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.
[Footnote 78: 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.]
[Footnote 79: 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.]
[Footnote 791: 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]
[Footnote 80: 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, (AbrÈgÈ 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.]
[Footnote 81: The _TurbÈ_, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
described and engraved in the Tableau GÈnÈrale de l'Empire Ottoman,
(Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use, perhaps, than
magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]
[Footnote 82: 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-GrÊcia of Crusius, (l. v. p. 106--184.) But the
most patient reader will not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic
form, "Sancta Trinitas quÊ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novÊ
RomÊ deligit."]
[Footnote 83: From the Turco-GrÊcia 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.]
[Footnote 84: 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 PalÊologus, 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 PalÊologus 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 PalÊologus, 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.
[Footnote 85: For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond,
see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last PalÊologi, the same
accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The PalÊologi of Montferrat
were not extinct till the next century; but they had forgotten their
Greek origin and kindred.]
[Footnote 86: 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.]
[Footnote 861]: 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.]
[Footnote 87: 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.)]
[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks
of Trebizond as mal peuplÈe, 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, (MÈmoires de
Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)]
[Footnote 881: 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.]
[Footnote 89: 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.]
[Footnote 891: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his
Anecdota GrÊca (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.]
[Footnote 892: 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.]
[Footnote 90: 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.)]
[Footnote 91: 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 PalÊologus, 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 (MÈm. de l'AcadÈmie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p.
539--578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he
had obtained a copy from Rome.]
[Footnote 92: 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, ∆neas 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
∆neas, 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]
[Footnote 93: See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (MÈmoires,
P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de Ste.
Palaye, (MÈmoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182--185.) The
peacock and the pheasant were distinguished as royal birds.]
[Footnote 94: 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.]
[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from ∆neas 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.]
[Footnote 96: 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.]