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Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His

father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race

might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the

claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the

place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling

his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. 31 In his youth he

served in the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve

horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the _white

knight_ 32 was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a

noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian

borders he won in the same year three battles against the Turks.

By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of

Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and

office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian’s crusades

added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress

the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and

minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was

elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at

first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes

the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a

consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white

knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of

desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without

shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic

alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed

his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly

denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked: their hatred is the

proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was

inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and

formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country

irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive

war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated

into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova,

sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army,

four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through

the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but

while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he

recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and,

after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence

an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of

his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of

Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the

Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to

retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade

as the bulwarks of Christendom. 33 About a month after this great

deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph

is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no

longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had

triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne,

Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected

and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous

and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a

saint: but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and

the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by

the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father’s

character. 34

31 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the

Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without

a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a

Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a

single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]

32 (return) [ Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from

the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but

under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,

(Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of

Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]

33 (return) [ See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and

Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1—7.) Huniades shared the glory of the

defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in

their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero

condescend to take notice of his rival’s merit.]

34 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.—decad. iv. l.

viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of

Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,

1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14—16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was

the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the

Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322—412) of Peter Ranzanus, a

Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by

Galestus Martius of Narni, (528—568,) and we have a particular

narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are

all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum

Hungaricarum.]

In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly

associated; 35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since

their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the

Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, 36 was the

hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania,

between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend

with the sultan’s power, Castriot submitted to the hard

conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as

the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after

receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the

Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish

policy. 37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd

of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed

cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the

suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal

treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his

tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The

successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a

proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor

of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender

beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his

glory and servitude. His father’s principality was reduced into a

province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of

Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of

the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the

wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity

of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared

the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his

Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he

fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the

enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the

name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the

rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father’s wrongs, the

ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and

the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though

tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of

his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the

doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the

religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor

is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty

38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less

exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken

his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but

a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every

year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the

sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the

belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind

must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to

betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could

actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many

thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret

correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of

the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,

a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the

enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye

of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal

secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or

patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the

guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an

immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had

revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,

from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of

Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he

command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of

dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed

himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of

religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a

martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their

hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the

choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of

Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and

each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion

of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial

estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an

annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; 39 and the entire

sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated

to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline

was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his

camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his

conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and

that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and

Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his

standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven

thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he

viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of

the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation

was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms

Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman

empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater

son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with

seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty

thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered

Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless

towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the

Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate

captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the

petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his

arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious

scruple. 40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of

Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the

siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost

invisible, adversary; 41 and the disappointment might tend to

imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. 42 In

the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his

bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to

negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised

as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The

enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names

of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge

their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender

powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of

antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His

splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the

armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were

slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of

suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the

dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely

indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed

by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong

presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his

exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to

the succor of the king of Naples. 43 Without disparagement to his

fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the

Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the

Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his

resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive

at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. 44 His sepulchre was soon

violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore

his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious

amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant

ruin of his country may redound to the hero’s glory; yet, had he

balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot

perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend

on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be

supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the

pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join

in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the

sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to

Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the

Castriots 45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their

blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A

colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,

and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their

ancestors. 46

35 (return) [ They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his

pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among

the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal

crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first

prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and

George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

36 (return) [ I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a

friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the

time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus

Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis

Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in

fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false

jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.

229.]

37 (return) [ His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by

Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

38 (return) [ Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year

of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;

since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was

_novennis_, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have

happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II.,

who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave.

Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31,

1443, No. 14.]

39 (return) [ His revenue and forces are luckily given by

Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]

40 (return) [ There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the

Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.

p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose

inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog

had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good

map of Epirus.]

41 (return) [ Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)

with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and

vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the

tribe of strangers and moderns.]

42 (return) [ In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188—192)

kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But

this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who

agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Adrianople.]

43 (return) [ See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the

ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified

by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom.

xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus

Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.

728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of

_Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Mémoires

de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

44 (return) [ Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most

rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human

size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,

No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,

(l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,

demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by

Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

45 (return) [ See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.

Dalmaticæ, &c, xviii. p. 348—350.)]

46 (return) [ This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.

Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350—354.)]

In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I

have reached at length the last reign of the princes of

Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of

the Cæsars. On the decease of John Palæologus, who survived about

four years the Hungarian crusade, 47 the royal family, by the

death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was

reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the

surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the

last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed

the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a

party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress; and

his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already

disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late

emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:

the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a

trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the

eldest son of his father’s reign. But the empress-mother, the

senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the

cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,

ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,

asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.

An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched

to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and

dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the

Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching

downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious

deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of

Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the

encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his

subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted

by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the

state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the

possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two

princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother’s

presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next

occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of

Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the

distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective

magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that

powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine

afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and

Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and

private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. 48

47 (return) [ The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;

but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,

No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last

Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius

IV. to the king of Æthiopia.]

48 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 1—6) deserves credit and

esteem.]

The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from

Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of

wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His

numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians

and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of

his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his arrival

in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and villages

flocked around the strangers; and such was their simplicity, that

they were delighted with the effects, without understanding the

cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above

a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a

captive by the Barbarians, 49 and who amused his hearers with a

tale of the wonders of India, 50 from whence he had returned to

Portugal by an unknown sea. 51 From this hospitable land, Phranza

proceeded to the court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the

Greek prince of the recent decease of Amurath. Instead of

rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed

his apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere

to the sage and pacific system of his father. After the sultan’s

decease, his Christian wife, Maria, 52 the daughter of the

Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her parents; on

the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the

ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and

Phranza recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that

might be raised against the proposal. The majesty of the purple

would ennoble an unequal alliance; the bar of affinity might be

removed by liberal alms and the dispensation of the church; the

disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and,

though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might

yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to

the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that sailed

from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his

marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the

sultana, who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced

to the first alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in

favor of a Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was

dazzled by the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according

to the primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter,

53 he offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual

pension of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the

ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been

adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his

daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of

Constantinople. On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified

by the Greek monarch, who with his own hand impressed three

vermilion crosses on the golden bull, and assured the Georgian

envoy that in the spring his galleys should conduct the bride to

her Imperial palace. But Constantine embraced his faithful

servant, not with the cold approbation of a sovereign, but with

the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long absence, is

impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.

“Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone

advised me without interest or passion, 54 I am surrounded,” said

the emperor, “by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor

esteem. You are not a stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great

admiral; obstinately attached to his own sentiments, he declares,

both in private and public, that his sentiments are the absolute

measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest of the courtiers are

swayed by their personal or factious views; and how can I consult

the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet much

employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you

shall engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the

Western powers; from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a

particular commission; and from thence proceed to Georgia to

receive and conduct the future empress.”—“Your commands,” replied

Phranza, “are irresistible; but deign, great sir,” he added, with

a serious smile, “to consider, that if I am thus perpetually

absent from my family, my wife may be tempted either to seek

another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery.” After

laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled

him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last

service abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and

noble heiress; for himself, the important office of great

logothete, or principal minister of state. The marriage was

immediately stipulated: but the office, however incompatible with

his own, had been usurped by the ambition of the admiral. Some

delay was requisite to negotiate a consent and an equivalent; and

the nomination of Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed,

lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and powerful

favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his

embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should

embrace this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the

appearance of danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea.

Such were the private and public designs, which were interrupted

by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins of the empire.

49 (return) [ Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in

Timour’s first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he

might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from

thence sail to the spice islands.]

50 (return) [ The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and

fifty years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the

vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large

scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine

inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep.

Quidlibet audendi, &c.]

51 (return) [ He sailed in a country vessel from the spice

islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque

navem grandem _Ibericam_ quâ in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This

passage, composed in 1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years

before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or

wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and

incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.]

52 (return) [ Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of

Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage

with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed,

that in six-and-twenty years’ cohabitation, the sultan corpus

ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled to

Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22.)]

53 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the offers of

Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of

antiquity.]

54 (return) [ Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the

emperor of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the

Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he

visited with the character of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38,

45.)]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of

Eastern Empire.—Part I.

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 no 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.)]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of

Eastern Empire.—Part II.

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 of 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 of 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.]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of

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.”

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.]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of

Eastern Empire.—Part IV.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 76 / 79 章

From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John