which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the debility of the
Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the recovery of Constantinople,
were seated in the suburb of Pera or Galata, received that honorable
fief from the bounty of the emperor. They were indulged in the use of
their laws and magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals
and subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_[43] was borrowed from the
Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he entered
on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal acclamations and vows of
fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance with the Greeks; and, in case of
a defensive war, a supply of fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty
galleys, completely armed and manned, was promised by the republic to
the empire. In the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
PalÊologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorous
government contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits which
the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailor
threatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slew
the Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, after
refusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the
Black Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the
long and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situation
which secured their obedience exposed them to the attack of their
Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed to
violate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, the
Genoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city: their
empty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had
viewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by
arms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous
to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerous
license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing into
the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and of
mounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow bounds
in which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growing
colony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and the
adjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which they
joined and protected by new fortifications. [44] The navigation and trade
of the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded the
narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reign
of Michael PalÊologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultan
of Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annual
ship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary:
a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause; since these
youths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
Mamalukes. [45] From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and their
industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two articles of food
almost equally important to a superstitious people. The spontaneous
bounty of nature appears to have bestowed the harvests of Ukraine, the
produce of a rude and savage husbandry; and the endless exportation of
salt fish and caviare is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that
are caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station
of the rich mud and shallow water of the MÊotis. [46] The waters of the
Oxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious
passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months'
march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the harbors
of CrimÊa. [47] These various branches of trade were monopolized by the
diligence and power of the Genoese. Their rivals of Venice and Pisa
were forcibly expelled; the natives were awed by the castles and cities,
which arose on the foundations of their humble factories; and their
principal establishment of Caffa [48] was besieged without effect by the
Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by these
haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople, according to
their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs, the fishery, and
even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they derived from these
objects a revenue of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, a remnant of
thirty thousand was reluctantly allowed to the emperor. [49] The colony
of Pera or Galata acted, in peace and war, as an independent state; and,
as it will happen in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often
forgot that he was the servant of his own masters.
[Footnote 43: Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains liziouV
(_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of
the feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange,
(GrÊc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p. 109--111.)]
[Footnote 44: The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, or
Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 68, 69) from
the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix.
15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix.
c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1, 6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l.
ii. c. 29, &c.)]
[Footnote 45: Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg. (l. iv.
c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this dangerous indulgence.
Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar, but a devout Mussulman,
obtained from the children of Zingis the permission to build a stately
mosque in the capital of Crimea, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii.
p. 343.)]
[Footnote 46: Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was assured at
Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feet
long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three or
four quintals of caviare. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied the
Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]
[Footnote 47: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344. Viaggi
di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water carriage could
only be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerful
monarch.]
[Footnote 48: Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and well
informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describes
the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above 400
sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p.
46--48.)]
[Footnote 49: See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]
These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were employed to
the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire; and after his
domestic victory, he was condemned to an ignominious trial, whether the
Greeks or the Genoese should reign in Constantinople. The merchants
of Pera were offended by his refusal of some contiguous land,
some commanding heights, which they proposed to cover with new
fortifications; and in the absence of the emperor, who was detained at
Demotica by sickness, they ventured to brave the debility of a female
reign. A Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of
the harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen
were murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks should
renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with regular arms
the first sallies of the popular indignation. They instantly occupied
the debatable land; and by the labor of a whole people, of either sex
and of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, with
incredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt two
Byzantine galleys; while the three others, the remainder of the Imperial
navy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the gates,
or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the
regent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation: the
emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacy
of his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardor of
his subjects, who threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them
in pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes,
that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the
war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land, the
other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils of
a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that a
few days would terminate the war, already murmured at their losses: the
succors from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa;
and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to
remove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. In
the spring, the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a single
line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to the
beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants and
mechanics; nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage of
Barbarians: the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner
did the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped
headlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The
troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at
the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were astonished,
and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their triumphant vessels,
crowned with flowers, and dragging after them the captive galleys,
repeatedly passed and repassed before the palace: the only virtue of the
emperor was patience; and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yet
the distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the
shame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power.
Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the
trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally
granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seeming
custody of his officers. [50]
[Footnote 50: The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (l. iv.
c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras l. xvii. c.
1--7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible
than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]
But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join
his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her
colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation
was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who
discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of
Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence
of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated; and they
exulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach
of their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the
Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the
balance of these opulent and powerful republics. [51] From the Straits
of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered each
other with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in the
narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easy
task to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and
the Genoese; [52] and while I depend on the narrative of an impartial
historian, [53] I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound
to their own disgrace, and the honor of their foes. The Venetians, with
their allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their
fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to
seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in those
times their ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of their
size and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders,
Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the annals of their country; but
the personal merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilities
of his rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary
conflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light.
The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the
Venetians are dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree
in praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, [531] who, with many
wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation of the
fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen Genoese
galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by a double loss
of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; [532]
and even the grief of the conquerors expressed the assurance and habit
of more decisive victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring
into a fortified harbor, from whence, under the pretext of the orders of
the senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle
of Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a
public epistle, [54] addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch employs
his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two luminaries of
Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory of the Genoese,
the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he drops a tear on the
misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursue
with fire and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge the
metropolis of the East from the heresy with which it was infected.
Deserted by their friends, the Greeks were incapable of resistance; and
three months after the battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and
subscribed a treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans,
and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of
dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon
have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of the republic
had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long
contest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph
of Venice; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for
domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke of
Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of
conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated
the Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of
Constantinople itself.
[Footnote 51: The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.
18, p. 24, 25, 28--32,) who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I
regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. * Note:
This part of Nicephorus Gregoras has not been printed in the new
edition of the Byzantine Historians. The editor expresses a hope that
it may be undertaken by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon,
if these books contain any historical information: if they are but
a continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in our
present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in MS. as in
print.--M.]
[Footnote 52: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. xii. p. 144) refers to
the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuator
of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa, (George Stella
Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both which I have
diligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians of
Italy.]
[Footnote 53: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l. ii. c.
59, p. 145--147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori's Collection, tom.
xiv.]
[Footnote 531: Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes their losses
to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more by the breakers than
by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.--M.]
[Footnote 532: Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost twenty-eight ships
with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and Catalans sixteen,
the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani of cowardice, in not
following up the victory, and destroying the Genoese. But Pisani's
conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene's account of the battle, betray the
superiority of the Genoese.--M.]
[Footnote 54: The AbbÈ de Sade (MÈmoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom.
iii. p. 257--263) translates this letter, which he copied from a MS.
in the king of France's library. Though a servant of the duke of Milan,
Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and grief at the defeat and
despair of the Genoese in the following year, (p. 323--332.)]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part I.
Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
Poland.--Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.--Origin Of
The Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.--Reigns And Victories Of
Othman, Orchan, Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.--
Foundation And Progress Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And
Europe.--Danger Of Constantinople And The Greek Empire.
From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the cowardice
and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victorious
Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline,
religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The rise
and progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople,
are connected with the most important scenes of modern history; but they
are founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls
[100] and Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of
the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to introduce the nations,
the immediate or remote authors of the fall of the Roman empire; nor can
I refuse myself to those events, which, from their uncommon magnitude,
will interest a philosophic mind in the history of blood. [1]
[Footnote 100: Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper name
of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, their
neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda.
This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the French
Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom. xxii p. 402.]
[Footnote 1: The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to xxvi.,
and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations, the conquests
of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertained
the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history.]
From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea,
the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been poured. These ancient
seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by many
pastoral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which were
united and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. [101] In his ascent
to greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) had
trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but it was the
pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestor
from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned over
thirteen hordes, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families:
above two thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infant
son; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his
rebellious subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and
to obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth year
he had established his fame and dominion over the circumjacent tribes.
In a state of society, in which policy is rude and valor is universal,
the ascendant of one man must be founded on his power and resolution to
punish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military league
was ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a
running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the
sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them his
horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes.
After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on the fire, and
seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boiling
water. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by the
ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest
chieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the
skull of the khan of Keraites; [2] who, under the name of Prester John,
had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The
ambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition;
and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white
horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, [3] the _most great_; and
a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In a
general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which was long
afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed great khan, or
emperor of the Moguls [4] and Tartars. [5] Of these kindred, though rival,
names, the former had given birth to the imperial race; and the latter
has been extended by accident or error over the spacious wilderness of
the north.
[Footnote 101: On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see D'Ohson,
Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte
des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.--M.]
[Footnote 2: The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable of
reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian
missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian
kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had
submitted to the rites of baptism and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot
Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p. 487--503.)]
[Footnote 3: Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis, at least
in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khan
must have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appears
just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies _great_, and _gis_ is the
superlative termination, (Hist. GÈnÈalogique des Tatars, part iii. p.
194, 195.) From the same idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_
is bestowed on the ocean.]
[Footnote 4: The name of Moguls has prevailed among the Orientals, and
still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great Mogul of Hindastan. *
Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares, p. 233) justly observes,
that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul, and, p. 242, that probably there
was not Mogul in the army of Baber, who established the Indian throne of
the "Great Mogul."--M.]
[Footnote 5: The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended from
Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part i. and ii.,)
and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the borders of Kitay, (p.
103--112.) In the great invasion of Europe (A.D. 1238) they seem to
have led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of _Tartarei_,
recommended that of Tartars to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) *
Note: This relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and
invented by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored
to connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those of
the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it in
the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l'Asie, p. 156.--M.]