 80 The fortifications of Galata, which might afford a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of August, great quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of the walls of the capital. As the entire property of the soil and buildings, whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was now transferred to the conqueror, he first separated a space of eight furlongs from the point of the triangle for the establishment of his seraglio or palace. It is here, in the bosom of luxury, that the Grand Signor (as he has been emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over Europe and Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus may not always be secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In the new character of a mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was endowed with an ample revenue, crowned with lofty minarets, and surrounded with groves and fountains, for the devotion and refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was imitated in the jami, or royal mosques; and the first of these was built, by Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holy apostles, and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day after the conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the first siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is before the sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with the sword of empire. 81 Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices that were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters: the population was speedily renewed; and before the end of September, five thousand families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under pain of death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital. The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired to collect the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as soon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence. 82 The churches of Constantinople were shared between the two religions: their limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandson of Mahomet, the Greeks 83 enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of this equal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of the divan, who wished to elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the Christian advocates presumed to allege that this division had been an act, not of generosity, but of justice; not a concession, but a compact; and that if one half of the city had been taken by storm, the other moiety had surrendered on the faith of a sacred capitulation. The original grant had indeed been consumed by fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three aged Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oaths are of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive and unanimous consent of the history of the times. 84
80 (return)
[ For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkish
foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102—109,) Ducas, (c. 42,) with Thevenot,
Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers. From a gigantic
picture of the greatness, population, &c., of Constantinople and the
Ottoman empire, (Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16—21,) we
may learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems were less numerous in the
capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.]
81 (return)
[ The Turbé, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
described and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman,
(Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use, perhaps, than
magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]
82 (return)
[ Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which has
possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to the
Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who wrote, in vulgar
Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the taking of Constantinople,
inserted in the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, (l. v. p. 106—184.) But the
most patient reader will not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic
form, "Sancta Trinitas quæ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novæ
Romæ deligit."]
83 (return)
[ From the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus (A.D.
1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrels
of the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himself
in despair into a well.]
84 (return)
[ Cantemir (p. 101—105) insists on the unanimous consent of
the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues, that
they would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory,
since it is esteemed more honorable to take a city by force than by
composition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particular
historian, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without
exception, that Mahomet took Constantinople per vim, (p. 329.) 2 The
same argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who
would not have forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire,
as usual, prefers the Turks to the Christians.]
The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I shall abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of the two last dynasties 85 which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. The despots of the Morea, Demetrius and Thomas, 86 the two surviving brothers of the name of Palæologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, with the noble Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their first apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who contented himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and while his ambition explored the continent and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged the Morea in a respite of seven years. But this respite was a period of grief, discord, and misery. The hexamilion, the rampart of the Isthmus, so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth were seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with a train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine and murder: the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid of a neighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons inculcated the rule of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's patrimony with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumed in civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage and arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius, and marched into the Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken possession of Sparta, "You are too weak," said the sultan, "to control this turbulent province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass the remainder of your life in security and honor." Demetrius sighed and obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianople his sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, and that of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by a companion 861 of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who, after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire on the coast of the Black Sea. 87 In the progress of his Anatolian conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; 88 and the negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, "Will you secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?" The feeble Comnenus was subdued by his own fears, 881 and the example of a Mussulman neighbor, the prince of Sinope, 89 who, on a similar summons, had yielded a fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve thousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully performed: 891 and the emperor, with his family, was transported to a castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the Persian king, David, and the whole Comnenian race, were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the conqueror. 892 Nor could the name of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his poverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a monastic habit and a tardy death released Palæologus from an earthly master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, 90 be the most inglorious. On the conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence to Italy, with some naked adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. 91 During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in a public festival, he assumed the appellation and the purple of Augustus: the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled, at the approach of the French chivalry. 92 Manuel Palæologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit his native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in safety and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended him to the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial race must be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave.
85 (return)
[ For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond,
see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last Palæologi, the same
accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The Palæologi of Montferrat
were not extinct till the next century; but they had forgotten their
Greek origin and kindred.]
86 (return)
[ In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes of
the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21—30) is too partial on the side
of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief, and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix.
x.) too diffuse and digressive.]
861 (return)
[ Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother, the
last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacy
against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, the
Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of Sinope, and the
sultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his sudden
death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p. 257—260.—M.]
87 (return)
[ See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in Chalcondyles,
(l. ix. p. 263—266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 27,) and
Cantemir, (p. 107.)]
88 (return)
[ Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks
of Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurate
observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom.
ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53—90.) Its prosperity and trade
are perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two odas of
Janizaries, in one which 30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires de
Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)]
881 (return)
[ According to the Georgian account of these transactions,
(translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau, vol. xxi. p. 325,) the
emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness to
marry one of his daughters.—M.]
89 (return)
[ Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was possessed
(chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000 ducats,
(Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la Mer Noire,
tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000 inhabitants. This
account seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we become
acquainted with their wealth and numbers.]
891 (return)
[ M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his
Anecdota Græca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from George
Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing the
surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants.—M.]
892 (return)
[ See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking account of
the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance of the
edict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for her
murdered children with her own hand, and sank into it herself.—M.]
90 (return)
[ Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.) relates
the arrival and reception of the despot Thomas at Rome,. (A.D. 1461 No.
NO. 3.)]
91 (return)
[ By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted
from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris, the
despot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some
private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king of France, the
empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.)
M. D. Foncemagne (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p.
539—578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he
had obtained a copy from Rome.]
92 (return)
[ See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who reckons with
pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles of an
easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople,
&c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved by the policy of
Venice.]
The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss: the pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and prosperous, was dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and the grief and terror of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. In one of the most distant countries of the West, Philip duke of Burgundy entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his nobles; and the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted to their fancy and feelings. 93 In the midst of the banquet a gigantic Saracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a castle on his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion, was seen to issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression, and accused the slowness of her champions: the principal herald of the golden fleece advanced, bearing on his fist a live pheasant, which, according to the rites of chivalry, he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary summons, Philip, a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers in the holy war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the barons and knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin, the ladies and the pheasant; and their particular vows were not less extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the performance was made to depend on some future and foreign contingency; and during twelve years, till the last hour of his life, the duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously, and perhaps sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had every breast glowed with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians corresponded with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden 94 to Naples, supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have been delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor, who composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Æneas Sylvius, 95 a statesman and orator, describes from his own experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. "It is a body," says he, "without a head; a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles, as splendid images; but they are unable to command, and none are willing to obey: every state has a separate prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard? Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of general? What order could be maintained?—what military discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude? Who would understand their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion." Yet the same Æneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the name of Pius the Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war. In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feeble enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person with the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was adjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of some German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm was instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the fifty-first year of his age. 96 His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome. 97
93 (return)
[ See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (Mémoires,
P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de Ste.
Palaye, (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182—185.) The
peacock and the pheasant were distinguished as royal birds.]
94 (return)
[ It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden,
Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and
consequently were far more populous than at present.]
95 (return)
[ In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Æneas Sylvius,
a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations. That
valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the series
of events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of Mahomet's life, and of
this chapter.]
96 (return)
[ Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone
(Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449—455) for the Turkish invasion of the
kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II., I
have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi Ottomanni di
Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.) In peace and war, the Turks
have ever engaged the attention of the republic of Venice. All her
despatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and
Sagredo is not contemptible either in sense or style. Yet he too
bitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language and
manners; and his narrative, which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II.,
(p. 69—140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the
years 1640 and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.]
97 (return)
[ As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greek
empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantine
writers whose names and testimonies have been successively repeated in
this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus and the Italians were confined to
the classics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius,
Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c., were published by the learned
diligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in
folio) has gradually issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the
Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the Venetian
edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious, is not less
inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of Paris. The
merits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena,
Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced by the historical notes of
Charles de Fresne du Cange. His supplemental works, the Greek Glossary,
the Constantinopolis Christiana, the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steady
light over the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition of
the Byzantines, projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the patronage
of the Prussian government, is the most convenient in size, and contains
some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment
of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which could not be
comprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors as
Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes of something more than the mere
republication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I
regret to say, has been added of annotation, and in some cases, the old
incorrect versions have been retained.—M.]