Eastern Empire.—Part III.
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
_four_of 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;
but 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.]