 Chapter 68 Part 1 of THE DECLINE IN FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, VOLUME 6 THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE IN FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, VOLUME 6 by EDWARD GIBBAN CHAPTER 68 PART 1 RAIN IN CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED II SEAGE ASSAULT IN FINAL CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPOL BY THE TURKS DEATH OF CONSTANTINE PALIOLOGUS SERVITUDE OF THE GREEKS EXTINGTION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST CONSTANTINATION OF EUROPE CONQUESTS AND DEATH OF MOHAMMED II THE SEAGE OF CONSTANTINOPOL BY THE TURKS ATTRACKS OUR FIRST ATTENTION TO THE PERSON AND CHARACTER OF THE GREAT DESTROYER. MOHAMMED II WAS THE SON OF THE SECOND AMARATH, AND THOUGH HIS MOTHER HAS BEEN DECORATED WITH THE TITLES OF CHRISTIAN AND PRINCESS, SHE IS MORE PROBABLY CONFounded WITH THE NUMEROUS CONCUBINES WHO PEOPLEED FROM EVERY CLIMATE THE HARAM OF THE SALTON. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout Muslim, and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rights of ablution. The 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 Quran. 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 has hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skillful masters, Muhammad 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, the Arabic, the Persian, the Chaldean, 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 whom he was ambitious to reign. His own praises in Latin poetry or prose might find a passage to the royal ear, but what use or merit could recommend to the statesmen 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 excited his emulation. His skill and 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. But the influence of religion and learning were employed without effect on his savage and licentious nature. I will not transcribe, nor do I believe, the stories of his fourteen pages whose bellies were ripped open in search of a stolen melon, or of the beautyous slave whose head he severed from her body to convince the Janissaries that their master was not the votary of love. 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. 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 conquests 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, Muhammad II must blush to sustain a parallel with Alexander or Timor. 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 Huniates and Skanderbeg by the Rhodian knights and by the Persian king. In the reign of Amoroth 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 Turkmen Amir, 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 Amoroth and the mutinous spirit of the Janissaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience. He passed the helispont with a chosen guard, and at a distance of a mile from Adrianople the viziers and Amirs, the Imans and Qariz, 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. The ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his accession and to 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 which he sealed with 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 Mohammed 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 were either dismissed from his service or enlisted in his troops. In the first summer of his reign he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces, but after humbling the pride, Mohammed accepted the submission of the Karamanian that he might not be diverted by the slightest obstacle from the execution of his great design. The Mohammedan, and more especially the Turkish kaussists, 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 Amorath had scorned this immortal 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 pretense of the fatal rupture. 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. He foolish and miserable Romans, said Khalil. We know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger. The scrupulous Amorath is no more. His throne is occupied by a young conqueror, who 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 Orkran, crown him Sultan of Romania, call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube, arm against us all the nations of the West, and be assured that ye 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 Muhammad 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 repast the helispot 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. The second order announced, and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow pass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress and formally been razed by his grandfather, and 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 Asomatun, about five miles from the Greek Metropolis. Persuasion is the resource of the feeble, and the feeble can seldom persuade. The ambassadors of the emperor attempted, without success, to divert Muhammad 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 hellish pond was occupied by the French galleys? Emeroth 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 Muslims trembled, and for a while the Gabours insulted our disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Varna, he vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. Have you the right? Have you the power to control my actions on my 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 resolution surpasses 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, 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 with 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 decided the assurance of their ruin. Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On March 26 the appointed spot of Asomaten was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers, and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. The lime had been burnt in Katafrigia, the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraklia and Nicomedia, and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand masons were assisted by two workmen, and a measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress 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 seashore. 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. Muhammad himself pressed and direct the work with indefatigable ardor. His three viziers declaimed the honor of finishing their respective towers. The zeal of the Cades emulated that of the Janissaries. 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 the 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 formented 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 St. Michael the Archangel were employed without scruple by the profane and rapacious Muslims, and some Christians who presumed to oppose their removal received from their hands the crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the fields and harvest 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. Muhammad listened with joy to the complaint, and a detachment would exterminate the guilty village. The guilty had fled, but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the soldiers. Till this provocation Constantine 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, 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 Muhammad, you are in pious warfare. My trust is in God alone. If we 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 defense 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 Janissaries to Levy attribute on the ships of every nation that shall 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. The master and thirty sailors escaped in a boat, but they were dragged in chains to the port. The chief was impaled, his companions were beheaded, and the historian Dukas beheld at Dematica, their bodies exposed to the wild beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred to the ensuing spring, but an Ottoman army marched into the Moria to divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this era 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 Franzo, of the last spark of the Roman Empire. The Greeks and 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 defense 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 Mohammed that sentiment was inflamed by the ardor of his youth and temper. He amused his leisure with building at Adrianople the lofty palace of Jehan Numa, the watchtower of the world, but his serious thought was irrevocably bent on the conquest of the city of Caesar. 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 Caliobasha, who had possessed the confidence and advised the restoration of Amorath. On the accession of the son the vizier was confirmed in his office and the appearances a favor, but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery ice which he might break under his footsteps and plunge him in the abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be innocent under the late rain, had stigmatized with the name of Gabor Ortaki, or foster-brother of the infidels, 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. It is not my wish, said Mohammed, 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 thee 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 our fortunes. Lala, 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 I have laid 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 minds, to what place he should apply his scaling ladders, and the exercises of the day repeated and proved the lucubrations of the night. END OF CHAPTER 68 PART 2 During 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 Canon, a Dane or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Muslims, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mohammed was satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly pressed on the artist. Am I able to cast a Canon capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls of Constance and Opel? 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 Adrian Opel, the metal was prepared, and at the end of three months urban produced a piece of brass ordinance of stupendous and almost incredible magnitude. A measure of twelve palms is assigned to the boar, and the stone bullet weighed almost six hundred pounds. 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 Canon 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 about 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 by a train 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 derides on this occasion the credulity of the Greeks and observes, with much reason, that we should always distrust the exaggerations of vanquished people. He calculates that a ball, even of two hundred pounds, would fire 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 consequences 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 Muhammad, still guards the entrance to the Dardanelles, and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the effect was far from contemptible. The 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, rose again and bounded against the opposite hill. While Muhammad threatened the capital of the east, the Greek emperor employed with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and heaven. But the invisible powers were left to his supplications, and Christendom'd be held 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, 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 in the absence of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the arms and treasures of Italy, Nicholas V had foretold their approaching ruin, and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment of his prophecy. 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. Even the princes of the Moria 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 defense whole armies of mercenaries. The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain his formidable adversary, but if his courage was 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 poured. The Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesambria, Achaeoleum and Bison surrendered on the first summons. Silimbria 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 Cisacus and sold their captives in the public market. But on the approach of Muhammad 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 gate of St. Romanus, the imperial standard, and on the sixth day of April formed the memorable siege of Constantinople. The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left from the propontus to the harbor. The Janissaries in the front were stationed before the sultan's tent. The Ottoman line was covered by a deep entrenchment, and a subordinate army enclosed the suburb of Galata and watched the doubtful faith of the Genoese. The inquisitive Philophis, 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 abrades the opusillanimity of the nations who were tamely yielded to a handful of barbarians. Such indeed might have been the regular establishment of the Kapakuli, the troops of the port, who marched with the prince and were paid from his royal treasury, but the bishaws in the 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 Dukas, Chalcokon Dailes, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or four hundred thousand men. But Franca 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. The navy of the besiegers was less formidable. The prepontas was overspread with three hundred and twenty sail, but of these no more than eighteen could be raided as galleys of war, and the far greater part must be degraded to the condition of storeships 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 defense 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 entrusted to Franza, and after a diligent addition he informed his master, with grief and surprise, that the national defense 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, crossbows, 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 Dristiniani, a noble Genoese. A liberal donative was advanced to these auxiliaries, and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, was promised to the valour 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 sustained a daily decrease, nor could they indulge the expectations of any foreign succor or supply. 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 Paleologus 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. 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 cannot be decently 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 sector, with the 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 upsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed the active union as it had been ratified in the Council of Florence. On the 12th 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. But the dress and language of the Latin priests who officiated at the altar were an object of scandal. It was observed with horror that he consecrated a cake or a wafer of unleavened bread, and poured cold water into a cup of the sacrament. A national historian acknowledges with a blush that none of his countrymen, nor the Emperor himself, were sincere in this occasional conformity. 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 azimites. 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 Saint Sophia, the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed in crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius 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 these 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 demons, rejected the active 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 disperse 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 Muhammad the city which she had formerly saved from Kosseris and the Chagan. In the doubling toxication of zeal and wine they valiantly exclaimed, What occasion have we for succor, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship and the azimites. During the winter there 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 hesitancy 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 a communion from a priest who had given an express or tacent consent to the union. His service at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and simple spectators of the ceremony. They forfitted by the impure spectacle the virtue of the sacerdotal character, nor was it lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the insistence of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the Church of Saint 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. In the first minister of the empire, the great Duke, was heard to declare that he would rather behold in Constantinople the turban of Muhammad than the pope's tiara or cardinal's hat. A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was familiar and fatal to the Greeks. The emperor was deprived of the subjects, and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree or the visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance. Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy, the propontus 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 sea. Against this line of fortification, which Franza and I witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, the Ottomans directed their principal attack, and the emperor, after distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defense 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, the 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 breast plates and bodies were transposed by the same shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches or covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of war, but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordinance 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 age structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion. The same destructive secret had been revealed to the Muslims, by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal, the great cannon of Muhammad has been separately noticed, an important, invisible object in the history of the times. But that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude. 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 130 guns or that it discharged 130 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. The heated metal unfortunately burst. Several workmen were destroyed and the skill of an artist was admired, who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the pouring oil after each explosion into the mouth of the cannon. 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, the enormous chasm, and to build a road to the assault. Innumerable fast scenes 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 into 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 unraveled in the night. The next resource in Muhammad 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 subterranean passages with gunpowder and blowing whole towers and cities into the air. A circumstance that distinguishes the besiege of Constantinople is the reunion of the ancient and modern artillery. The cannons were intermingled with the mechanical engines of forecasting stones and darts. The bullet and the battering ram 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 fast weapons was protected by a three-fold covering of bull hides. Incessant volleys were securely discharged from the loopholes. 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 Saint 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 Saint Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure of his design and uttered a profane exclamation that the word of the 37,000 prophets should not have compelled him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have been accomplished by the infidels. End of Chapter 68 Part 2 Chapter 68 Part 3 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 6 This is the Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org The history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Chapter 68 Part 3 The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tarty. But in the first apprehension of a siege Constantine had negotiated in the isles of the archipelago the Moria and Sicily the most indispensable supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five great ships equipped for merchandise and war would have sailed from the harbor of Chios had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. One of these ships bore the imperial flag the remaining four belonging 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 helispont and the propontus. The ship was sailing to the 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 Constantine will conceive and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships continued to advance with joyful shouts against the hostile fleet of 300 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 Muslims 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 and a series of defeats a rapid progress of decay has established the truth of their modest confession. Except 18 galleys of some force the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats rudely constructed and awkwardly managed groups and destitute of cannon and since courage arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength the bravest of the Janissaries might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron five stout and lofty ships were guided by skillful pilots and manned with the veterans of Italy and Greece long practiced in the arts and perils of the sea their weight was directed to sink or scatter their weak obstacles that impeded their passage to 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 ableist navigators in this conflict the imperial vessel which had almost been overpowered was rescued by the Genoese but the Turks in a distant and closer attack were twice repulsed with considerable loss Muhammad himself sat on horseback on the beach and encouraged their valor by his voice and presence by the promise of reward and by fear more potent than fear of the enemy the passions of his soul and even the gestures of his body seemed to intimate the actions of the combatants and as if he had been the lord of nature he spurred his horse with a fearless and ipitano effort into the sea his loud reproaches and the clamors of the camp urged the Ottomans to a third attack more bloody than the two former and I must repeat though I cannot credit the evidence of Franza who affirms from their own mouth that they lost above 12,000 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 Basha found some consolation from a painful wound in his eye by representing that accident as the cause of his defeat Baltha Ugly 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 his rank and services were annihilated by the displeasure of Muhammad in the royal presence the captain Basha was extended on the ground by four slaves and received 100 strokes with a golden rod his death had been pronounced and he adorned 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 admiss the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of Palestine the millions of the crusaders 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 maritime 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 soul and feeble attempt for the deliverance in Opel the more distant powers were insensible to in 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 it was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the divan yet the Greeks are persuaded that a resistance so obstinate and surpassing had fatigued the perseverance of Muhammad he began to mediate a retreat which would have been speedily raised if the ambition and jealousy of the second vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Khalil Basha 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 and impenetrable chain was now defended with 8 large ships more than 20 of a smaller size and 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 Muhammad conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvelous 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 10 miles the ground is uneven and was overspread 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 four score-like galleys and brigantines of 50 and 30 oars were disembarked on the Bosphorus shore arranged successively on rollers and drawn forth 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 plane and was lodged 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 a similar stratagem had been repeatedly practiced by the ancients the Ottoman galleys I must again repeat it should be considered as large boats and if we compare the magnitude in the distance the obstacles and the means the boasted miracle has perhaps been equaled by the industry of our own times as soon as Mohammed had occupied the upper harbor with the fleet and army he constructed in the narrowest part a bridge or rather mall a 50 cubits in breadth and 100 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 four score galleys with troops and scaling ladders approached the most accessible side which had formally been stormed by the Latin conquerors the indolence of the Christians has been accused for not destroying these unfinished works but their fire by a superior fire was controlled in silenced nor were they wanting in an octurnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge of the sultan his vigilance prevented their approach their foremost galleys were sunk or taken 40 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 260 musulmen captives after a siege of 40 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 canon many breaches were opened and near the gate of Saint Romanus four towers had been leveled with the ground for the payment of his feeble and mutinous troops Constantin was compelled to dispoil the churches with the promise of a four-fold restitution and his sacrilege offered a new return to the enemies of the union a spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian's 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 during the siege of Constantinople the words of peace and capitulation had been sometimes pronounced between the camp and the city 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 Gabor's the choice of circumcision of tribute or of death the avarice of Muhammad might have been satisfied with an annual sum of 100,000 dukats but his ambition grasped to the capital of the east to the prince he offered a rich equivalent to the people of 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 Palaeologus 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 29th of May as the fortunate in fatal hour on the evening of the 27th he issued his final orders assembled in his presence the military chiefs and dispersed his heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty in 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 should not escape from his inexorable justice the greater part of his bishaws and janissaries 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 of an oda is kept alive by imitation and discipline in this holy warfare the Muslims 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 the crowd of dervishes visited the tents to instill the desire of martyrdom and the assurance of spending in immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins yet Muhammad 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 Muhammad 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 in my empire the intrepid soldier who first descends 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 re-echoed with the Muslim shouts of God is God there is but one God and Muhammad is the apostle of God and the sea and land from Galata to the seven towers were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires 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 obscenity of the emperor for refusing a timely surrender anticipated the horrors of their fate inside 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 28th for the duties and dangers of the general assault the last speech of Piliologus was the funeral oration of the Roman Empire he promised, he conjured 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 had 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 Franza 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 Saint 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 lamentation solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured and mounted on horseback to visit the guards to explore the motions of the enemy the distress and fall of the last Constantine was more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Caesars in the confusion of darkness an assailant may sometimes succeed but in this great and general attack the military judgment and astrological knowledge of Mohammed advised him to expect the mourning the memorable 29th of May in the 1453 year of the Christian era the preceding night had been strenuously employed the troops, the cannon and the facines were advanced to the edge of the ditch which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach and his four score galleys almost touched with the prowls 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 mourning gun the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land and the similitude of the twined or twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of attack 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 and not a dart nor a bullet of the Christians was idly wasted on the accumulated throng but their strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defense the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain and they supported the footsteps of their companions and of this devoted vanguard the death was more serviceable than the life under the respective Bechaz and Sanjax 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 at that fatal moment the Janissaries 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 and atabals and experience has proved that the mechanical operations 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 lions, 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 an empire the single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections the skilled 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 a scene of which there could be no spectators and of which the actors themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea 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 councils 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 paleologous is slight the danger is pressing your presence is necessary and wither 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 breeches of the inner wall by this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of a military life in the few days which he survived in Galata or the Isle of Chios were embittered by his own and the public reproach his example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries and the defense 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 canon 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 to deserve the Sultan's reward was Hassan the Janissary of gigantic stature and strength with his scimitar in one hand and his buckler in the other he ascended the outward fortifications of the thirty Janissaries the tremulous 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 the increasing multitudes amidst these multitudes the emperor who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier was long seen and finally lost the nobles who fought around his person sustained till their last breath the honorable names of Palaeologus and Kantakuzine his mournful exclamation was heard cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels 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 at the gate Fenar on the side of the harbor 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 band had not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital it was thus after a siege of 53 days that Constantine opal which had defied the power of the Chagan and the Caliphs was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Muhammad II her empire only had been subverted by the Latins her religion was trampled in the dust by the Muslim conquerors End of chapter 68 Part 3 Chapter 68 Part 4 of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Volume 6 Chapter 68 Part 4 The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing yet such was the extent of Constantine opal that the more distant quarters might prolong some moments the happy ignorance of their ruin but in the general Constantine opal the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Chapter 68 Part 4 The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing but in the general Constanation in the feelings of selfish or social anxiety in the tumult and thunder of the assault a sleepless night and morning must have elapsed nor can I believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janissaries 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 Saint 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 imposter that one day the Turks would enter Constantinople and pursue the Romans as far as the column of Constantine on the square before Saint 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 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 was on this occasion that Dukas, with some fancy and much truth upraids the discord and obstinacy of the Greeks Had that angel appeared had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to the union of the church even then in that fatal moment you would have rejected your safety or have deceived your god While they expected the descent of the tardy angel the doors were broken with axes and as soon as the Turks encountered no resistance their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of their prisoners Youth, beauty and the appearance of wealth attracted their choice and the right of property was decided among themselves by a prior seizure by personal strength and by the authority of command In this space of an hour the male captives were bound with cords the females with their veils and girdles the senators were linked with their slaves the prelates with the porters of the church and the young men of a Pulbian class with the noble maids whose faces had been invisible to the son and their nearest kinrid In this common captivity the ranks of society were confounded the ties of nature were cut asunder and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's groans the tears of the mother the lamentations of the children the loudest in their wailings were the nuns who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms outstretched hands and disheveled hair and we should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the harem to those of the monastery of these unfortunate Greeks of these domestic animals whole strings were rudely driven through the streets and as the conquerors were eager to return for more prey the trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows At the same hour a similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries and palaces and habitations of the capital nor could any place however sacred or sequestered protect the persons or the property of the Greeks above 60,000 of this devoted people were transported from the city to the camp and fleet exchanged or sold according to the caprice or interest of their masters and dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the Ottoman Empire Among these we may notice some remarkable characters Fransa, first chamberlain and principal secretary was involved with his family in the common lot After suffering four months the hardships of slavery he recovered his freedom In the ensuing winter he ventured Adrian Opel and ransomed his wife from the Mir Bashi or master of the horse but his two children in the flower of youth and beauty had been seized for the use of Muhammad himself The daughter of Fransa died Adrian, his son in the fifteenth year of his age preferred death to infamy and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover Adid thus unhuman Adid thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and liberality with which he released a Grecian matron and her two daughters on receiving a Latin ode from Philopheus who had chosen a wife in that noble family The pride or cruelty of Muhammad would have been most sensibly gratified by the capture of a Roman legate but the dexterity of Cardinal Isidor eluded the search and he escaped from Galata in a plebeian habit The chain and entrance of the outward harbor was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war They had signalized their valor in the siege They embraced the moment of retreat while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of the city When they hoisted sail the beach was covered with a suppliate coral crowd But the means of transportation were scanty The Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen and notwithstanding the fairest promises of the Sultan the inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses and embarked with their most precious effects In the fall and sack of great cities an historian is condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity The same effects must be produced by the same passions and when these passions may be indulged without control small alas is the difference between civilized and savage man Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred the Turks are not accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood But according to their maxims the maxims of antiquity the lives of the vanquished were forfeited and the legitimate reward of the conqueror was derived from the service, the sail or the ransom of his captives The wealth of Constantinople had been granted by the Sultan to his victorious troops and the rapine of an hour is more productive than the industry of years But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil the respective shares were not determined by merit and the rewards of valor were stolen away by the followers of the camp who had declined the toil and danger of the battle The narrative of their depredations could not afford either amusement or instructions The total amount in the last poverty of the empire has been valued at 4 millions of dukats and of this sum a small part was the property of the Venetians the Genoese, the Florentines and the merchants of Ancona Of these foreigners the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation But the riches of the Greeks were displayed in the idle ostentation of palaces and wardrobes or deeply buried in treasuries and ingots at old coin lest it should be demanded at their hands for the defense of their country The profanation and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints the dome of Saint Sophia itself the earthly heaven the second firmament the vehicle of the cherubim the throne of the glory of God was despoiled of the oblations of ages and the gold and silver the pearls and jewels the vases and sacrodotal ornaments were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind After the divine images had been stripped of all that could be valuable to a profane eye the canvas or the wood was torn or broken or burnt or trod under foot or applied in the stables or the kitchen to the vialist uses The example of sacrilege was imitated, however from the Latin conquerors of Constance and Opel in the treatment which Christ, the Virgin the saints had sustained from the guilty Catholic might be inflicted by the zealous musulmen on the monuments of idolatry Perhaps instead of enjoining the public clamor a philosopher will observe that in the decline of the arts the workmanship cannot be more valuable than the work and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily be renewed by the craft of the priest and the credulity of the people He will more seriously deploy the loss of the Byzantine libraries which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion 120,000 manuscripts are said to have disappeared 10 volumes might be purchased for a single duke cut and the same ignominious price too high perhaps for a shelf of theology included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer the noblest productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece We may reflect with pleasure an estimable portion of our classic treasures were safely deposited in Italy and that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the havoc of time and barbarism From the first hour of the memorable 29th of May disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople till the 8th hour of the same day when the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of Saint Romanus He was attended by his viziers bishaws and guards each of whom, says a Byzantine historian was robust as Hercules dexterous as Apollo in equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals The conqueror gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange those splendid appearance of the domes and palaces so dissimilar from the style of oriental architecture In the Hippodrome or Antimodon his eye was attracted by the twisted column of three serpents and as a trial of strength he shattered with his iron mace or battle axe the under jaw of one of these monsters which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city At the principal dome of Saint Sophia he alighted from his horse and entered the dome In such was his jealous regard for that monument of his glory that on observing a zealous musulman in the act of breaking the marvel pavement if the spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers the public and private buildings had been reserved for the prince By his command the metropolis of the eastern church was transformed into a mosque the rich and portable instruments of superstition had been removed the crosses were thrown down and the walls which were covered with images and mosaics were washed and purified and restored to a state of naked simplicity On the same day or on the ensuing Friday the muizan or crier ascended to the most lofty turret and proclaimed the izan or public invitation in the name of God and his prophet the iman preached and Muhammad II performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the great altar where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated before the last of the caesars From Saint Sophia he proceeded to the august expansion of a hundred successors of the great Constantine but which in a few hours had been stripped of the pomp of royalty a melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind and he repeated an elegant district of Persian poetry the spider has wove his web in the imperial palace and the owl hath sung her watch song on the towers of Afraziab yet his mind was not satisfied nor did the victory seem complete till he was informed of the fate of Constantine whether he had escaped or been made prisoner or had fallen in the battle two janissaries claimed the honor and reward of his death the body under a heap of slain was discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes the Greeks acknowledged with tears the head of their late emperor and after exposing the bloody trophy Muhammad bestowed on his rival the honors of a decent funeral after his decease Lukas Notaris, great Duke and first minister of the empire was the most important prisoner when he offered his person and his treasures at the feet of the throne and why said the indignant sultan did you not employ these treasures in the defense of your prince and country they were yours answered the slave God had reserved them for your hands if you reserve them for me replied the despot how have you presumed to withhold them so long by a fruitless and fatal resistance the great Duke alleged the obscenity of the strangers and some secret encouragement from the Turkish vizier and from this perilous interview he was at length dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection Muhammad condescended to visit his wife a venerable princess oppressed with sickness and grief and his consolation for her misfortunes was in the most tender strain of humanity and filial reverence a similar clemency was extended to the principal officers of state of whom several were ransomed at his expense and during some days he declared himself the friend and father of the vanquished people but the scene was soon changed and before his departure the hippodrome streamed with the blood of his noblest captives his perfidious cruelty was consecrated by the Christians they adorned with the colours of heroic martyrdom the execution of the great Duke and his two sons and his death is ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to the tyrants lost yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded word of conspiracy deliverance and Italian succor such treason may be glorious but the rebel who bravely ventures has justly forfeited his life nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whom he could no longer trust on the 18th of June the victorious sultan returned to Adrianople and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the Christian princes who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the eastern empire Constantinople had been left naked and desolate without a prince or a people but she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situation which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire and the genius of the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune Borsra and Adrianople the ancient seats of the Ottomans sunk into provincial towns and Muhammad II established his own residence and that of his successors on the same commanding spot which had been chosen by Constantinople the fortifications of Galata which might afford a shelter to the Latins were prudently destroyed but the damage of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired and before the month of August great quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of the walls of the capital as the entire property of the soil and the buildings whether public or private or profane or sacred was now transferred to the conqueror he first separated a space of eight furlongs from the point of the triangle for the establishment of his suraglio or palace it is here in the bosom of luxury that the grand signure as he has been emphatically named by the Italians appears to reign over Europe and Asia but his persons on the shore of the Bosphorus may not always be secure from the insults of a hostile navy in the new character of a mosque the cathedral of St. Sophia was endowed with an ample revenue crowned with lofty minarets and surrounded with groves and fountains for the devotion and refreshment of the Muslims the same model was imitated by the Gianni or royal mosques and the first of these was built by Muhammad himself on the ruins of the church of the holy apostles and the tombs of the Greek emperors on the third day after the conquest the grave of Abu Ayyub or Job who had fallen in the first siege of the Arabs and it is before the sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with the sword of empire Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices which were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters the population was speedily renewed and before the end of September 5000 families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate which enjoined them under pain of death to occupy their new habitations in the capital the throne of Muhammad was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Muslim subjects but his rational policy expired to collect the remnant of the Greeks and they returned in crowds as soon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties and a free exercise of their religion in the election and vestiture of a patriarch the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated with a mixture of satisfaction and horror they beheld the sultan on his throne who delivered into the hands of Gennadius the Crozier or pastoral staff the symbol of his ecclesiastical office who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the Seraglio presented him with a horse richly comparison and directed the viziers and bishaws to lead him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence the churches of Constantinople were shared between the two religions their limits were marked and till it was infringed by Selim the grandson of Muhammad the Greeks enjoyed above 60 years the benefit of this equal partition encouraged by the ministers of the Divan who wished to allude the fanaticism of the sultan the Christian advocates presumed to allege that this division had been an act not of generosity but of justice not a concession but a compact and that if one half of the city had been taken by storm the other moiety had surrendered on the faith of a sacred capitulation the original grant had indeed been consumed by fire but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three aged Janissaries who remembered the transaction and their venal oaths are of more weight in the opinion of Cantimere than the positive and unanimous consent of the history of the times the remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I shall abandon to the Turkish arms but the final extinction of the last two dynasties which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the east the despots of the Moria Demetrius and Thomas the last two brothers of the name of Palaeologus were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine in the ruin of the monarchy hopeless of defense they prepared with the noble Greeks who adhered to their fortune to seek a refuge in Italy beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder their first apprehensions were dispelled by the Victoria Sultan who contented himself with a tribute of 12,000 Ducats and while his ambition explored the continent and islands in search of prey he indulged the Moria in a respite of seven years but this respite was a period of grief and misery the Heximillion or Rampart of the Ithsmus so often raised and so often subverted could not long be defended by 300 Italian archers the keys of Corinth were seized by the Turks they returned from their summer excursions with a train of captives and spoil and the complaints of the injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain the Albanians a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers filled the peninsula with rapine and murder the two despots implore the dangerous and humiliating aid of a neighbouring Basha and when he had quelled the revolt his lessons inculcated the rule of their future conduct neither the ties of blood nor the odes which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the altar nor the stronger pressure of necessity could reconcile or suspend their domestic quarrels they ravaged each other's patrimony with fire and sword the alms and sucors of the west were consumed in civil hostility and their power was only exerted in savage and arbitrary executions the success and revenge of the weaker rival invoked the supreme lord and in the season of maturity and revenge Muhammad declared himself the friend of Demetrius and marched into the Moria with an irresistible force when he had taken possession of Sparta you are too weak to control this turbulent province I will take your daughter to my bed and you will pass the remainder of your life in security and honour Demetrius sighed and obeyed surrendered his daughter and his castles followed Andrew and Opal his sovereign and son and received for his own maintenance and those of his followers a city and trace and the adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos and Samothrace he was joined the next year by a companion of misfortune the last of the Comnemnian race who, after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins had founded a new empire on the coast of the Black Sea in the progress of his Anatolian conquests Muhammad invested with a fleet and army the capital of David who presumed to style himself emperor of Dresibond and the negotiation was comprised in a short and preemptory question will you secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures and your life the feeble Comnennis was subdued by his own fears and the example of a muslim neighbor the prince of Sinope who on a similar summons had yielded a fortified city with 400 cannon and 10 or 12,000 soldiers the capitulation of Dresibond was faithfully performed and the emperor with his family was transported to a castle in Romania but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the Persian king David and the whole Comnennian race were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the conqueror nor could the name of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation his abject submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan his followers were transplanted to Constantinople and his poverty was alleviated by a pension of 50,000 aspers till a monastic habit and a tardy death released Palaeologus from an earthly master it is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius or the exile of his brother Thomas be the most inglorious on the conquest of the Moria the despot escaped to Corfu and from thence to Italy with some naked adherents his name, his sufferings and the head of the Apostle Saint Andrew entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican and his misery was prolonged by a pension of 6,000 Ducats from the Pope and Cardinals his two sons Andrew and Manuel were educated in Italy but the eldest contemptible to his enemies and burdensome to his friends was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage a title was his soul inheritance and that inheritance he successively was sold to the kings of France and Aragon during his transient prosperity Charles VIII was ambitious of joining the empire of the east with the kingdom of Naples in a public festival he assumed the appellation in purple of Augustus the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman already troubled at the approach of the French chivalry Manuel Palaeologus, the second son was tempted to revisit his native country his return might be grateful and dangerous to the port he was maintained at Constantinople in safety and ease and an honorable train of Christians and Muslims attended him to the grave if there be some animals of so generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic state the last of the imperial race must be ascribed to an inferior kind he accepted from the sultan's liberality two beautiful females and his surviving son was lost in the habit of a Turkish slave the importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss the pontificate of Nicholas V the pontificate of Nicholas V however peaceful and prosperous was dishonored by the fall of the eastern empire and the grief and terror of the latins revived or seemed to revive the old enthusiasm of the crusades in one of the most distant countries of the west Philip Duke of Burgundy entertained at Leo in Flanders an assembly of his nobles and the pompous pageants of the feast were skillfully adapted to their fancy and feelings in the midst of the banquet a giant Saracen entered the hall leading a fictitious elephant with a castle on his back a matron in a mourning robe the symbol of religion was seen to issue from the castle she deplored her oppression and accused the slowness of her champions the principal herald of the golden fleece advanced bearing on his fist a live pheasant which according to the rites of chivalry he presented to the Duke at this extraordinary summons Philip a wise and aged prince engaged his person and powers in the holy war against the Turks his example was imitated by the barons and knights of the assembly they swore to God the virgin the ladies and the pheasant in their particular vows were not less extravagant than the general sanction of their oath but the performance was made to depend on some future and foreign contingency and during 12 years till the last hour of his life the Duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously and perhaps sincerely on the eve of his departure had every breast glowed with the same ardor had the union of the Christians corresponded with their bravery had every country from Sweden to Naples supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry of men and money it is indeed probable that Constance and Opel would have been delivered and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the helispot or the Euphrates but the secretary of the emperor who composed every epistle and attended every meaning Aeneas Silveus a statesman and orator describes from his own experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom it is a body says he without a head a republic without laws or magistrates the pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles as blended images but they are unable to command and none are willing to obey every state has a separate prince and every prince has a separate interest what eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard they be assembled in arms who would dare to assume the office of general what order could be maintained what military discipline who would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude who would understand their various languages or direct their stranger and incompatible manners what mortal could reconcile the English with the French Genoa with Aragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia if a small number in the holy war they must be overthrown by the infidels if many by their own weight and confusion yet the same Aeneas when he was raised to the papal throne under the name of Pius II devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war in the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feeble enthusiasm but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona to embark in person with the troops engagements vanished in excuses a precise day was adjourned to an indefinite term and his effective army consisted of some German pilgrims whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences and alms regardless of futurity his successors and the powers of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition and the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent magnitude a more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common enemy and the support of Skanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the Kingdom of Naples the siege and sack of Veronto by the Turks diffused a general consternation and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps when the storm was instantly dispelled by the death of Muhammad II in the 51st year of his age his lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbor and the same rain might have been decorated with the trophies of the new and the ancient Rome End of chapter 68 part 4